Aaron Hoos

I have a confession to make. There were many years when I didn’t like “Rich Dad” Robert Kiyosaki. Only recently have I become a fan but it’s taken me a while to come around.

Robert Kiyosaki is the creator of the Rich Dad brand, and author of a bazillion books like Rick Dad, Poor Dad and Cash Flow Quadrant. Kiyosaki’s message is: Poor people work for their money while rich people have their money work for them. And he uses a quadrant to illustrate his message, showing how poor or middle-class people are either employees or self-employed people who trade their hours for pay while rich people are business owners and investors who use their money to make more money.

I first read one of Kiyosaki’s books back in 2000 (I think it was his Cash Flow Quadrant book, although I can’t remember). The book was okay but I confess I didn’t love it and it took me years before I came around to appreciate and admire Kiyosaki.

Here are the reasons that I wasn’t a fan:

1. KIYOSAKI IS ALL SIZZLE AND NO STEAK

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His ideas about why someone should own a business or invest in real estate were good. But I felt that he lacked the “how-to-do-it” that I was looking for. He is the master of packaging ideas but they didn’t always fulfill a value quotient, in my opinion.

What changed for me recently was a book I picked up called The Real Book of Real Estate in which Kiyosaki’s name is splashed prominently on the front but he has 22 other people write the book… and their insights are really quite valuable. While reading the book, I realized that Kiyosaki doesn’t have to provide the steak. He provides the sizzle and other people can provide the steak.

2. KIYOSAKI’S IDEAS CONFLICTED WITH MY ASPIRATIONS

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I have always aspired to be a writer. That’s all I ever wanted to do. There are parts of being a writer that are “B” (Business owner) qualities, such as writing a book, and Kiyosaki’s advice would be to focus there. But there are parts of being a writer that are “S” (Self-employed), which Kiyosaki says are part of a less-than-ideal business model. The problem was, I really liked being a writer and enjoyed the “B” part of the business as well as the “S” part of the business. (Note: If you’re unfamiliar with Kiyosaki, he makes a distinction between being self-employed, where the business is entire dependent on you, and being a business-owner, where you grow a business that doesn’t require your input). It felt like Kiyosaki was discounting my aspirations.

What changed for me recently was re-reading Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad book (as part of a project for a client). In that book, Kiyosaki makes the excellent point that people should work to learn rather than work for money, then they can use their education to build businesses and invest. I can live with that because it helps me to see that there is a legitimate balance between what I do on the freelancing side of my business and what I do on the book/e-book writing side of my business.

3. KIYOSAKI’S DISCIPLES DROVE ME CRAZY

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Yeah, that might sound harsh but in the past 12 years that I’ve been familiar with Kiyosaki’s ideas and worked with entrepreneurs and real estate investors, many of the biggest Kiyosaki disciples drove me crazy. I can’t tell you how many times I sat down with a prospective client who was stuck in a dead-end job and up to their nose in debt (while I ran my decently successful, debt-free business) only to have them lecture me about why my business needed to be a “B” business instead of an “S” business. And I’ve seen a bunch of aspiring real estate investors regurgitate the words “I want a cash flow positive property” without really understanding what it means, and while turning down potentially lucrative short-term deals because they didn’t meet their idea of a Kiyosaki-quality investment. And Kiyosaki’s emphasis on network marketing has created an army of pro-network-marketers who continue to make the same mistakes that lead to failure in their MLM businesses.

What changed for me was a client I’ve been working with who had me dig back into Kiyosaki’s work for some of his projects. He is an extremely successful real estate investor and lives out many of Kiyosaki’s principles in a way that most aspiring investors only dream of. I started to see Kiyosaki’s principles in action (something I hadn’t seen in the first decade of my familiarity with Kiyosaki’s work).

I’M TURNING INTO A KIYOSAKI FAN… SLOWLY

I’m not yet ready to go out and buy all of Kiyosaki’s books or get a Rich Dad tattoo or attend his seminars (PLEASE don’t invite me) but I have gained a new appreciation for Kiyosaki and I see the value that his platform can provide. I’m not quitting my “S” business just yet but (to use Kiyosaki’s own terminology), I’m building assets in the “B” and “I” categories of his quadrant. And I’m learning to respect his audience.

If you are a Kiyosaki disciple, here are some of my own thoughts for you:

1. Kiyosaki has a good platform but he lacks step-by-step methodology and that might be holding you back. There are other resources out there that might be able to help you. Use Rich Dad as a springboard to do other research from other experts and don’t be afraid to move outside of the Rich Dad boundaries to see how other people are applying Kiyosaki’s ideas.
2. If you’re an employee right now and you want to become rich, it can be hard to go from “E” to “I” in one step. Instead, make a plan to go from “E” to “S” to “B” to “I”. The steps are smaller and you can learn a lot along the way.
3. Not every person aspires to be a real estate investor. There are other kinds of investments out there. You might be suprised.
4. Remember that all of Kiyosaki’s ideas are only good if you actually act on them. If at this time next year you are still an employee and haven’t done anything else to move beyond that, then Kiyosaki’s ideas have no value for you. Action gets results. Figure out what is holding you back and address that.

You’ve probably heard the well-known, often-quoted concept that all products or services possess two of the following three qualities:

Good, Fast, Cheap.

It means that every product or service you buy will be…

• Good and fast but not cheap
• Good and cheap but not fast, or,
• Fast and cheap but not good

Every client who wants to buy a product or service will have an innate preference about which two qualities they want their product or service to possess. And they will seek out products or services that match their preference.

Knowing this, most businesses specifically sell their products in a way that fulfills two of the three qualities. For example, a fast food restaurant might offer food that is fast and cheap but not very good, or a freelance writer (ahem) might offer writing services that are good and fast but not cheap.

HERE’S WHY THIS MATTERS TO REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS

If you’re a real estate professional, you might be wondering how this applies to you. I think the answer is quite exciting and can help you become even more successful because it will help you build better relationship with your clients.

Yes, the good, fast, cheap concept applies even to your real estate practice! Here’s how:

Every client you work with — whether they’re listing or buying — wants the home listing or home purchase to satisfy two of the three qualities.

For example, they might want to buy a house quickly and with your great service and therefore they will have less concern about the cost. Or, they might want to buy a house cheaply and with great service and will therefore maybe not get a house as quickly as others.

I’m sure you read the above paragraph and said: ‘Aaron, all of my clients always want all three of those qualities and I deliver all three qualities every time‘.

Here’s my response: I believe that all clients want all three qualities in the service they receive from you but there are only two qualities that are extremely important to them (and the third is less important).

Even if you offer all three qualities all the time and with every client, you will build better relationships with your clients when you intentionally identify what is important to each of them and you highlight that aspect of your service to them whenever you interact with them.

Let’s say that you identify a client whose must-have service qualities are good and cheap and they really don’t care that much about how fast you are. You will build a stronger relationship with them by highlighting the depth of your service and how hard you’re working for them, as well as how much money they are saving. Don’t worry about talking about how quickly you can close the sale or how fast they can find a home. Those don’t matter as much to them.

It’s all about finding out what is important to your client and then making sure that your interaction with them resonates those two most-important qualities.

By highlighting the aspects of your service to them, and by going the extra mile in the two must-have qualities that are important to your client, you’ll demonstrate your value to them much more effectively than if you tried to establish your credentials and ability in all three.

Want to dive into this good-fast-cheap concept even more? My blog post Why good-fast-cheap might be wrong (and how to fix it so you can sell more) will give you an in-depth look at the good-fast-cheap model and help you use it more skillfully to work with your real estate clients.

HERE’S A BONUS IDEA TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR BRANDING

You can construct your entire business around one of these models — which is exactly what some real estate professionals do. (The flat fee real estate agents are using “cheap” as one of the must-have qualities while other real estate professionals might use “good” or “fast” as one of their must-have qualities).

Although you’ll drive away some clients because you’re focusing on something they don’t care about, you’ll attract more clients by marketing in a way that truly resonates with the must-have qualities they are looking for in a real estate professional.

I’ve changed my blog theme for the 3rd time in 6 months (and possibly the 3,000,000th theme since joining WordPress).

I don’t lose a wink of sleep over the changes I make. I’m less concerned about whether my blog theme looks consistent every day of the week. Rather, I’m more concerned with a far more important question:

It’s true that consistency is critical. But what’s more important to me is testing and optimizing to improve my ability to acquire and retain more customers who are more profitable.

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU

Okay, the number of themes I’ve used on my blog isn’t really the point of this post. It’s just a way to introduce what I want to talk about today: Every business owner needs to break apart everything in their business and test it and then they need to optimize what they’ve found based on the findings from their test.

It’s a really simple formula:

1. Test everything in your business.
2. Optimize everything in your business.
3. Repeat forever.

That’s one of the top “secrets” to business success. I’ve never met a successful business owner who didn’t test. And I’ve never met a struggling business owner who tested religiously. I can say almost unequivocally that testing leads to success.

When you test, you identify what works and what doesn’t. Then you optimize that particular element of your business and you implement it and test it again.

Actually, we already do this in other aspects of our life without realizing it: When you meet someone who could be a potential romantic partner, but things don’t work out, you might realize that you introduced them to your weird quirks a little too early in the relationship. That was a type of test and you learned your lesson from it. Next time, you won’t reveal until much later in the relationship that your hobby is to carve Star Trek characters out of butter.

WHAT YOU SHOULD TEST

When I say “test everything”, I’m not exaggerating. Break apart your business and test it all: Test the big stuff like your brand, your target market, your marketing content, your deliverables, and your methodologies; and test the little stuff like your email footer, the days and times that you post on your blog; and whether you follow-up with a prospect 1 day or 2 days after your first contact with them.

I used my blog theme as an example, but I test everything. In fact, the element of my business that I test the most is my sales proposal. Since the very first day I hung out my “freelance writer” shingle, I have diligently recorded massive amounts of data about my sales proposal. As a result, it’s a finely tuned sales-generating machine that has earned me hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Here’s how to identify some of the most important things to test: Start with your sales funnel. Break your sales funnel into stages and then into steps (which I’ve covered in blog posts like Sales Funnel 101: How does a sales funnel work and Identifying the steps in your sales funnel).

Then test each step.

Here’s an example of a really simple sales funnel with a few steps in each stage. In black are the current sales funnel stages and steps. And I’ve used a green font-color to identify some ideas about how you can test that step:

Audience

1. Article marketing leads to Twitter follow. (Test other methods to lead to a Twitter follow, such as press releases or promoted tweets. Or, point your article marketing to something else, like directly to your website.)

Leads

1. Twitter follow leads to initial Twitter-based interaction. (Test the types of interaction you get and what kinds of interaction gets people advancing in your sales funnel. For example, will a frequent retweeter advance in your sales funnel faster than someone who replies to you?)
2. Twitter-based interaction leads to website visit. (Test where they are clicking. For example, are they clicking on a specific tweet or are they clicking on the URL in your profile? And, if they click on the URL in your profile, try sending them to a different page on your website and see what happens.)
3. Website visit leads to email newsletter sign-up. (Test how you ask for an email newsletter sign-up: Test different placements of the form, test different colors, test calls to action, and test a 1-step and 2-step call to action.)

Prospects

1. Email newsletter sign-up leads to regular click-through interaction. (Test your email’s subject lines, length of body content, number of links in the content, placement of links, and PS content.)
2. Regularly click through interaction leads to a purchase. (Test links to different kinds of information and different levels of financial commitment from free to high-end).

Customers

1. A purchase leads to another purchase. (Test which products or services lead to additional products or services.)

Evangelists

1. Frequent purchases lead to word of mouth referral. (Test other ways of getting people to evangelize. For example, ask for a backlink, ask for a testimonial, ask for a Linkedin Recommendation, etc.)

Okay, so that is a good example of a really simple sales funnel and some ideas about testing. You’ll note that within each step of the sales funnel, there are many things to test.

And although you should start by testing the elements in your sales funnel, don’t stop there. Test other non-sales-funnel-related aspects of your business, too. For example, test other methods of performing administrative tasks or conducting meetings.

Ultimately, what you decide to test should be informed by the goals of your business. If you sell a service to a customer (like most of my financial and real estate clients do) then everything you test should be geared toward getting more profitable customers to buy from you over and over again.

HOW TO TEST

By now, I hope you’re convinced and inspired to test. So the next question is: How do you test successfully?

I am going to blog a bit more about this in the near future (I’ve been doing some high-level planning about that topic just this weekend) but here is a quick-and-dirty way to test:

1. Once you’ve figured out what you want to test (see above), identify the metric and/or method of testing. How will you know that your test was successful or unsuccessful? To borrow from the sales funnel example above, if you are going to test a different way of building a Twitter audience besides article marketing, you’ll want to start by identifying a metric that is useful to you. Number of Twitter followers seems to make sense but you’ll need to narrow it down further. For example, number of Twitter followers within a specific period of time. Better yet, identify the number of Twitter followers in your target market who follow you within a specific period of time.
2. Get a benchmark. Figure out what your current success rate is today. So if you are going to measure the number of Twitter followers in your target market who follow you within a specific period of time because of your articles, you’ll need to dig into a bit of research to find that information out. But once you do, you have a place to start. For example, you might write an article and post it and then watch your Twitter following grow for that particular week. Then check the profiles of your Twitter followers to do a quick check to see if they are in your target market or not. (See my disclaimer following this list).
3. Perform your test. Now do whatever it is that you were going to do differently as your test. In the example I’ve been using here, maybe you’ll write a press release and publish it and see how many Twitter followers you get in a week (and don’t forget to check their profiles to see if they are in your target market or not).
4. Decide what to do next based on that information. You’ll generally have the following results based on what you’ve found: (1) The test proved that the new method was better and you decide to replace the old method with the new method. (2) The test was not clear and you need to test again. (3) The test proved that your old method remains superior.
5. Perform a similar test at a different time to see if the season was a factor, OR perform a different test on this step in your sales funnel, OR perform a completely different test on a different element in your business.

(Disclaimer: Metrics-savvy people will easily shoot holes in my example of these metrics because they do not account for other factors, such as Twitter followers who follow you for some other reason or because of older content online. It’s true that these factors could impact your metrics but I’m just trying to give readers a quick and easy first step into testing. As you become more proficient in testing, you will find tools and techniques to help you eliminate these other factors… but the most important thing I can suggest is: Just get started by testing something in your business!).

GET STARTED!

I cannot stress enough the importance of testing in your business. In the coming weeks, I’ll be talking about some ways that you can test successfully. But my advice is: Just get started. Add a test into your weekly schedule. It doesn’t have to be a perfect test using a perfect metric. By simply starting, you’ll have already advanced your business further than other business owners who squander their time in testless oblivion.

Every sales funnel looks different: One company might sell services through a lengthy relationship-building effort; another company might sell a product as an impulse item at the cash register of a grocery store. However, all sales funnels share a few things in common.

Below, I’ve listed five of the most important elements you’ll see in every successful sales funnel. And if your sales funnel is struggling, check to make sure that you’ve mastered these elements first.

1. Value: Your potential buyers have problems they want solved or needs they want fulfilled and the sales funnel relationship is your way of telling them that you have the solution or fulfillment they’re looking for. But Prospects are only motivated to buy from you when they perceive value. That is, your ability to solve their problem or fulfill their need must actually make it worth their time, effort, energy, and money to listen to your sales pitch and hand over their hard-earned money. I call this the pickaxe factor.
2. Target market: No business can be all things to all people so every business must have a well-defined target market. It can be a big target market, and it can even include several different markets, but the target market(s) need to be well-defined. When you know who is most likely to buy from you, you can shape your marketing and sales content to speak to that group in a way that will compel a buying response. (Find out why ‘everyone’ is not your target market).
3. Clear next steps: A poor sales funnel haphazardly dumps marketing content in a variety of channels (Facebook, Twitter, a blog, an article directory, etc.) and the business hopes that the sales funnel contact will click around to gather enough information to move forward in the sale funnel. But that’s not how it works. A sales funnel contact has a mindset and that mindset slowly evolves over time. The business’ job in marketing and selling is to speak directly to the contact’s mindset and slowly nudge that mindset to evolve toward full acceptance of what is being offered. (Read a previous blog posts about how mindsets work in a sales funnel and how you use steps to move contacts forward in your sales funnel).
4. Opportunity to buy: I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Marketing is sexy and fun and difficult to measure. Selling, on the other hand, is challenging and sometimes a grind, and there can be a lot of rejection. Therefore, businesses tend to do too much marketing and too little selling… and then business owners scratch their head and wonder why no one is buying. A good sales funnel includes moments (in the Prospect stage) where the seller asks the Prospect if they would like to buy. (Read a previous blog post about this very topic — how a lack of selling is causing sales funnel failure).
5. Profitable sales: Successful sales funnels have a track record of profitable sales. Okay, some of you are reading this and thinking “duh! Isn’t that obvious?” but it may surprise you to learn that it’s not. Businesses use a variety of measurements to define success. Things like: “Do we have a great logo?” or “Is our blog being visited by more than 100 people per day?” etc. Even businesses that do strive for profitable sales don’t always measure profitable sales as much as they measure other things. (I confess, I’ve been guilty of that in the past, and here’s an example of a client whose sales funnel was not focused on profitable sales). But the only thing that should determine whether or not a business is successful is: Does the business have profitable sales? If your business does not have as many profitable sales as you’d like, take a closer look at your sales funnel to determine how you can make more profit from your sales.

Does your sales funnel have all 5 of these elements? If your business is struggling, you might want to think about destroying your sales funnel and starting over again from the ground up to make sure that these 5 elements are there. (Here’s a 3-step process to help you or read about how to retrofit the sales funnel in an existing business).

There are other reasons that a sales funnel might be very successful or not successful at all, but these 5 elements are going to be the 5 biggest factors that you can influence to create watershed change in your sales funnel… and ultimately in your business.

If I could get into my DeLorean and travel back in time to when I first started my business, here is what I would have told myself:

Lesson 1: Narrow your target market

Don’t try to do everything for everyone. You’ll end up doing a bunch of stuff you don’t enjoy doing and you’ll get stuck on a treadmill of having to learn new stuff for every client. Focus on a core of similar clients and you won’t have to start from scratch each time.

Lesson 2: Invest early

A free blog and email address work fine at the very beginning. Those services are a great way to get started easily. But free stuff has its limits and you’ll spend a ton of time back-filling to correct problems when those services break.

Lesson 3: Invest in the right things

You don’t need all those business cards if you’re going to focus on non-local/online clients. You invested in some really valuable information and systems but it happened later than it should have. Build your knowledge-base first.

Lesson 4: Take time off

Starting and growing a business takes time and effort. But too much time and effort will burn you out. Striking a balance between work and non-work will be toughest challenge you will face. Schedule both and stick to it.

Lesson 5: Trust your instincts

You know ahead of time when a customer is about to screw you or when you should pull the trigger on an idea. Those instincts may be hard to quantify but they are correct 99% of the time. Trust them. Follow them.

Lesson 6: Prepare for success

You’ll be more successful faster than you realize. But that success will hurt: You’ll be overwhelmed with work and your end-of-year tax bill will be higher than expected. Success is great but it comes at a price if you’re not ready for it.

Lesson 7: Differentiate early

Think very carefully about your point of difference and highlight it in everything you do. Take a week off and think about your point of difference full-time. The revenue you miss from that week will be more than made up for in the months and years to come as you outpace your competition.

Lesson 8: Persist

You’ll drop some projects or ideas or services or customers because there wasn’t a lot of movement there. However, a little persistence can make a big difference. It’s hard to know which ones to stick with and which ones to drop, but try sticking a little more than dropping.

Lesson 9: Create a simple sales funnel and work it like a rented mule

Keep it simple at first. Employ one or two easy-to-do marketing and sales tactics for each stage of your sales funnel and hammer home those things every day. Every single day. You can scale up later, you can get more complicated later, but a simple, consistent sales funnel at the beginning will win.