Aaron Hoos

I love dreaming up new ideas.

I love starting things.

My mind is always brimming with things I want to try.

A torrent of ideas is helpful in my line of work. And when I can get those ideas down fast, act on them fast, and see results… I’m a happy writer.

The problem is, not everything goes from start-to-finish in an hour or an afternoon. Sometimes they take longer: An idea might not be fully formed for a few days or weeks. Then the execution of that idea might take even longer — days or weeks or even months.

And that’s when the challenges start: Newer ideas eclipse the old ones. More pressing demands from clients push older stagnant client work aside. The exciting opportunity to create is so much more tempting than the apparent drudgery of managing the details.

But those details won’t take care of themselves. That book won’t get written, that website won’t get built, that business won’t become prosperous unless you roll up your sleeves and actually slog through the hardest part no matter how tedious it seems and no matter how much more exciting other things are.

I confess: I’m a great starter but not a great finisher. I’m an ineffective executioner.

I know I’m not alone. I know there are MANY other entrepreneurs and investors out there who face the same thing I do. I know this because my clients have told me. (In fact, I’m often hired because a client started something that they couldn’t finish.) And some of the clients for whom I finish work simply let that work collect dust because they’ve moved on to something else, too.

Starting is fast. And exciting. And creative. And when something is fast and exciting and creative, it’s almost easy.

But finishing is slow. It’s tedious. It’s detailed. And when something is slow, tedious, and detailed, it’s hard.

I’m a good starter and I suspect that maybe you are, too.

My work as a writer requires me to be a finisher. But I’m not a very good finisher. I confess that I struggle with finishing. I do it because I have to but I’m not great at it. I know I could do so much better.

So I’m issuing a challenge to myself and to you.

THE FINISH-WHAT-YOU-START CHALLENGE

Do you have any projects you’re struggling with finishing? I do. I have 14 projects I DESPERATELY want done. Some are overdue. Some are on-time. But I want them done and off my desk.

So here’s my challenge: There are 10 days (technically 10 and a half) between now and the end of May. And in that time, I want to finish 10 projects. I know it’s possible. But these are all half-done projects that now need some buckle-down-and-execute effort. I’m listing them below and I’m going to update each day (in a new blog post) how I do… along with tips and ideas about become a better finisher.

The projects I’m working on are…

1. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about investing in empty land
2. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about wholesale investing
3. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about marketing system
4. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about a real estate investing method he pioneered
5. Finish a book for a debt repair expert
6. Finish a sales letter for an internet marketing company
7. Finish a sales letter for a health and fitness company
8. Finish a sales letter for a social media marketing firm
9. Finish 100 articles for an income trust client
10. Finish a report and autoresponders for video marketing site

I have my work cut out for me in the next 10 days. There’s a lot of work here but I think it IS possible to complete this work. I’m going to put in some overtime (plus I do have some other regular keep-my-business-running commitments I still need to keep) but these are the projects I’m going to be working on in the next 10 days.

How about you? In the comments below — IF you’re bold enough!!! — why not list some of the work you need to complete in the next 10 days and participate with me in the challenge.

When small business owners needed money to start and grow a business, they used to have three funding options: They could borrow against their own assets, could get a business loan or they could sell a portion of their business to family and friends.

Then the web opened up new possibilities with crowdfunding — a way for entrepreneurs to get their small business idea funded from angel investors. Kickstarter is one of the leaders in this space. With crowdfunding, angels would put money into an idea that they thought was cool or viable and when enough angels sent in money, the idea would be funded. In exchange for their funding, the angel would get the good feeling of having helped someone and they might get some kind of reward (like a mention on a website or a t-shirt or branded mug or something).

I really like the idea of crowdfunding a lot. It’s a way for entrepreneurs to get enough cash to start or grow. As an entrepreneur, I like that. But I’m also an investor and when I invest in businesses, I want to get a return for my money. Crowdfunding is cool but it doesn’t really provide a financial return.

Crowdinvesting is the next step: Once again, entrepreneurs present an idea and angel investors can fund that idea with cash… but now they get the potential of a financial return.

It’s an idea whose time has come! We have the technology and the payment systems and a ton of expertise available to people, plus I know many investors are looking for an alternative to the stock market and might see this as a viable opportunity.

One site that is pioneering crowdinvesting is ImpactCrowd. Here, investors can invest in 20 Euro segments to join a group of other investors and become partial owners in businesses. At this time, ImpactCrowd is pretty limited — they have a couple dozen ideas and only entrepreneurs from the Netherlands can post their idea and not all investors can participate (US-based investors cannot participate at this time but that should be changing shortly). But these things need to start somewhere and I’m glad to see it started.

I love the idea and I’m very excited about participating. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that there are bugs to work out of the system. But we’re on the verge of an exciting opportunity and I hope to see more crowdinvesting opportunities soon.

What are your thoughts? What opportunities and challenges do you see? Would you invest in a venture through a crowdinvesting site? Why or why not?

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.

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.

When I was in high school, my friend’s family owned the very first computer store in town. I was always sort of impressed that they had a lock on that market. I imagined a business without competition to be the highest level of business achievement – a sort of entrepreneurial nirvana.

Then, to my surprise, I learned that they were helping someone else start a computer store in the same town. In other words, they were helping to create their own competition! I didn’t understand it at all. When I asked my friend’s dad about it, he said that competition is good for business. Although he didn’t go into detail, it was a lesson I never forgot (I even remember the exact moment when he told me – it was in the kitchen of their house – it was a watershed moment for me).

It took me years to learn why competition is a good thing, but I now realize that it is essential to a strong, prosperous business. Here are my top 6 reasons why I embrace competition:

REASON #1: COMPETITORS DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS

Competitors help you to figure out what you do. If you are starting a business and you examine how your competitors define themselves, you can identify a point of difference that they are not addressing.

It’s like being lost and using a couple of fixed objects to help you figure out where you are. Your competitors are those fixed objects and you can easily find your way in the marketplace when you compare yourself to your competition.

Creating a business that has too much identical competition (everyone sells exactly the same thing at exactly the same price – real estate agents are a good example) will eventually result in a price war with your competitors. But if you look at your competitors as a starting point and then you define yourself carefully, strategically, and in a different way from the rest of the pack, you’ll help to attract the right people to your business (people who might not be attracted to your competitor). You won’t have to compete on price because your competitors are different from you.

For more information about differentiation and competition, read my blog posts: Equal is not good enough and Mine is bigger than yours — competitiveness and marketing content.

REASON #2: COMPETITORS KEEP YOU HUNGRY

A couple of years ago, I met someone who owned a business that was in-demand and the only kind like it in the entire state. The guy charged insanely high prices and 100% interest on unpaid debts. He could make his own schedule and he didn’t need to provide good customer service. Sounds awesome, at first – you can do what you want and you basically have a licence to print money. But eventually, some other entrepreneur will spot the opportunity in that market and see that he or she could make a financial killing while charging less AND providing exemplary service… and suddenly the first guy’s business is in trouble.

When I was a freelance writer, I would sometimes get frustrated at the low-priced freelancer writers who would charge next-to-nothing, undercutting my prices. On more than one occasion, it caused me to look at my prices and sometimes consider lowering them. (Fortunately, I never did). I realize now that those low-priced competitors kept me hungry and I worked harder to out-work and out-earn those competitors. I’m glad for them now.

REASON #3: COMPETITORS COMPEL INNOVATION

In economics, inflation is kind of like a swarm of termites. You don’t see them but they eat away at the stuff you own. Inflation causes upward pressure on prices so that $1.00 tomorrow is worth less than $1.00 today. In other words, if you’re standing still in your finances, you’re actually going backwards.

It’s the same in business. If you want to create a product or service, build a sales funnel, automate it, and then go sip margaritas on a beach, think again. Your business is “standing still” (not innovating) and your competition will outpace you with newer, faster, shinier products and services. While you’re asking the lifeguard to put sunscreen on the places where you can’t reach, your competitors will be inventing a better mousetrap. Before you know it, your business will sputter and die because no one wants your clumsy old offering.

Your competitors are innovating, so you need to as well. Their very existence forces you to get creative, invest in your business, and reach for more. That’s great for your customers and for your business’ longevity. Read more about innovation at my blog post: My best advice on innovation. And this blog post provides an interesting take on innovation: Want a competitive advantage? Offer the same products as everyone else!

REASON #4: COMPETITORS BECOME CASE STUDIES

In your own business, every interaction in your sales funnel is a piece of data that you can analyze to make your business better. You watch for patterns, for sudden changes, and for opportunities. You put all of these pieces together, you compare it with your metrics, and you can make huge, positive changes in your business.

But if you raise your head out of your sales funnel for a moment and glance across the street at your competition, you’ll learn quite a bit, too. Yes, you won’t have all of the facts or metrics, but you can put together an awful lot just by looking in their windows, browsing their website, mystery shopping them, and listening to both happy and disaffected customers.

Watch for competitors’ marketing campaigns that have a huge impact. Analyze the types of people going through your competitors’ doors. Find patterns among the disaffected customers who decide to switch providers and buy from you instead. By simply watching your competitor, you can learn so much from them to benefit your own business. They become a living, breathing MBA case study to make you a smarter entrepreneur.

Want a place to start? Why not do some really simple competitive research to figure out how to price your products or services. Learn more about it at this blog post: How to easily discover the best price for your product or service.

REASON #5: COMPETITORS RAISE MARKET AWARENESS

Imagine a town in which there are only two companies providing window cleaning services. They both market their services aggressively and have their own point of difference. Simply by advertising the benefit of cleaner windows, they highlight the problem of dirty windows in the market’s mind and the market will search for a window cleaning company – even if it’s not the one whose advertising initially prompted their awareness.

It’s the principle of 1+1=3. Competitors’ marketing will attract new Leads (and sometimes YOUR Leads) to the competitor, but it will also alert the general marketplace to the general problem or need. People from the marketplace will look for a solution or fulfillment and may end up in your sales funnel as a result (all because they became aware of the problem or need from your competitor’s ad). Note: I’m not suggesting that you don’t leave all of the marketing to your competition. However, I think that competitors who advertise in the same market will have a greater cumulative effect than if they each advertised in their own market).

REASON #6: COMPETITORS CAN BECOME COOPERATORS

I love motorsports, especially NASCAR. One of the things that makes the sport great is when two competitors will work together to push ahead of everyone else. Overall, they are still ruthless competitors, but for a brief moment they can put aside their differences to eliminate the rest of the competition.

The same thing can happen in business, too. You can work together with a few carefully chosen competitors to win more customers and outpace other competitors. Now, please note: There are laws about collusion and I’m not suggesting you circumvent those laws – you’re not doing this to raise prices across the board or to destroy a few competitors. There are ways to legally cooperate with your competitors for mutual benefit. For example, you can share the costs of joint advertising to reach different markets through the same channels. Or, you can send each other potential customers who may be a better fit for the other than for you. When I was a freelance writer, I competed against other freelance writers, of course. But when a Prospect wanted to buy from me and I discovered that they were not a good fit (perhaps I didn’t have the bandwidth to help them, or maybe they were in an industry I knew nothing about), I had a few carefully chosen competitors who I felt comfortable recommending them to. And the relationship worked both ways – those competitors knew who I was interested in working with and they would send people to me.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU

First, welcome competition. If there are no competitors in your marketplace, be wary. Dare to invite competitors to your marketplace! Get to know your competition as individuals, but also get to know their businesses. Use competitive analysis to learn as much as you can about them. Find out how you can help them (and take the first step to do so) and you may see some reciprocation. And always keep an eye on your competition to motivate you to stay hungry and stay innovative!

Hey, this blog post gives another reason to love competitors: 4 ways to insert yourself into your competitor’s sales funnel and steal their customers.