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Make It Real September 2008
News and Views from Clarity to Business, LLC
Helping Business Owners Make Money Doing the Work They Love | |
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Greetings!
Finally, at the end of October my colleague Sky Handke and I will do a business plan workshop in Corte Madera, CA. Our goal is integration of the wisdom of your body, mind and spirit to create abundance in your business and your life.
We'd love to see you there--see below for details and registration information.
Happy fall.
Christy Strauch
602-561-8499
cms@claritytobusiness.com |
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Is it a feature or a benefit?
For the past three years, I've been teaching business plan workshops under the delusion that the benefit people gain from going to a business plan workshop is they create a business plan. Seems logical. Turns out this is wrong. Having a business plan is a feature, not a benefit of my business plan workshops. A feature is a characteristic and creating a business plan is a characteristic of the workshop.
 Depending on your point of view, the feature of creating a business plan can be interesting, good, bad, or many other things, but it isn't necessarily beneficial. If you're one of the people who thinks Business Plan means "Useless Document Sitting On Shelf Covered With Dust," then having one clearly won't benefit you. What could I say about the outcome of the workshop instead of "you'll have a business plan" that would include bona fide benefits? Here are some options:
The work you do in creating a business plan will
- Guide you to the right actions to move your business in the direction you want.
- Give you clarity about pricing to ensure the business will be prosperous.
- Help you target your marketing to bring in more sales.
- Connect you with your deepest purpose for having the business and help you express that purpose to draw in perfect customers.
Now can you see the difference between "You'll have a business plan" and "Help you target your marketing to bring in more sales?"
I suspect I'm not the only business owner that has mistaken features for benefits. (The Puppet's the one who set me straight.) Here's another example of the difference between features and benefits:
If you were a stockbroker, you could say things like
- I trade stocks and bonds for you.
- I help choose the right investments for you.
- I teach you how the stock and bond markets work.
These are all features of your stock brokerage business. But I'd be a lot more excited if you said:
- I trade stocks and bonds for you to maximize the amount of money you will have for retirement.
I help you choose investments that will create financial security for your children after you are gone.
- I teach you how the markets work so that you can choose investments that minimize the risk of you losing your retirement capital.
This is tricky work. The more familiar you are with what you do, the more difficult it is to articulate the benefits. The benefits are completely second-nature (just like the "benefit" of having a business plan was to me).
In the tip below I ask you to look closely at whether you're telling clients all about your cool features or actually communicating real benefits that resonate with them.
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| TIP OF THE MONTH
Examine your marketing for features and benefits
Look at your marketing materials (website, business card, brochure, etc.). Do they talk about benefits to your clients, or just the features? Brochures are usually the number one offender. For some reason we can't resist listing all the cool things we do in them, regardless of whether the customer cares about these cool things.
Select a feature of the work your business does, then figure out up to three benefits your clients receive from this feature. I'll give 30 minutes of free coaching to the first person who emails me with the results of this work (you must include real benefits and not more features).
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First Loves
Sometimes our business is both passion and day job. Lee Doyle of Credible Communications has a second, first love: Fiction writing. Lee's debut novel, The Love We All Wait For is out this month from KOMENAR Publishing.
Set in the Salinas Valley in 1975, the book follows the precocious narrator, seventeen-year-old Sheila O'Connor as she falls in and out of love, deals with the loss of friends and her family dog, and comes to terms with her father's death six years earlier.
When I asked Lee why she wrote the book she said: "I grew up in the Valley. The mountains and the afternoon wind are in my bones and my soul. When I sat down to write a short story about a single mother and her three children who live there, it turned into a novel about a young woman discovering who she is in the face of bad choices made by the people she loves."
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BODY MIND BUSINESS PLAN WORKSHOP
Oct. 31-Nov. 2 | Corte Madera, CA
My colleague Sky Handke and I think we can increase the success you experience in your business by helping you get your business in your body--not just your head.
Join us for the Body Mind Business Plan workshop October 31st-November 2nd at the Best Western Corte Madera Inn in California. Get information, prices, and a registration form here.
The early bird discount expires on September 30th, and space is limited. If you've ever felt (as we have) that you could achieve more, access more wisdom and earn more money if both your body and your mind were engaged in your business, this workshop is for you. Please call me at (602) 561-8499 if you'd like more information.
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