This is a short term strategy to earn something now.
It is not intended as a long term business strategy. It is particularly effective if you are just starting out, or if you are already in business and doing okay, but (for whatever reason) need an extra injection of cash.
Fundamentally, what makes money move is when two people come together and establish a) what one person needs and b) what one person can do or provide – in exchange for money. That is a business transaction.
This exercise or strategy consists of 6 steps.
Step #1 – What else can I do to help people?
It is easy to get stuck in your own concept of what you do and what you can provide. This is an exercise in getting you to think outside the box. Also, many of us seem to be experts at sabotaging ourselves, with negative dialogue going round and around in our head. It is easy to under-estimate what you can do to help.
A useful way to explore this is to ask people who know you, friends, family, work colleagues how you can help them. Of course, within reason. The intention is to get outside of your own normal channels of thought.
Step #2 – Take an inventory of all your relationships
This includes everything. You family and friends, work colleagues, Facebook friends, followers, other social media interactions, subscribers, e-mail lists, past customers, people you have worked with, people you have been in contact with, been involved with in some activity or endeavour, etc. At this point, it is just identifying and listing all of your relationships.
Step #3 – Examine the status of those relationships
Obviously, not all relationships are the same. Looking at you list of relationships, who knows me? Who knows what I do? Who would recognise my offering and offers? In this way, create a pool of people who it makes sense to contact. A chap you went to school with many years ago and haven’t spoken to since – it makes no sense to contact him. Create a pool of people who it would be appropriate to contact. Or expressed the other way around, a pool of people it would not be weird to contact.
Step #4 – Do they need what I have - and if not, can I make / do / provide something they do need?
This is the crux of the exercise, and the key lies in thinking outside the box.
Step #5 – Compile all of this into a list
It is important to actually do this physically. Produce a list and work through it. Don’t just do it in your head, and leave it there. Things won’t get done. Make it concrete and step by step work your way through it.
Step #6 – Reach out every day to that list, as intimately as possible – until you have reached your goal.
A key element of this is to do it as intimately as possible. If you need money now you need to be proactive now. Being passive simply won’t cut it. Commonly, when you are stressed or anxious, there is an inherent tendency to close in, internalise, turn into yourself, hunker down. This is the opposite of what is needed. Being proactive is inherently uncomfortable. This does not mean be pushy. Nor does it mean stressful. It means being proactive, even if it is uncomfortable to do so. Remember, what makes money move is when two people come together and establish a) what one person needs and b) what one person can do or provide – in exchange for money. The key piece of this is the ‘when two people come together’ piece. If the two people don’t come together, how can there be a negotiation.
You need to get in control of your own time-line. You can’t leave it to someone else to control your time-line. If you don’t control your time-line, they will … and their time-line is not your time-line. Getting in control of your time-line implies an increase in intimacy, and it requires making the effort to do so.
“Spray and pray” is not the right technique here. It needs to be targeted, and direct … and intimate.
Get on the phone with people in your pool of people and talk to them, build that relationship. Get to that talking between two people that is at the heart of a business transaction. Do it every day, until you have reached your target. Even if it is uncomfortable, do it.
I did some marketing training sessions with Travis Stephenson (CEO of Chatmatic). In one session, he asked, do you want to be successful in this business? Do you? Have you been successful? If not, what have you done to warrant being successful? A bit of an in-your-face question – but a valid one. What have I done to warrant success here?
In Summary
This exercise is aimed at getting you thinking outside of the box. It is useful when you are starting out. It is useful when you are in a pinch and need an injection of cash. It is also a useful exercise for you, or a business, or a team to do together periodically. Inevitably you will learn lessons about yourself, your product, your offers, your pricing, your target audience, your business goals, your motives, what self-sabotage might be going on in your head, your environment, your business processes… Inevitably you will gain from it, and learn lessons.
If you have elected to run a business (and you have elected to), you have to get good at looking in a mirror and figuring out what isn’t working.
This is taken from a podcast by Mike Shreeve, PeacefulProfits – “How to make $10k quick”
It is worth a listen.
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