Scaling

Want To Scale Your Business For International Expansion?

May 23, 2020 by Dan Lok

Are you looking to join those at the top of the business pyramid? Is it time to finally ascend your company to the next level? Are you ready for international expansion? The biggest players in business are those that cater to the global market. If you want to play at their level, you need to scale your business for international expansion.

If you are scaling your business, you have to be aware of what else you need to consider. The person you are now is the person who managed to bring the company to where it is today. But if you want to expand your business to the next level and beyond, you can’t stick to being the same person you are now. You need to think like an international business owner. It’s time to evolve. You need to upgrade your knowledge, your skills and your mindset.

Scaling your business brings on many unknowns. Knowing what things you still have to learn in order to get where you want to go, is critical to achieving success. These are factors such as different target audiences, needs, desires, and the jargon that they use.

On top of understanding your target audience’s desires, you also need a strong team to help you scale. This means knowing how to find people that are just as passionate and driven as you are. The more ‘A players’ you have in your company, the faster you can scale your business. Finding team members that you can trust and delegate tasks to on your behalf will give you a competitive advantage over everyone else.

If you’re looking to expand into different markets, there’s a lot to consider. Here are our best tips on how to scale your business for international expansion:

The International Market is Composed of Many Diverse Regions

One of the biggest mistakes CEO’s make is generalizing the international market. This means thinking that your audience’s needs and interests in one country will be the same as another. Before you decide to scale your business for international expansion, you must first focus on the local market.

The international market is segregated based on region. These regions consist of geographic areas such as Canada, the US, India, China, Japan, Russia, and Europe. Each of these regions has their own set of cultural differences that make them unique. As a result, they also have their own customs, needs and dislikes that differ from other regions.

To efficiently scale your company for international expansion, you need to look at each of these regions as their own separate marketplace. This means doing in-depth research to understand everything there is to know about a certain region. Once you get a better understanding of the marketplace that resides in that region, you can begin to scale your company for that specific region.

This means tailoring your product towards that specific region’s needs. Just because your product performed well in one region, does not mean the same for another. This is because the needs of the European marketplace for example, differ heavily from the needs of the Chinese market. There are differences in these two countries based on a variety of factors – such as language, culture, geographic location and ethnicity.

If you want to take your company to the next level, you need to understand and be aware of these differences. Knowing these differences allows you to tailor your product to that specific region for maximum results.

You Don’t Have Just One Target Audience, You Have Multiple Audiences

In order to customize your product to a particular region’s taste and interests, you need to familiarize yourself with their culture. Know their customs, traditions, and the ‘lingo’ that they use. This is where doing your research beforehand becomes critical.

For example, let’s say your company sells Mac and Cheese, and is based in the US. The ad that you’re running has a Caucasian family sitting together at the dining table. Everyone is laughing, talking about their day, and enjoying their dinner of Mac and Cheese.

Based on statistics, this ad has performed well and the demand for your Mac and Cheese is growing year after year. Now let’s say you want to expand your company and begin targeting the marketplace in China. Do you think you will see much success if you run the same type of ads in this new region? Most likely the answer is no.

This is because your US based ads target a different niche audience. In China, the majority of people that live there are of Asian ethnicity, not Caucasian. Immediately, your ad will be a turn off to the Chinese marketplace, because they cannot relate to it.

As well, most Chinese people prefer to eat rice for dinner, instead of pasta like macaroni. As a result, there is less demand for your product and you will be competing with well established rice companies for market share.

Lastly, the primary language of China is Mandarin. If your ad is running in English, only a small percentage of people will be able to understand what is going on.

This example illustrates how a different region has many factors to account for. If you don’t focus on localizing your product to that region, you will not gather much interest due to cultural differences.

Focus on Localizing Before You Go International

The same holds true for all international regions. Each country has its own differences and particular niche audience. If you want to succeed internationally, you need to account for all these factors.

The way you market your product will determine its success. Details such as the packaging, the words you use, the images, the colors and what you stand for, all impact how consumers will view your product and brand. Especially when it comes to entering a new marketplace.

This means if you’re looking to scale your company for international expansion, you need to localize your offering. You need to customize your product to that region, and account for all the little factors that will affect how well it succeeds. Being aware of these differences when entering a new region will allow you to scale your company quicker and overcome resistance.

Besides having different needs, different regions also have different business practices. These are things such as different business laws, paperwork requirements, and processes you have to go through. As a result, you may have to make numerous changes to how you market your product or brand before it’s considered acceptable.

Achieving legal business compliance in a region like Germany comes with many strict requirements and paperwork to be handled. This process may take weeks or even months before you’re given the green light. If you’re looking to expand your company for international expansion, make sure you have additional resources prepared for when unexpected situations arise.

You don’t want to hype your audience up for a big product launch, only to realize it’ll be delayed by two weeks. Do your research beforehand and be aware of how all these minor things can impact your business.

Behind Every Great Company is an Even Greater Team

Creating a business that is local and successful is a challenge. Finding the right team members to help you scale that business to the international market is exponentially more difficult. If you’re looking to scale your business for international expansion, you’ll need a strong team to support your vision.

The difference between a good company and a great company is the team standing behind it. In order to scale your company internationally, you need reliable team members who can ensure things run smoothly. As you’ll be entering new and uncharted territory, success will depend on whether or not your team members possess certain traits.

These are traits such as ownership, accountability, being a team player and being results driven. Unlike 9-5 employees who are only interested in a paycheck, you want to look for people who can become a valuable asset to your company. Who have an entrepreneurial drive to achieve great things and set new standards.

You want people who are always striving to improve and become a better version of themselves every single day. Because those traits will translate over to the kind of work they will do to help grow the company. Setup your business structure so that your employees are rewarded for their efforts. Make them aware that the more results they can produce for the company, the more they’ll be financially rewarded.

If you’re looking to scale your company for international expansion, you’ll want the best ‘A players’ you can find. The more of these types of people you have in your company, the more you’ll grow.

How To Scale Your Company For International Expansion

There are many ways you can scale your company for international expansion. However you choose to do it, you need to be sure your team is on the same page.

This is why finding good team members is important. If you’re looking to take on the world, you need people who you can trust to delegate tasks to. As the CEO, the last thing you want to do is waste your time completing trivial tasks. Your role is to be the visionary that will lead the company to success. That means you need to be aware of your time and how you spend it.

When you have a team of people you can trust, you can spend your time doing the important things in your company. These are things such as deciding on a new product launch, building connections with other affluent business people, or planning out next month’s marketing strategy. Any other task that can be delegated should be left to your team members to handle.

For example, when Google wanted to expand their international presence, they sent small teams from their headquarters to new regions. These teams were then responsible for growing a local team in that region. And as time went on, these smaller teams grew larger and larger as the company’s presence in that region grew as well.

By delegating tasks to your team, you can efficiently scale your company for international expansion. This means looking at the resources you have, and planning out the best way to utilize them. The better your team members are, the more resources you’ll have available.

A resourceful person will always make opportunity fit his or her needs.” – Napoleon Hill

Utilize Influencer Marketing To Reach A Greater Audience

The more people you know, the more likely you are to become successful. This is why many companies look to influencer marketing when breaking into a new region.

Influencer’s offer many benefits to companies and brands. Firstly, the influencer already has a large audience of followers. This is valuable to a company because it means they don’t have to spend time building up an audience base. By contacting the influencer directly and getting them to promote their product, they can reach a larger group of people.

Secondly, influencer’s have celebrity status. Because many people look up to and may even aspire to become just like them, they hang onto their every word. As a result, the influencer has a lot of power when it comes to influencing an audience to take action. In fact, research shows that 49% of consumers base their purchases based on influencer recommendations.

This is why big companies like Nike and Adidas utilize celebrities like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods to endorse their products. They understand the influence these people have over the general masses. And they know that by tapping into the connections these celebrities have, they can channel that influence toward their own product.

Lastly, the influencer has familiarity with both the region and the people there. This allows them to overcome cultural differences, language barriers, and increase the chances your product will stand out.

Leveraging an influencer’s existing audience base is a good way to promote your brand to a new market. Utilizing an influencer and getting them to endorse your brand or product is another great method to scaling your company for international expansion.

Leverage Business Connections and Your Personal Network

If you’re looking to scale your business, you’ve most likely been in business for quite some time. During that time, you should have met a few trustworthy business contacts. If you’re looking to break into a new international region, get in touch with your old business contacts.

Look at your network of people you know. Make a list of the people who have connections or do business in regions that you want to break into. Then, set up a meeting with them and let them know your plans. In many cases, your business contacts operate in a certain geographic location. As a result, they will know more about that region than you do.

Leverage their experience and knowledge to help you enter the market for that region. Even if they don’t know much about a certain country or city, chances are they know someone who does. This allows you to quickly familiarize yourself with the business practices and cultural differences of a region. They can act as your local business tour guide, providing you with valuable information about what opportunities to pursue and which ones to avoid. In exchange, you can give them some form of compensation for all their help.

This is similar to using influencer marketing to enter a foreign market. But instead of leveraging their audience base and followers, you are leveraging their knowledge and experience. This is also a great way to open up the door for other business opportunities down the road. One successful business deal often leads to another, and if you both have something to gain, it’s a win-win situation.

Don’t be afraid to call up old business contacts. As long as there’s something in it for them, they’re more than glad to provide you with their expertise.

Learn How to Expand Your Company into an International Empire

Scaling your company for international expansion is not that simple. Whenever you are entering a new marketplace, you need to be aware of your target audience’s needs. This means accounting for things such as the culture, language, traditions, customs, processes, ethnicity and restrictions.

Without a good understanding of the differences between each region, you will not be able to attract and influence your audience. A marketing ad aimed at targeting the Western demographic in North America, will not have the same effect if presented in the East. This is due to things such as cultural sensitivity and a different style of doing things. What may seem intriguing and even clever in one region, may be insensitive or even controversial in another.

Having a good understanding of your target audience is crucial for international expansion. Regardless if your business is online or in person, you’ll want to do your research beforehand to increase your odds of success. One method to do this, is to find someone who knows that region well and leverage their experience and knowledge. They can offer you a perspective that others might miss, because they live there or have done business in the region for many years.

If you’re an online coach struggling to scale your business, the High Ticket Influencer™️ program may be for you. Inside, you’ll get an in-depth look at the systems and strategies you can use to scale your business to 6-7+ figures fast. You’ll receive a marketplace-proven roadmap on how to go from $0 to $1M/month in less than 8 months by doing what no one else does. If you want to learn more, click here now.

How To Expand Your Business Into New Markets

May 19, 2020 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Do you want to know how to expand your business into new markets? The current global economic crisis has been forcing many business owners to think creatively.

If you’re losing money because your current market is on lockdown, then you probably want to find ways to expand your business.

For many small, local businesses, it’s especially important to get into online markets and shift to online operations. If your business has been relying on physical stores, you need to learn how to go from brick and mortar to click-and-order. In other words, you need to educate yourself on the best practices for running an online business.

As a business owner, you are constantly challenged to expand, branch out, and test new ideas. But now more than ever, you need ideas that work and get you cash flow fast.

Expanding your business into new markets is probably one of the best ways to stay afloat in times of crisis. So, below are our best tips for how to expand your business:

How To Expand Your Business Step-by-Step

If the economy was good, you could simply go out and test your ideas. But that’s not possible right now.

Now is the time to be a bit more careful with your business decisions and plan before you act. For those who know how to seize it, there is an opportunity in a crisis.

Before you act, map out your plan strategically and diligently.

Step 1: What Are Your Possibilities?

First, you want to look at your possibilities. Do you want to break into a new market with a product or service you already have? Or do you have a new product and want to get it known in other markets?

Do you want to stay in the same market sector, but address a new customer sector, for example going from business to customer (B2C) to business to business (B2B)?

Expanding your business into new markets can also mean changing the way you deliver your product or service, for example, an online download instead of an in-person cashier.

Step 2: Market Research

Do market research. This is important, so you don’t want to skip this step.

Even if you can make educated guesses about your market, still take the time to look into this. Research what your market cares about. What problems do they have? How can you help solve those problems?

When you ask how to expand your business into new markets, you are actually asking how can you expand into new markets successfully.

You could easily go out there, start an online campaign to market to a new audience, and see if somebody buys. But that’s a very risky approach. Why? Because you have no idea if your strategy will resonate with your new market.

That’s why research is so important. Imagine if your research uncovers that your desired new market responds well to do it yourself services. But you wanted to offer a done for you service.

If you do research in advance you can adjust accordingly. If you don’t do any research, you’ll still come to the same conclusion but lose money and time on the way.

Step 3: Make a Decision

Now you know your options and you know your market. So, it’s time to make a decision. Do you want to enter this market or would you rather look into a different one?

It can happen that you made assumptions about a good market to expand into but after your research, you realize it’s not what you envisioned.

If you decide that it’s not your desired market, go back to step one. If you decide to proceed, go to step 4.

Step 4: Strategize to Expand Your Business Into Another Market

Now it’s time to plan out your strategy. How will you introduce your product? How will people find you? How do you position yourself?

Do you have to adjust to a certain culture? Do you have to change or tweak your messaging?

The clearer your plan is the better. Don’t leave anything to chance, but also be flexible enough to pivot if needed.

Enter a New Market with Existing Products

Now that you are clear on your step-by-step plan, let’s take a deeper look at your possibilities when it comes to how to expand your business.

The first possibility you have is taking a product or service you already have, and marketing it in a new way. This could be as simple as changing from a local business to an online business model.

Let’s assume you are selling shoes. You were selling shoes at your local brick and mortar store. But because of the lockdown, you want to open an online shop.

The product (the shoes) doesn’t change. You are still selling the same shoes. All you change is the way you market the product, and the way you deliver it.

Still, there are some pointers to keep in mind. If we stick with our shoe sales example, you’ll realize that buying shoes online isn’t the same as buying them in a local store. Your clients can’t try them on. People might order your shoes, but send them back because they don’t fit.

This is only one example, but you can generally expect new challenges with any new market you break into. If it were easy to expand into a new market then you’d already have done it.

Tweak Your Product

In some cases, you can still use a product or service you already have, but you need to tweak it.

Picture yourself selling marketing coaching sessions for entrepreneurs. Usually, you offer face-to-face meetings for your coaching, in person.

Now, if you want to get into the online market, you’ll likely shift to video coaching sessions. But, you could also record your training sessions and make it a complete online video training.

Pre-recording coaching sessions is great, because it requires no extra time from you once the product is in place. It’s a perfect way to scale your business without burning yourself out with too much work. Essentially, you can sell your recordings an infinite number of times.

Making some changes to an existing product or service is also easier than creating a completely new one. So, this strategy is one of the fastest ways when it comes to how to expand your business.

Expand With a Completely New Product

Some markets might be lucrative to break into, but they are completely different from what you’ve done so far. In such a case, you might have to create a completely new product.

A perfect example of this is when you go from B2B to B2C or vice-versa. Both markets have different needs, different pain points and different ways to do business.

What could that look like? For example, maybe you run a beverage company. In the B2C sector, you sell drinks to consumers. In the B2B sector, it could be about selling drink vending machines to corporations or becoming a vendor for supermarkets.

Do you see how selling drinks to individuals or selling vending machines to a business are very different business models? It’s a completely new product with different messaging and a different price point.

But even if you stay in B2B or B2C, you can still break into a new market with a new product. If you sell shoes, maybe you want to go to handbags.

If you sell coaching sessions, maybe you want to write a book and address a whole new market that way.

Expand Your Social Media Network

Do you know why Dan Lok is active on every major social media platform and market in every possible way? Because every sales channel attracts slightly different people.

Most businesses stick to one or two social media platforms. Maybe they use Facebook and Instagram often, but never post on YouTube. However, if you limit your social media channels too much, there will be certain market sectors you’ll never address.

And that’s exactly why expanding your social media efforts is a great way how to expand your business.

Expand Your Delivery Options

Your forms of delivery and delivery options might have to change, too. Uber Eats or similar delivery services are a perfect example. Until recently, part of the market was completely opposed to ordering food. They would cook at home or go to a restaurant.

Now with the lockdowns, more people are giving food delivery a try, and finding that it’s not so bad after all. Many restaurants switched to delivery so they would survive the crisis.

So, expanding your delivery options opens up lots of new possibilities.

A New Consumer Market

Wondering how to expand your business into new markets? Another way to look at it is your consumer market.

Maybe you are marketing to a certain age group, gender, or location? Expand your market by going wider.

Your product or service is solving a certain problem for a certain group of people. So, you can find a similar audience with similar problems and expand that way.

Another possibility is to go deeper into your existing market. Have a look at your existing clients. Do they have a need for a new product from you?

Let’s assume you are selling a three month business coaching program. Maybe your clients are doing great after your coaching, and now they want to tackle bigger problems with your help. You could offer them a six month or a year-long program.

If you sell shoes, your clients might be interested in getting shoelaces, socks, or other accessories from you, too. Maybe people are doing more walking, now, and more people want to buy walking shoes. You might have to adjust your inventory accordingly.

Don’t think in the category of products, think in terms of needs and problems your clients might have, and you’ll see potential to expand.

Relationships and The Human Element

Now, how to expand your business into new markets is also a question of location. For example, if your market is in America, you could expand to Europe or Asia.

This might not be as easy because you have to pay a lot of attention to cultural differences. What works great in one part of the world might be frowned upon in another corner of the planet.

However, you also don’t want to go into analysis paralysis. If you’ve done your research, sometimes the best thing you can do is just start. Try, and see if your model works. You can always make adjustments later.

The customer is a marketing genius. If something doesn’t work, they’ll let you know by not buying. That’s why marketing heavily relies on testing. You won’t know what really works until you tried it.

The customer is always the marketing genius. If it doesn't work, they don't buy. Click To Tweet

If you want to expand your market across cultures, it’s especially important to form relationships. Talk to your customers. What problems are they facing? What do they wish they had? In other words, what demand is already there and can be solved by you?

The human element is important in any market. People buy people. Building a relationship with your audience will always give you a competitive advantage.

Acquire Another Business

Business acquisition is a very advanced way of how to expand your business. To make this work, you need knowledge and capital. But if you make it work, it’s one of the fastest ways to expand into a new market.

Acquiring a business or merging with one can virtually double your business size overnight. It holds immense possibilities.

But, you have to do intense research, negotiate, and really think it through. It’s not a decision you make lightheartedly. If you run a small business, other options might be better for you.

How To Analyse A Market

After evaluating your options you might wonder: how do I actually research my target market? There are many ways to conduct market research, so here are some pointers.

Customers

Have a look at your customers. Find out their needs, pain points, and struggles. How does your offer help them?

Most businesses would focus on the client’s demographics like age, gender, and location. It’s important but do you know what else to look at? Almost more important than demographics are your client’s psychographics.

What’s that? Psychographics are wishes, needs, and preferences your customers might have. What are they interested in? Whom do they already buy from? What keeps them awake at night?

Looking at psychographics allows you to really understand your customers.

Competitors

Looking at your competitors is such a great way to better understand your market. Why? Because success leaves clues.

What is already working for your competitors? What can you emulate? There is no shame in doing something similar if there’s already a demand for it.

However, you also want to look at the reviews your competitors receive. What’s missing? What do people wish for or what do they criticize? Maybe there is something you can do better than your competition. That’s your competitive advantage.

Usually, it’s easier to get into a market where there is already some competition. Breaking into a completely new market is harder.

Market Size And Possible Barriers

You also want to look at your target market from a high-level view. This includes questions like:

How big is the market? How specialized?
Is it a growing market or is it contracting?
How competitive is it?

The answers to these questions will have great effects on your strategy. If a market is very competitive then you probably have to be more specialized. If the market is very big, you might want to find a niche.

It’s also a good idea to look at possible barriers to entry beforehand. What could stop you or slow you down? Typical barriers to entry are high costs. Some barriers are natural, others are imposed by the government.

For example, the government might collect a special tax for beverages that contain alcohol. It’s impossible to know this beforehand. It’s a barrier imposed by the government.

Natural barriers can look completely different. Maybe your business requires a huge warehouse. You can’t build it anywhere you want as there are natural obstacles like rivers or forests.

Environmental Factors

Finally, it’s important to note that no market exists in a vacuum. The market’s environment has a great influence.

Environmental factors include government regulations, technical developments, and cultural factors. Analyze them early on so you can expand your business successfully.

Find out which environmental factors could be dangerous for your business and which you can leverage for your success.

Even a change in a different market sector could affect your target market. Keeping an eye on these aspects as not only important at the beginning but pretty much all the time.

Even if you’ve been in a market for 30 years, you want to keep adapting to technological changes for example. If you can’t keep up your business runs at the risk of becoming irrelevant.

Ready For Next-Level Business Advice?

How to expand your business into new markets is a question of knowledge and skill. What if you could learn a lot more about business and marketing from Dan Lok himself?

And what if we told you that right now, you can get his 14 best training packages and save 57%? If your business is struggling right now because of the crisis, learning from someone who has done it all before is invaluable.

Dan Lok has been in business for over 20 years, and this isn’t the first recession he’s seeing. The Ultimate Training Collection includes everything he used to build a global empire. Discover The Ultimate Training Collection here.

From Brick And Mortar To Click And Order: How Your Business Can Shift To Online Operations

May 12, 2020 by Dan Lok

Is your brick and mortar business struggling due to the current global crisis? You’re not alone, but the reason you’re struggling is not only because of pandemic-related business closures. If at all, COVID-19 only sped up what was already happening. The retail apocalypse was already well underway, before this global pandemic began.

Since 2018, 59% of the retail stores have closed down. Why is that? People’s buying behaviors have simply changed with the digital economy. Consumers are feeling more and more comfortable ordering things online. Before the boom of online retailers and e-commerce stores, consumers had to go to a brick and mortar shop and look at the product. They depended on the selection of shops in their city.

Today, however, information and the product don’t belong together as much. What does this mean? Consumers look for a product and then find a shop that provides it at the best price and value. That’s why brick and mortar shops have had to adapt and change their sales process.

But that’s not all. Suppliers have also changed their sales processes. Since it’s so easy now to set up an online store, many suppliers would rather sell their products on their own website than through a brick and mortar store. Suddenly, the manufacturers are cutting out the middle man.

In short, brick and mortar stores have fewer products to sell than before, and consumers don’t want to shop in a store as much anymore. Only shops that provide essentials, like supermarkets, still see frequent visits.

What can you do if your store falls into the ‘non-essential items’ category? Or, what if you cannot go online because your offer is only applicable in person? Examples of this include massage therapy or similar services you typically can’t buy online.

In this article, we’ll go over some tips on how to save your business during this crisis. What can you do to protect your business, income and livelihood?

Even if your business can only deliver services in person, make sure to read the whole article. Because in the end, you might get an understanding of what you can do to save your specific business, too.

The Biggest Changes Brick and Mortar Stores Need to Make if Shifting to Online Operations

If you want to shift your business from brick and mortar to click and order, there is more to it than building a website and having a shop-plugin. You see, many brick and mortar store owners make one common mistake. They see their website as only an online version of their real store. But online shopping doesn’t work like shopping offline. Consumers today don’t find stores online by accident or click through the pages for fun.

There are three steps to transform a struggling offline business into a thriving online business:

Help people find you online.
Adapt your product range to that of online shoppers’ behavior.
Encourage the consumer to return to your online store.

If you follow those simple steps in order, you’ll have a very high chance of weathering the storm and thriving despite a global crisis. You might even come out stronger than before. Before we go there, let us give you advice on how to get the most out of this article: Read it with an empty cup.

As Dan Lok often says, two of the most dangerous statements in business are, I know that and, My business is different. It might feel like you already know some of the strategies we’ll discuss. Or, you think your business is different and you and your clients have a special relationship. Your way of doing business is different, right?

Are you ready for the unpleasant truth?

If these differences were enough, you wouldn’t be struggling right now. You only know it if you live it. Study the tips in this article carefully, and allow yourself to accept insights that are radically different from what you intended to do.

From Brick and Mortar to E-Commerce Success: How to Get Consumers to Find Your Online Store

If you want people to find you online, you can do several things. One of the most essential things is experimental marketing. Why? Right now, there are countless online shops out there offering the same products as you. If you want to stand out, it’s crucial to become visible. You can use short-term and long-term strategies. Which one fits you best depends on your business.

If you want to use Facebook as an advertising platform, make sure to keep Facebook’s strict rules and regulations in mind. For products that are somewhat controversial, Facebook will often not allow you to advertise them. In this case, you can use either Google ads or create educational content.

As a next step, you can optimize this content for search engine visibility. Using this method to promote your business is called SEO marketing.

The Power of Niche Marketing Techniques

If you want to shift to online operations, you may need to become more of a niche business. The most effective marketing happens when you have a niche. Why? Because online shoppers already know what they’re looking for, specifically, do you understand? You see, if you are an offline brick and mortar store, people might like to walk through your shop. They can walk around the and discover different things they like.

Online, however, people look for a product with a purpose and an intention in mind. If you send them to your store with marketing, you also need them to have an intention. Imagine you were a customer yourself. Let’s say you saw an ad that says, Visit the ABC store now, we have all kinds of products.

Would you click it with a serious buying intention? Probably not. The ad isn’t specific enough, or niche enough. You were not looking for something specific, and the ad didn’t give you a clear picture of what is waiting for you.

But what if you were looking for a birthday gift? Imagine you see an ad that says: Trendy Gifts, the gift shop that has the greatest selection of birthday gifts available. How would you react now? This ad was targeting the niche of gift-giving, but the same is true for any kind of niche. In what niche could you specialize? Here are some examples of niche online stores that work:

Household products (brooms, cleaning supplies)
Athletic apparel
Electronics for gaming
Beauty products

Those are just a few of many niche examples.

Why Niches Magically Attract More Customers

Why is having a niche essential? Consumers today want what they are looking for immediately. They neither have the attention span nor the patience to browse for too long. Having a broad range of products isn’t as much of an advantage anymore as it had been a few years ago. But where is the difference between the ads before? Didn’t it say we have the greatest selection of gifts available?

Yes, think about why it works: If you are looking for a specific thing, what good is a vast range of random products? If you are looking for a gift, it’s a hassle to browse through clothes, electronics, household items. But if you have a great selection available for a specific demand, it might be enticing again.

There is another advantage to a niche: You can tap into an existing demand. What’s the benefit? Did you ever have a product in your store that no one ever bought, even if you reduced the price? The reason was probably not the cost, but the fact that no one was looking for it.

If you only offer products a niche that people are interested in, chances are you can sell much more.

There is even more to niches – you can specialize even deeper. Let’s say you want to dive into the beauty niche. You can choose to specialize in organic skincare only. That’s a niche within a niche. You won’t offer all beauty products such as hair products, makeup, and skincare. Only organic skincare. Want to be even more specialized, and even more niche? You could only sell only skincare for the face.

Be careful not to specialize too much. Before choosing a niche, do proper research and make sure that you have a market with a demand waiting for you. Important: Just having a niche doesn’t create demand. Specializing in an existing need and pulling in that traffic is what niche marketing is all about.

How to Adapt Your Product Range for Online Success

If you take a look at successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, you will notice a trend. Most of them say, Start with a general store, find one winner and scale that one. This advice sounds simple, but it isn’t easy. That “winner” is a product that sells like the proverbial hotcakes. To find it, you need an intense research process. Also, you have pitfalls to avoid. Before we go into useful advice on how to adapt your product range let’s talk about those pitfalls. This advice might seem counter-intuitive. Especially if you had a brick and mortar store before, this is crucial for a future e-commerce success.

What are some pitfalls or warning signs that you might not be setting yourself up for online success?

E-Commerce Pitfall #1: You are Overly Attached to your Product

Most e-commerce beginners choose a product based on what they like. But you are not your customer. For e-commerce to work, the only thing that counts is data. Analyze the market, see what works and then invest in that product. You might see a product that doesn’t even make sense to you but sells 100 units a day. Then you see a product that looks like people will immediately buy – but they don’t. Be brave enough to drop a product that doesn’t return results as fast as possible. Yes, it might be disappointing to be wrong with your intuition, but this comes with experience. Just move on, fail fast, fail forward and win sooner.

E-Commerce Pitfall #2: You Don’t Research Enough

It’s not enough to have a deep understanding of the market need. What good is it if you can’t deliver what people order? That’s why it’s just as important to gather intel on your suppliers. Especially in e-commerce, where you can source products directly from manufacturers. Sourcing directly most likely costs you a fraction of what you are paying now. That’s why many e-commerce stores have a higher profit margin than a brick and mortar shop.

Yet, high margins don’t matter if you can’t sell anything. Here are some things you need to look out for:

Is the supplier reliable? Check testimonials, ratings, and comments. Give them a small order to test their product quality, and write them messages to test how responsive they are.
Is the supplier big enough? What is their stock size, how fast do they restock? How long have they been in business, how long have they been on the platform you use to buy from them?
How fast does the supplier ship? Consider this in the shipment times you give your customers. If you have a product that is in high demand and you get many sales, it pays to use a different approach. You can partner with a warehouse in the country you are targeting. Ship several of the high-demand units to it upfront. This way, when you get an order, you can ship the product quickly and improve customer experience. What is a highly in-demand product? A good rule of thumb is if you get 30 orders per product per day.
What quality do the supplier’s products have, and how do they deal with faulty units? (What’s the return policy, warranty conditions, repair times?)

E-Commerce Pitfall #3: You Don’t Know Your Metrics

How did you imagine going from offline to online? Some brick and mortar business owners think it just means putting their stock on a website. Those businesses will have an unpleasant awakening soon. E-commerce is a noisy marketplace, and similar online stores will fight you for customers, quite brutally.

Without proper online marketing, it’s highly unlikely to get online customers at all. Since everyone is marketing, you need to outmaneuver the competition. As Sun Tzu said: A battle is won before it is fought.

Sun Tzu also said, If you know yourself and your enemies, you don’t need to fear a hundred battles. If you know only yourself but nor enemies, for every victory, there will be a defeat. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will lose every battle. This wisdom is true in e-commerce as well. If you know what your competition is doing, what they spend in marketing and their strategy, you can win

Important Metrics that can Make or Break your Business

One of the most important metrics for this is the CAC or customer acquisition cost. This metric tells you how much it costs you to acquire a customer. To lead customers from the first click to the sale can be quite expensive. Why? Because unlike offline, the online buying journey has more steps. These steps include:

Seeing an ad

Clicking it

Visiting the site

Looking at the product

Putting it in the cart

Going to checkout

Buying

Even though you only pay for people seeing your ad and/or clicking it, without a sale, this investment is in vain. Their buying journey with you can end at any time, and then your ad was ineffective.

Let’s say you have a product that costs you $5 to source, including shipping, and you are selling it for $19.95. You now have a profit margin of $14.95.

This means you can spend theoretically spend $14.94 to acquire a customer and still make a profit, even if it’s small. Now take a look at the statistics of your campaign. Do your expenses shoot over your CAC? If yes, you are losing money, even if you sell a hundred products.

A Simple Way to Win the CAC War

This might be one of the most significant changes for brick and mortar store owners. Even selling thousands of products doesn’t mean you make any profit.

Make sure to have as high a maximum CAC as possible. Because if you can outspend your competition, you’ll win the war for customers.

For example, let’s say you have a maximum CAC of $100, and your competitor has a maximum CAC of $15

This means you can spend up to $85 more per customer in marketing. This way you will attract more traffic, and you can dominate your competition.

How do you get a higher CAC? Lower your cost for advertising. Now, we’re not saying to spend less on it. You see, some platforms reward you if you get a lot of engagement on your ads.

For example, on Facebook, if your ad gets shared, your cost to run it lowers. This is why the same ad can have a CAC of 15 or 100. Don’t try to do it yourself if you have no experience. It would be less expensive to hire an expert who knows what they are doing.

How to Adapt your Product Range the Right Way

Now that you know how to avoid some critical pitfalls let’s talk about how to find the right product. There are several strategies to do this. The first is to tap into an existing trend, the second is planning for the long run.

To use existing trends, watch social media ads closely. You might notice that certain product ads get thousands of likes in a few hours or days.

For example, if the ad runs for a few days and already has hundreds or thousands of likes, it went viral, which is good. To make sure, look for the product specifically and observe the reaction to other ads for it. If you see an overall high demand, it’s safer to invest in it.

There is never a guarantee that it will work, of course, but you can stack the deck in your favor. You can do this by being very cautious in testing. It might always be that a trend is only short-lived. Once you notice it, it might be declining already.

So don’t only look for one product at a time. The worst number in business is one.

How to Win Over the Online Consumer

Alright, you have chosen a niche, invested in marketing and are attracting clients. Now what? It’s very expensive to acquire new customers, but very cheap to upsell existing ones.

This means you want to figure out how to build strong relationships with your customers. What bonuses can you give them for staying loyal to you? How are you engaging them? If you make them feel validated and cherished, they will come back to you.

Think of your own buying behaviors online: Why are you coming back to individual sellers? Why do you never come back to others?

To engage customers to return, you can give them specific incentives such as:

A discount code for their next order

A discount or bonus if they refer a friend to your shop (perhaps their friend gets a discount as well)

Add an extra gift to their order for free, as a surprise

Ask them for their feedback on your store, and if you implement their feedback, let them know you followed their advice.

Include a personalized, handwritten thank you note in their order. This personal note will be appreciated when they open their package.

With strategies like the above, it’s easier to bring your brick and mortar store into the online world.

What’s the Most Important Thing Brick and Mortar Store Owners Need Right Now?

With the information in this article, you may or may not have an idea what you can do to save your business and lifestyle as an entrepreneur. But you likely have more questions:

Which suppliers can you trust? What trends will occur in a few months? Which online marketing strategy works best specifically for your business and your customers?

Of course, you can find this out, if you are willing to invest time and money in trial and error (which will teach you a lot, but take up a lot of your time and resources.)

Perhaps you neither have time nor money to waste right now. That’s why Dan Lok put together a high-level advisory board. Its purpose is to help distinguished entrepreneurs to create generational wealth even in times of crisis.

Distinguished entrepreneurs are dragons. Dragons are visionaries, wise strategists, fearless leaders, and daring enterprisers. The dragons will either dominate an industry or shape an industry—they are the Kings or Queens of their industry. Dragons can rise above a global crisis, because they have what it takes to survive the crisis.

Do you see yourself as a future King in the online space? Then you’ll want to draw experience from people who already failed for you. You’ll want to avoid pitfalls so you can be more successful faster. Imagine how you can grow if you learn from people 10,20 or 100 times more successful than you are.

If being a dragon sounds like you, click here.

Please note: This a very exclusive group. Only 100 entrepreneurs are accepted, so act now before your seat is taken.

Why Cash Flow Is More Important Than Revenue

May 9, 2020 by Dan Lok

Is your business struggling with cash flow in these uncertain times? This is the time when it’s especially important to understand why cash flow is more important than revenue.

As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to know about your business’ financials. If you don’t know it, who would? Even if you have financial advisors and experts on the team it’s best if you have an overview of what’s going on. Financials are the backbone of your business.

Understanding the differences between revenue and cash flow is even more vital in a crisis like now. Knowing the difference might save you from immense loss or even bankruptcy. If you completely outsourced all your financials so far, now is the time to learn about it and take it into your own hands.

Now is the time to make concrete and realistic plans. Positive thinking alone won’t get you out of a tight spot. Deal with the cold facts and develop a strategy accordingly.

Get yourself familiar with terms like cash flow, revenue, margin, and overhead and find out what your business has to focus on in these uncertain times. What’s important will depend on your business model – however for most businesses cash flow is the biggest issue right now.

Why is cash flow so important? How can you prepare your business to survive the crisis? And how can you allocate money fast? Those are some of the aspects we’ll discuss below.

What Exactly Is The Difference Between Cash Flow And Revenue?

The biggest difference is what the numbers tell us. Revenue tells us how much money your company made from sales. Whereas cash flow is much broader. It shows the total amount of money coming in and out. Cash flow also includes money coming in even if it’s not made from sales.

So while revenue shows the gross revenue coming in, cash flow shows the bigger picture. Revenue measures income, your cash flow measures your liquidity.

The thing is, revenue is usually calculated after you made a sale. It doesn’t take into account if you’ve already received the money. So maybe you made $10,000 on paper but you didn’t receive the money yet.

Cash flow is the actual money you have and it allows you to deal with short term financial demand. For example, you need cash flow to pay employees or vendors.

Revenue is more one dimensional. If you sell something for $100, then your revenue is $100. If you sell something for $1,000, then your revenue is $1,000. Simple as that.

Now cash flow also includes the money going out of your business. It shows you how much you have after all your regular expenses are paid. Cash flow allows you to make better predictions if you are breaking even, doing really good, or sliding into debt. So it’s way more important to keep an eye on your cash flow than on your revenue.

Why Cash Flow Is Even More Important In Times Of Recession

When the general economy struggles, cash flow becomes even more important. Do you know why are so many companies going out of business right now? – Because they lack cash. They might have all these accounts receivable but the money arrives on their account too late.

They need cash to pay their employees or even basic expenses like rent. If the cash doesn’t come in, they are gone.

Now, when the global economy struggles, here’s what happens. Almost all companies generate revenue. But it’s only on paper. The vendor of a supermarket might generate revenue from the last delivery.

The supermarket, however, couldn’t give them the cash yet. They made revenue from food delivery orders and are waiting for customers to pay. The customer ordered food with their credit card. They are an employee at a fashion company and didn’t get paid yet because their employer doesn’t have cash flow.

Do you see what’s happening here? It’s almost a vicious cycle. Only when the fashion company finally pays the employee the ball gets rolling. Then the employee can pay the supermarket and the supermarket can pay the vendor and the vendor finally has cash flow.

So, generating lots of revenue sounds great, but your business can’t survive until you are liquid. That’s why cash flow is more important than revenue.

How Can You Understand Your Cash Flow?

To run your business successfully or even weather the storm your business might be in right now, you need financial literacy. What exactly is that?

Financial literacy means you can understand your finances. If you look at financial statements then you know what’s going on in your business.

Many business owners make the mistake to completely outsource their financial affairs. They hire someone to do it. But really, if you don’t know how your company is doing financially how can you run it properly? How can you make wise investment decisions? That’s exactly why you need financial literacy.

When you look at your papers you need to understand which part is revenue and which cash flow. Only then will you know exactly how to react to it.

Now, every business is different and therefore has different cash flow behavior. Maybe your business has a stable stream of smaller sums. Or maybe you make huge sums but less frequently. It also depends on how large your expenses are.

Either way, nearly all cash flow behavior is disrupted in a crisis. You can expect to get paid slower but might be expected to pay faster. Your vendors will likely be less patient with you because they rely on your payment.

Your clients, on the other hand, might struggle and not pay you in time. It’s unfortunate but it can’t be helped. Instead of focusing on them, you need a game plan about what you’ll do if you need to pay faster than you get paid.

Know Your Data And Create A Plan

Now that you understand cash flow and have basic financial literacy, here is the next step. You want to get familiar with your data and make a plan.

It could be a 60 or 90-day plan, telling you the cash that will be required in the next period. After you have your plan, it’s time to get resourceful. An important thing to mind during this step: don’t manipulate your data to make yourself feel better.

Maybe you are facing the harsh truth that your numbers are in the red…or maybe you want to make some estimates which are too generous and not realistic, but would make you feel better…don’t do that. Be as honest with yourself as possible. Probably even better to be a tiny bit more pessimistic than you usual. Lying to yourself won’t get you out of tricky situations.

Most business owners will either underestimate or overestimate the cash flow they need. It’s hard to meet the exact number when you are making guesses and estimations. To be prepared for the worst, it’s better to overestimate than underestimate your cash flow needs.

Evaluate Your Resources

Now that you know your numbers, it’s time to look at your resources. Are you confident to make it through the next 60 or 90 days? Where can you get the money? Can you ask your bank? Is it readily borrowed?

Hope for the best but really prepare for the worst. Use the power of negative preparation and leave nothing to chance. Negative preparation means to ask yourself the questions: What do I not know? What am I not seeing? What’s the worst that could happen? These three questions will allow you to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

Again we want to stress, it’s important, to be honest with yourself about this. If you see no chance to increase the cash flow to your needs, what’s your backup plan? What do you do if something unexpected comes up?

Think about how you could possibly get more new (or repeated) customers in. That’s a good way to raise cash flow. Maybe you can tap into a new market? Maybe the crisis opened up a new opportunity for you?

How can you shorten the transaction length to get some cash flow earlier? Is it possible for clients to pay an amount upfront? Do you have private capital to invest in your business right now? Or could you find investors to support you? All of these are strategies to get you through when things are tight.

What To Include In Your Plan?

Besides cash flow, you also want to know your monthly gross margin. Now, what’s that? Your gross margin is basically telling you how much money you earn per sale minus the cost of getting your product sold.

For example, a digital agency might sell consulting for $2,500 but they also spend $300 on marketing. That means the gross margin for this product is $2,200.

If you had to adjust your strategy during coronavirus pandemic, then your margin might have changed too. For example, a restaurant that relies on a physical location has a certain margin. But now, they can only do delivery. The margin very likely has changed.

The next thing to think about is which expenses are absolutely necessary. What can be delayed and what can be cut completely? For example, you might still need your best employees to keep the business running. Their salary is a necessary expense you can’t delay. You’ll also need some form of marketing, to attract clients.

Delaying certain expenses gives you the opportunity to keep some cash flow for more urgent matters. What can you delay? Maybe there is a possibility to pay your rent a bit late? Are some higher-paid employees willing to take a temporary pay cut? Maybe even suspend their pay? Seek open communication with them about their current situation.

Should You Cut Your Marketing?

The marketing budget is usually the first thing you’d want to cut. It sounds like a good idea to keep your marketing budget so you have more cash flow right?

But remember, without marketing, you’ll have fewer clients which means flower cash flow. Marketing sometimes takes a while until the effects are noticeable. That’s why you think you can cut it for now. The potential risk is, however, that by the time the lockdowns are over you are left with no clients as you didn’t do any marketing.

Before you cut any expenses, do in-depth research and strategizing session. Even cutting the pay of employees can create long-lasting damage. It could destroy the team it took you years to build. Make decisions you feel comfortable with.

How To Increase Cash Flow

Now you know why cash flow is more important than revenue. But how can you generate more revenue during the downturn? Here are a few strategies.

Add A Strong Guarantee

First, you can increase your sales by giving better guarantees and warranties. This might sound counter-intuitive. Won’t your customers abuse your guarantee? If your product is good, then the opposite is true. Here’s why:

Most customers feel reluctant to buy because all the risk is on them. If there’s no guarantee the decision to buy is so much harder for them. If you offer a strong guarantee or warranty, you reverse the risk. All the risk is now on you.

But since your product is good and does what you promise it does, there’s nothing to worry about. Most people won’t use the guarantee if they are satisfied. So, for nearly all businesses a good guarantee (which has no loopholes) increases sales. But it doesn’t cost more to sell the same product with a guarantee. Hence, you have more cash flow.

Engage New Customers

Another great way to increase the cash flow is to actively look for new customers. What are some untapped markets you can branch out to? Maybe you’ve done a lot of local business and don’t have many online solutions? Now is the time to go online and build a customer base there.

Selling an online product is so great because you don’t have much overhead cost. For most, you don’t have to keep any stock – as the product is digital and not physical. The customer doesn’t have to wait for delivery but can get started right away. This is especially true for info products or online coachings.

Low overhead costs but increased sales result in more cash flow. Sometimes, what you sell only needs to be tweaked slightly so it can be sold online. It’s one of the best ways to increase cash flow during the lockdown.

Dare To Release Beta Products

Do you have any upcoming new products or services which aren’t fully finished? Instead of fleshing everything out to complete detail, it will pay off to release your product early.

Especially if what you created helps others to get through the downturn. For example, maybe you offer online coaching on how to take your business online. But the last two modules aren’t recorded yet. You’d want to release the program already and make sales as you finish it.

Most of your customers won’t mind or won’t even notice. By the time they get through the program, you’ll have everything set up for them.

Alternative Pricing Structures

If you need cash flow fast you might want to adjust your pricing structures. If customers aren’t able to pay the full price upfront, maybe they can pay half? Maybe even offer them a payment plan over the next three months – that way you get cash in every month.

Many businesses offer gift cards that allow them to generate cash now and take care of the fulfillment later. This is best marketed to customers who are already loyal and want to support your business during tough times.

You might be tempted to offer your product or service for cheaper for the sake of making cash flow faster. But often it’s not necessary. Just extending the payment period over a few more months helps. Fall back on payment plans before you start giving discounts.

Want More Money Habit Secrets?

You’d be surprised but most business owners don’t know much about the differences in revenue and cash flow. It’s easy to start a business but it’s a lot harder to maintain it – especially if an unexpected crisis hits.

You might have noticed that Dan Lok’s businesses have taken a very minor hit from this recession. He didn’t have to let go of any employees, he still has his marketing running and he released some new solutions in the last months.

How was he able to do that? The thing is, Dan Lok has seen five recessions during his time in business. So, he naturally adopted some money management habits that keep his business safe.

If you want to crisis-proof your cash flow and income, wouldn’t it be valuable to learn from his experience? Right now you can do so, with the Millionaire Money Habits Video Training. Right now you can get the training and save 50%. View all the details right here.

What You Need To Know Before Starting A Franchise

April 26, 2020 by Dan Lok

Starting a franchise can be a good alternative to starting your own business. Given that most small businesses fail within their first 5 years, starting a franchise comes with a lot less risk. You don’t have to wonder whether or not your business will become successful when starting a franchise, because a well established franchise will already have a history of success. This means you can focus on running the operations of the business, instead of fighting to prevent it from going bankrupt.

However, not everyone is cut out to become a franchisee. Starting a franchise means owning a business that operates within certain boundaries and follows a set system. These guidelines restrict how much freedom and control you have in the business, and in certain cases, may actually harm how successful it will become. If you are the type of person that is more creative, wants to set their own prices or have a voice as to how things should be operated, starting a franchise may not be the best option.

As with all things, there are pros and cons when it comes to starting a franchise or starting your own business. To increase the odds that you will succeed, you need to understand what type of environment allows you to thrive in business. If you’re thinking about starting a franchise, here’s what you need to know before you make a commitment.

Starting a Franchise Allows You To Reduce Your Risk Dramatically

For many business owners, the idea of starting a franchise is an attractive option. Statistics show that 50% of small businesses fail in the first 2 years, with 95% of them failing in their first 5 years. This means that 9/10 businesses will fail in their first 5 years of doing business. As a result, starting a business from scratch is very risky and prone to failure.

This is why most entrepreneurs buy into a franchise and become franchisees. They are buying into an existing system that has a track record of success and is proven to work. And that is why it is so valuable. Because the franchise has already made it past those first few critical years, they’ve already established themselves as a company or brand with a proven reputation. There’s no need to guess whether or not the marketplace will be receptive to what you have to offer – the demand is already there.

On top of using an established company’s reputation as leverage, you’re also able to tap into the resources of the franchising company. Most franchisers have a team of highly trained experts that know what they’re doing and can offer you advice. If you’re new to the world of business or there are certain aspects of the business you’d rather not deal with, the franchise company has a team of people that will handle those tasks for you.

Starting A Franchise Means Buying Into A Proven System

Starting a franchise means buying into the systems that are in place and provided to you. Many entrepreneurs that become franchisers do so because they lack experience on how to operate the business. The offer of becoming a franchisee is enticing, because it allows them to bypass most of their shortcomings and get into what they love to do most – own a profitable business.

Another reason why starting a franchise is so beneficial, is because everything is already laid out for you. The franchise company has already made all the decisions for you ahead of time. These are decisions such as what prices to set your products at, how to run your marketing, and how to operate the business. All you need to do as a franchise business owner, is to follow the plan that’s already laid out for you.

Of course, this means that if you are someone who prefers to have more control over the business, starting a franchise isn’t the best option. You’re better off starting a business from scratch and building it from the ground up.

The Pros and Cons Of Starting a Franchise vs. Starting Your Own Business

For many business owners, the idea of starting a franchise is an attractive option. You dramatically reduce your failure rate, receive a proven system on how to run the business successfully and assistance to help you manage the operations. However, the benefits that make a franchise such an attractive choice are also some of it’s biggest downsides. Many franchises operate under a strict set of guidelines and regulations that do not give their franchisees any leeway. Business owners that want the freedom to run their business the way they want, will find these guidelines suffocating and difficult to follow.

If following rules and guidelines isn’t the type of environment that allows you to thrive, starting your own business is a much better choice. While you may not have access to all of the perks starting a franchise has, it provides you with complete control. This means you have the freedom to set your own prices, offer your own products and change things whenever you feel like it. It also provides you with the option to create your own franchise brand in the future, if your business becomes successful.

If you’re an entrepreneur who wants to minimize their risk, starting a franchise is a more attractive option. It means taking the role of an operator that focuses on executing a system that has been proven to work. However, if following a strict system isn’t what you resonate with, you’re better off starting your own business and being the business owner. Each side has its own pros and cons, which will affect how the business is run.

The Power and Influence Of A Reputable Franchise Brand

When you buy into a franchise and become a franchisee, you are immediately granted a lot of power and influence. A reputable franchise brand has a history of building their reputation and brand, and knows exactly who their audience is. By becoming a franchisee, it means you’re able to leverage the resources of the franchise company to your advantage.

For example, a McDonald’s franchise requires a fee of a million dollars to get started. This is because McDonald’s is literally a money making machine. There’s never a shortage of customers, because it’s a franchise brand that’s well known across the entire world. In fact, it’s so popular that in almost any country you go to, you’re almost guaranteed to find a McDonald’s.

The reason a McDonald’s franchise is so costly, is is because they possess the best system in the world when it comes to selling fast food. Buying into a McDonald’s franchise means buying their reputation, brand name, track record and using it for yourself. They may not serve the tastiest burgers in the world, but they do have some of the best marketing and business operations worldwide.

Starting A Franchise Is A Good Way To Quickly Get Started In Business

A franchise isn’t just a business to help you generate money – it’s a brand that has a number of loyal followers. Becoming a franchisee means tapping into all of the resources that brand or company has to offer. That means you can use their customers, their marketing, their discounts, their coupons and advertisements. And you get access to it all for a monthly royalty. In reality, hiring your own marketing team, running advertisements and coming up with creative marketing campaigns would cost you much more than what you’re paying for.

This is why many entrepreneurs opt into starting a franchise. They understand that becoming a franchisee comes with many perks that they wouldn’t be able to leverage if they started their own business. Instead of waiting 2, 5 or even 10 years before the business picks up, they’re able to immediately tap into these resources and begin profiting as early as day one.

Starting a Franchise Can Come With Many Hidden Fees

Most franchise companies charge their franchisees a monthly royalty fee. This fee can either be a percentage of the profits on a monthly basis, or a flat fee. If you’re thinking about starting a franchise, you should take these fees into consideration as additional expenses.

For some entrepreneurs, the idea of paying a monthly fee is not worth the additional cost in their business. If they possess the skills and knowledge to run their own marketing campaigns and are aware of their market’s needs, there’s no reason for them to buy into a franchise. Most entrepreneurs that become franchisees do so because they want to reduce their risk and leverage the resources of the franchise company. They may not know how to run successful marketing campaigns to attract customers, or simply don’t want to deal with that side of the business. As a result, they don’t mind paying a monthly fee to have someone take care of all of that for them – which is why starting a franchise is an attractive option for them.

On top of a monthly royalty fee, some franchisers also require their franchisees to purchase certain goods or services from the franchiser or affiliated entities. This means that an entrepreneur who does not have a lot of starting capital, may quickly find themselves broke before they’ve even begun to generate profit from the business franchise.

Be aware of all the terms and conditions outlined in the contract when starting a franchise. If you are an entrepreneur who does not possess a lot of business experience, you may find yourself being taken advantage or even exploited by the members of a larger, more powerful corporation. Read the fine print and ensure you understand all of your responsibilities before making a commitment.

A Franchise Is Not Guaranteed To Be Successful

Even though becoming a franchisee comes with many perks, it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to succeed. Contrary to what many people believe, even a wildly popular franchise like McDonald’s can fail. In fact, as a franchisee you could do everything by the book perfectly and still fail. This is because there are other variables that are outside of your control.

One of the main reasons why franchises fail is because of location. Just because a franchise is wildly successful in one city, does not necessarily mean it will generate the same results in another. The neighbourhood, the city, what their target audience is and the needs of the marketplace, are all factors you need to account for.

For example, a Chinese take-out franchise may do extremely well in an Eastern country, but do very poorly in a Western one. This is because the needs of the marketplace are different. There may not be that many people that like eating Chinese food in that geographic region. Or maybe Westerners aren’t able to read the menu because it’s all in Chinese – which is a guideline you are forced to follow. All of these factors impact the number of customers you’ll get, which ultimately affect how much revenue you’ll generate.

As with any sort of business opportunity out there, there will always be risks. This is why it’s important to do your research beforehand, and understand how things work before you go in. Don’t make the mistake of assuming a franchise is guaranteed to succeed, because it’s not. A franchise provides you with a proven system that you can leverage to operate your business. However, how successful you will ultimately become, depends on how well you can manage the business and account for the other variables that come into play.

Get Clear On Your Strengths, Weaknesses and Goals

If you’re struggling to decide between starting a franchise or starting your own business, analyze your own strengths and weaknesses. What kind of person are you? What type of environment allows you to thrive? When you are clear on what your strengths and weaknesses are, you’ll be much more likely to succeed. Even if the opportunity to own a McDonald’s franchise is presented to you, if you know that following rules and guidelines isn’t something you can tolerate, there’s no point buying into a franchise brand. Your heart isn’t in the business, which means you’ll start cutting corners and slacking off. And eventually, that’ll lead to your business failing.

Analyzing your own needs and desires is the first step when it comes to succeeding in business. Successful businesses know a business is only as successful as the person who is managing it, which is why billion dollar companies like Microsoft and Apple have competent CEO’s running the company. The founder may not have the skills to run the business, which is why they hire someone who is capable and possesses the skills to do so. Think about your business from the same perspective – whether it’s starting your own business or starting a franchise.

As well, you will also want to think about how your decisions will impact the future. If you have hopes of one day starting a family and passing your business down to your children, starting your own business is the better option. Instead of forcing your children to follow a set structure and guidelines in place, you can provide them with the freedom to run the business the way they want to, in place of your leadership.

Get clear on your strengths, weaknesses and goals, and you’ll dramatically increase your success rate in any business venture.

Your Invitation To The World’s Most Exclusive Advisory Board For Distinguished Entrepreneurs

Starting a business vs. starting a franchise has their own pros and cons. If you’re an entrepreneur who has capital and doesn’t mind following a system, starting a franchise can be very beneficial. Becoming a franchisee allows you to leverage the brand name, reputation and business systems that are provided to you. You’ll dramatically reduce your risk of failure, and do very little management in terms of how to run the business. All the decisions on how to run the franchise will be provided to you by the franchising company. You just need to listen and execute whatever they tell you to do.

However, if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t like being told what to do, you’re better off starting your own business from scratch. You won’t be able to leverage the resources and perks you would get by starting a franchise, but you will have control of the business. You can run it the way you want, set your own prices, and even take days off whenever you feel like it. If you do choose to become a business owner, be aware that the odds are against you.

This is why many entrepreneurs seek out coaches and mentors who have experience running a successful business. By tapping into the knowledge and experience of someone who’s been there and done it, they’re able to dramatically increase their chances of success and achieve results faster than if they did it alone.

Dragon 100 is the world’s most exclusive advisory board for entrepreneurs committed to their business success. Members receive personal mentoring and private lessons from Sifu Dan himself on how they can add 6 or 7 figures to their business in as little as 12 months. Click here to learn more about becoming a Dragon 100 founder today.

The True Meaning Of Loyalty When Scaling Your Business

April 24, 2020 by Dan Lok

What is the true meaning of loyalty? And how does it come into play when you are scaling your business?

Simply put, loyalty in business means that you put group interest and business interest ahead of self-interest. In any functioning team, loyalty to them has to be given, otherwise, the team is unlikely to succeed.

When you are scaling your business, it usually means that your team will face changes. Everybody has to work together as a team to successfully scale the business. There has to be mutual trust and understanding between the team members and the leaders alike.

No matter how high-performing a team is, loyalty has to come first. Team culture and team unity is of the utmost importance, especially when you are just starting out and slowly scaling your business.

How well can you trust your team members? How much can they trust you? Is everybody giving it their all? Do you expect too much or too few from the team members? All these factors are a sign of good leadership and very important for the meaning of loyalty.

How can you build a loyal team that will stay with you and your business when you scale? How can you make sure to lose as few people as possible?

What Exactly Does Scaling Your Business Mean?

You might think scaling your business means to grow your business. But that’s not the meaning of scaling. To scale a business means to handle more customers, sales, and output without making too many sacrifices. You want everything to be cost-effective and reasonable.

When scaling your business is unsuccessful, you might lose employees or team members because their workload increased too much and they couldn’t handle it anymore. Or perhaps you can’t keep up with the increased demand and let your customers down.

Scaling done right means your business is growing and you can handle the growth well in all capacities. The meaning of loyalty is extremely important for scaling your business.

The meaning of loyalty has many undertones. It means to be faithful to a cause, a person, a value, a team, a brand, etc.

What Exactly is the Meaning of Loyalty?

In a team, the word ‘loyalty’ has several connotations. The team members have to be loyal, and so does the leader. There has to be trust and loyalty between all team members. And finally, the leader and the team members are all loyal to a bigger cause.

Loyalty in the business sector can be best compared to Navy Seals. When Navy Seals go on a mission, they have to trust each other 100%. Their lives could depend on it.

Loyalty and trust become visible especially in situations where something is going wrong. Let’s assume you and your team going on a military mission. You send one of the teammates to scout and they tell you there are three enemies.

You trust your teammate, so you decide to take three team members with you to take down the enemy. But your scout was wrong, there are actually 10 enemies. Now, how you as the leader react in such a situation determines if this team will live on. You have two options.

You either tell them that somebody has to sacrifice themselves and pick a person to sacrifice. This, however, will destroy the trust of your teammates in you forever. Why? Because they are seeing that you put yourself before others. If you were to do that, that was the last mission this team ever went on. There won’t be any team anymore. The loyalty is gone.

But what if you pick the second option? Instead of sacrificing somebody, you come up with a plan. You can’t guarantee that all your Seals survive the mission but you show them that you want to get out of there together. You as the leader are in the front position and the teammates are behind you. That’s the meaning of loyalty in one of the most stressful situations.

What is the Meaning of Loyalty in Business?

Now, in business, it’s usually not a question of life or death. But being a good leader is a serious thing in business. You are responsible for your team. If you make a wrong move and the business can’t go on then the income of the whole team is gone.

At the same time, each individual on the team also has a responsibility. They have to be loyal to you and your vision so the business can succeed. It only works if both sides are in.

When you want to scale your business, you need two things. A team that performs well and – more importantly – a team you can trust. The best skills in the world don’t mean anything if the basic culture isn’t there. You can’t build a high-performance team without culture.

Loyalty is earned. Earning loyalty from your team is the most selfish and most selfless thing to do at the same time. It’s selfish because you need them in order to scale, to make your business successful. It’s selfless because you allow them to be part of something bigger.

Core Values

Before you grow and scale your business – possibly even before you hire anyone – you want to know what your business stands for. What are your personal core values that you want to represent in your business?

First, you have to live those core values. If you don’t do it then you can’t expect it from your employees or team members. As a leader, you are an example.

Now, once you know and live your core values, you want to hire a few people who share the same values. It’s best to hire for attitude and train for skill. That means it’s okay to hire a person who isn’t that refined in their skill, yet. You can always mentor them and increase their skill. Hire them for their culture and values first because that can’t be trained. Your job isn’t to change people so they fit with your culture. It’s better to hire a bit slower but therefore hire the right people from the start.

When you are getting into the phase of scaling your business, it’s easy to think about everything else but team culture. The new processes and systems you have to implement, the meeting with an important partner or client…It all seems so much more important than core values and culture.

But, your core values are the foundation of your business. Everything else you do is built on top of that. So, it’s vital for your success, to stay true to those values.

Loyalty should definitely be one of your business’ core values. But why?

Why is Loyalty Important for Scaling a Business?

Think about it like this. When your team isn’t loyal, it means they will leave the company pretty fast. If something better comes up they leave in the blink of an eye. That also means you have to hire and train new people all the time.

How effective will your scaling be if you have to train new people all the time? Not as effective as if it could be when members stay with you longer.

Most businesses lose money because too many employees leave the company. Especially if there is a certain period where the employee already resigned but has to stay for a few more weeks. That’s the phase where employees are unproductive. They already resigned anyway so why should they make any effort. But since their effort is low, you lose money. So on a surface level, the meaning of loyalty is also increased revenue.

If everybody is loyal and you can trust them with their work then you can focus on other things. You don’t have to look over their shoulder all the time. Instead, you face bigger challenges as a team and everybody does their part to help the business with scaling.

How to Hire the Right People

We briefly touched on this above. To create a loyal and trustworthy, high-performance team, you must first be loyal and trustworthy yourself. You have to embody your business’ core values.

Then, you hire people for attitude and mindset. Most business owners would make the mistake to hire employees who have great skills but don’t embody the core values of the business.

But really, in any winning business culture comes first and skill comes second. So how can you make sure you hire the right people from the beginning? The answer lies in your recruitment process.

Typical questions like “how much experience do you have?” don’t help anybody. The candidate could even lie about their experience, couldn’t they? There’s no way for you to know. So what can you do instead?

You have to ask questions that go deeper. Questions that give you indicators on how the person thinks. For example, a simple conversation about morning commute and traffic can tell you a lot. Is the person complaining about traffic but still arriving late for work? Then this is likely a person who doesn’t take ownership of their actions. Instead, they blame outside circumstances.

A different person might say yes traffic is horrible during rush hour that’s why I get to work half an hour earlier. This is a person who is focusing on solutions, instead of putting the blame on others. So, that’s the kind of person you’d want to have in your team.

How to Know When to Let Go of Someone

Most people would think the meaning of loyalty is to keep a team member around, no matter what. It’s partially true. A loyal leader doesn’t let go of employees and teammates easily.

If a person on the team isn’t performing well, you should rather mentor and train them first. Give them a chance to get better and play their role for the team to their fullest potential.

However, there might be moments where you tried everything. You mentored them, gave them time and resources to grow, but it just wouldn’t work. In such a case, you as the leader have to put the group interest above the interest for an individual.

If a team member under-performs and won’t change, he or she is damaging the whole team. It’s never an easy decision but here the real meaning of loyalty is to let them go.

We understand it can be very painful to lose a team member. Especially if they go work for one of your competitors instead. Balancing the loyalty to an individual and the loyalty to the whole team is an act that’s not so easy to perform.

That’s exactly why your first job is to mentor your people to get them up to speed. How long should you mentor and train them before you decide if you have to let them go? That depends on your industry mostly. In some industries, you lose money after two weeks if a person isn’t performing. In other industries, you might have six months. It also depends on what kind of hit you can take.

The loyalty to your team has to also be balanced with the loyalty to your job. You can’t under-perform on a job to protect one single teammate. That’s why leadership isn’t easy. You are constantly balancing things.

Your Role as a Leader

What’s the real meaning of loyalty for you as the leader? We think by now you’ve grasped the idea – it’s a balancing act. You have to be loyal to the whole team, to the individuals, and to your mission. You are the one who is calling the shots and who has to notice if something is imbalanced.

As the leader, you lead by example. You can’t ask your team to do better than you do. They look to you for guidance and mentorship. Let’s look back to our Navy Seal example. What did the great leader do? He was in the front row, protecting the team who is behind him. Bad leaders use their team as a shield. Great leaders guide them.

Your actions can enhance the team culture or destroy it. You have to care about the well-being of the team but still deliver great work. Who is responsible for guiding them? You are. At the same time trust them that you don’t have to watch every step they take. You put trust in your team but if anything goes wrong, it’s on you. A false sense of loyalty could do more harm than good.

When you are able to balance the different aspects of loyalty, your team will pick it up and follow your example. They see you are a person of integrity and walk the talk. This creates a team culture that you can build on as you scale your business.

How to Enhance Loyalty

As you know by now, a basic level of loyalty has to exist from the beginning. You hire people who already have the right culture to fit with your core values. You also understand your role as a leader to lead by example and increase loyalty that way.

Still, there are some tools and techniques you can use to increase the loyalty of your team. The first and most important thing is, that everyone one the team has to understand why they are doing what they are doing. For a team to work, every member has to have meaning in what they are doing. If they have no idea why they do certain tasks then it will be hard for them to find any meaning in it.

Here’s another tool to increase the meaning of loyalty in your team. Know the goals of your team members and align those goals with the goals of your business. This allows all teammates to support the team even more. It’s a win-win situation.

Want to Scale Your Business to 6-7 Figures and Beyond?

In times like these, your team is more dependent on you than ever before. Maybe your business is seeing some decline in sales and cash-flow. Perhaps you even had to lay off some team members, so the business could survive.

Especially in times like these, it could save you and your team if you look into ways to scale your business. Start now, so your business can steadily pick up and gain momentum. This way, you can charge ahead as soon as the lockdowns are over.

Dan Lok scaled his business from zero to eight-figures, online only. Interestingly enough, he did so by doing the opposite of what most online coaches would do. He built up his online presence, created irresistible offers, and focused on providing real value.

Since he scaled his business with a system in place, all team members stayed with him. Their loyalty and effort had a huge role in his success. Never underestimate the meaning of loyalty when you scale. Nobody can run an 8-figure business alone. Create your winning team in the beginning and take them with you on your mission.

Right now you can learn all the insider secrets and techniques from Dan Lok in his High-Ticket Influencer Program. He will show you exactly what he did to build his eight-figure empire in eight months. This could be the key for your business to do well in the upcoming crisis. Learn more about the High-Ticket Influencer Program here.