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Episode 5 – The Money Three – What Are The Three Things We Need To Make Money In Business?

What am I talking about with the Money Three?

What I mean is the three things that need to be in place to make money in business.

The reason this is one of the core episodes (I’m calling these first five episodes the core episodes) is that so often I am speaking to people who aren’t doing as well as they want to be in business and they are looking to solve the problem in exactly the place where it won’t get solved.

Because we are human and often can’t see the woods for the trees. Plus dodgy marketers are trying to sell us all the things and it’s easy to get distracted.

Do I have you curious?

Let’s dive in to the THREE things your business needs to be doing well to make money.


How Does A Business Work?

As we talked about in episode 1 a business is a system. It needs to work in terms of the maths (can I make money selling this many things) and it needs to work in terms of the psychology (does my service fulfill a human need).

But what do the actual working parts of this system look like?

Well, from a high level the working parts are:

  1. A solid business foundation
  2. A sales process
  3. A lead generation process

In simple terms 1) a convincing thing for people to buy that will solve a problem they have – that’s the foundation and we’ll go into this in more detail in later episodes, 2) a mechanism for the sale to take place (the sales process) and 3) a way for people to find out you exist. Which is lead generation.

Foundation, sales and lead generation.

So working from the outside it works like a funnel. People find out about you because of your lead generation, which is your marketing efforts. A proportion are interested enough to end up in a sales interaction of some form – your sales process, in that they find out about your convincing thing to buy and ca-ching.

Money in the bank. Happy customer.

When we’re starting out though things often don’t work as smoothly as we’d like.

So what do we do when something isn’t working?

Our natural response is to ramp up our marketing. My thing isn’t selling, I need to get it in front of more people!

I need to find a magic trick – learn Facebook Ads, Instagram, I’m going to figure out how to make video. YES, more stuff!

So here’s the question to ask yourself:

If you met someone on the street who was your ideal client and they asked you what you do – could you answer that question and explain your offer in a way that would get them to seriously consider buying it?

Or if you just have a website does the wording on your website and have a really compelling case to buy your thing?

If not hold off on the Facebook ads and other stuff..

Here’s why:

In the pre-internet days of selling services you could have an office and depending on where it was located you’d get foot traffic, or people would drive by and see you are there.

Given that you may be one of only a few say accountants in town, purely by being there you are going to get business. You won’t need to be very skilled at sales or be any different from any other accountant because being there is enough.

In online business we are competing on a completely different level

Almost all consumers have access to a Tardis type machine (bear with me here) that can transport them to anywhere in the world to look at any business they choose and if it doesn’t fit with a touch of a button they are at the next one.

They can literally transport themselves instantly anywhere.

By using Google and the Internet.

So being there is nowhere near enough.

This is why we need to be so compelling.

We need to have absolute clarity on what we’re offering and be able to sell it convincingly. Because if we aren’t with a touch of a button our potential client is gone.

While this might on the surface sound bad I think this actually presents an incredible opportunity

Because most people don’t bother to do the work.

And by the work I mean set up a solid business foundation – know your niche, know how to communicate what you do and create some amazing offers.

Then add on the sales process.

Not sales as in learn what to say to trick people. Learn how to communicate the value of what you do so that other people get it and are interested in how your solution can truly help them move forward with their life.

Those are the two pieces to work on before anything else – your business foundation (what are you selling and why should people buy it) and your sales process.

If you do this and then start marketing (or generating leads) your efforts will pay off.

If you aren’t clear on what you are doing yet your marketing efforts, with the Facebook ads and Instagram etc won’t get you anywhere because people will just press next in their Tardis machine.

What does this mean for you?

It means spending time getting clear on your niche, the communication of your ideas and your offers is really important. Do that first. Next work on your sales skills.

This is the equivalent of prepping your store for your store opening BEFORE you sent out the invitations for people to come look at it. Meaning before you start ramping up your marketing.

Make everything spick and span and pretty damn inviting.

Because that’s when people will buy.

And when you have all 3 in place, the money 3, – foundation, sales process and lead generation you’ve got a really well functioning business.