Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Ripose

What is your core message?

Your core message states what`s the ultimate benefit your prospects will reap from doing business with you? You can also think of it as an elevator speech for your info-business.
What your entire business is all about?

Andrew

Andrew

Core Message: To help people overcome their thinking methodology that blocks them from succeeding.

We believe that very few people unlock their true potential. Every person alive has some aspect of themselves that could use improvement.

With literally thousands of self improvement programs out there it may be difficult to choose. Many of these methods are very effective if you follow their routine, so why then do they have such a dismal rate of success. We believe it is because they all miss the first step, that is convincing yourself that "I AM WORTH IT".

Without this basic believe I can tell you that you are a dynamic, successful, wonderful person until I`m blue in the face, but if your core believe is "I`m not really worth the effort" than you will fail.

Honestly you may never actually think "I am not worth it", but this sense of self may lie unseen within your subconsciousness. Our aim is to discover why you have this believe and how to change it. Along the way you will notice many other positive changes in your life.

Thinking Self Improvement?  Think Mental Blocks To Success!

Ripose,

So your Core Message:

"To help people overcome their thinking methodology that blocks them from succeeding"

is THE ultimate benefit your prospects will reap.

Who are your prospects?

What do your prospects really really want and desire? What`s the #1 thing they want more than anything else. What`s the #1 thing they hate?

I hope my questions are helping!

Andrew

Ripose — you`re very welcome! I`m glad I was helpful and that the enormous size of that post didn`t add to your feeling overwhelmed. I didn`t notice how huge that was until just now, yikes.

—paula

What I think I`m seeing, now that I`ve been involved with SuN for a year, is that there`s a whole concept that doesn`t seem to come naturally to entrepreneurs. It`s the idea of a "phased" development path.

There are a lot of us who have no money at all, and are doing everything on our own. Sure, there also are those with startup capital, budgets, and even some employee-type help, and that`s fine. Either way, though, not everything has to be done today the way it`s going to end up tomorrow.

I *don`t* mean that you put a schlock site together or offer a junk product today, then get better tomorrow! Consider blind dating, or the overall dating scene in general.

When you first meet someone or get a phone number, do you figure out how to best propose marriage? Of course not! In fact, you don`t even set up a first date with an expensive, black-tie and evening gown dinner, right? You usually go for coffee or a drink, sit down, and talk for awhile.

So too with building a business. The "phased" approach, to follow the analogy, would be that as soon as you get the business idea you don`t try to build a corporate multinational. Instead, you work out what you can do that would be analogous to the cup of coffee.

Anyone is free to do whatever they want, but in this particular topic, the problem seems to be that Joomla development is taking so much time it`s preventing the overall development of the business. So: Is there a way to create a nicely representative "site" using DreamWeaver, which is "good enough" for today, but that clearly will give way to the more sophisticated Joomla site later?

In other words, we have a core concept that can be painted with broad brushstrokes. Then, after the overall concept is operational, go back repeatedly and improve the resolution---the clarity of those broad strokes.

Another analogy would be a Reader`s Digest version of a novel, the proposal for the novel submitted to a publisher, the outline for the novel first created, a short story version, a movie script version, and the full, unabridged version. It`s the same story over and over, just with more or less "granularity."

When we started, we put up a 1-page Web "flyer." We didn`t have the money, skills, or even Web development tools for anything else. It was a nicely done page, easy to read, and right away explained our product. Our only option then was to ask people to email us for info on how to buy the product. It worked.

Each part of that first phase "informed" the other parts. So by having a flyer, we began to see what we needed in terms of taking orders by email. That got us into PrestoSell, an order form. Then, having the order form pushed us into a more concise understanding of exactly what were our various product options. That led to building new pages, one by one.

Again, it comes down to the phases---like a spiral, or a gyre. Everything is the same at each level of the spiral, it`s just bigger and better. The problem is to first see the spiral, then secondly figure out how to create "everything" at that first, smallest, simplest, most constrained level. Each time you go around the level, you move upward and each part becomes more complex, better, wider, and so forth.

Building a business isn`t a linear process; it`s more a spherical (or synthetic, or holistic) process. It could be that you`re caught up in linear thinking and just need to step back and re-vision the "whole" company---the whole business. Maybe?

Y`know, Loren reminded me of something I learned back when I was trying to write music. I was talking with an agent, and he`d said that one reason the Beatles were so successful is that you can whistle just about any one of their songs.

Think about it....whether you`re whistling it or playing it with a 60-instrument orchestra, the song is clearly recognizable and the overall idea comes through. Similarly, the first step to starting a business is having that "shell" put together that offers all the basic ideas, but not as totally developed as the "orchestra" version.

Get out there and start selling product, or producing content, or whatever it is. It`s true that people can make bad mistakes by being vastly under-prepared, so there is a balance involved. But the key is to stay focused on putting out product, not perfecting all the processes---at least in the beginning.

I should have been more precise. I am not looking for everything I mentioned "Today", but I will need assistance in these areas sometime in the future.
I actually have a very clear picture of the "whole" business but I must admit my original post would lead you to believe otherwise. I have never been described as a linear thinker in my life, unless the process requires this approach.

Craig you are right about one thing for sure, I let myself get mired down in Joomla.

My main goal is here is to provide information in way that I wish had been available to me. I do have the means to provide content myself due to my experience is this area. However the absolute necessity of professional advice in this field slows my progress. My articles are sound as they are, but I talked to a psychiatrist today about them and his input may change  a few things. What was amazing is that he even told me how get money from the city  and government (I never mentioned it).

I cannot even define "success" for other people, every single person alive has their own connotation of what it is.

As far as SBI goes, they are not what I am looking for. If I did not want to learn the entire process than I would not be trying to, and I would use their services.
Making money is not my main goal,  it is just a reality.

Sorry if I mislead anyone to think I am trying to do "everything" at once.

Thank you all for you input, I value all of it.

Alright, so what it comes down to is just getting a bit bogged down. :-D That`s TOTALLY understandable!! We had one, frickin` problem with a particular flag, and must`ve spent days working out a solution!

But that`s the thing---in the middle of all this, I found myself going back to an old "mantra" I used, trying to write music. At that point, I`d ask myself, "What am I really trying to say here?" Nowadays, it`s been changed to, "Okay, what`s REALLY going on here?"

Whenever I tend to see myself spending a lot of time on some single thing, I run that quick question by my mind. It takes a minute of sitting back and staring at the walls, but invariably it helps me realize just that....I`m not allocating my time to my best advantage.

So hey, you posted to SuN, got some commentary that really only pulled out into the open what you already know. I think that`s the best way to use advice, where simply seeing what you actually said compared to what you "thought" you said, helps to spotlight the problem.

What`s actually kind of ironic is that it seems you`re having a mental block to your success at the moment. :-D Right?

You are right about what I thought, and what I said.

I`m still laughing at myself because you pointed out that I am having a mental block. : ) Very true!
It`s great to end the night with an insightful chuckle.

Thanks Craig.