You want to grow, and you’ve raised your prices (or don’t want to or can’t). You need to hire help.

I am a big proponent of outsourcing everything you can to other companies, before you make the leap to actually hire someone to work for you. I’ll explain why below, but first, let’s look at the steps you need to take to get another company to help.

Here Are The Steps

1. Make a list of all the tasks in your business that you hate. These are the first tasks you need to get help with. The more time you spend on things you hate, the less time you spend on what you love to do, and are good at. In our perfect world, you figure out a way to spend 90% of your time doing the things you’re best at, and outsource or hire employees to handle the rest.
2. Now that you have this list, are there things on it that other companies could do for you? For many business owners, this list contains the words “bookkeeping” and “administrative tasks.” Luckily for us, there are thousands of other small businesses whose business it is to do this work so you don’t have to. Talk to your accountant for bookkeeper and ask around about virtual assistants. There are many other solo entrepreneurs whose sole business it is to do the bookkeeping and the administrative tasks for people who don’t like them, so those people can focus on doing the tasks they enjoy, like serving customers.
3. Need someone to help with your monthly newsletter? A person to clean your office? Someone to enter your new networking contacts into your database, or send out your postcards? Or even an independent sales representative to help you get in front of more potential clients? Get outside help first.
4. Talk to your other business friends to get recommendations of people/companies to talk to. Because you already have the list of the tasks you hate, you can share it with the people you might hire to help you. Get an estimate from them about how much they’d charge to help. If you don’t know anyone using outside help, try Elance, or the International Association of Virtual Assistants.
5. Look at your revenue and spending. Enter these new expenses into your forecast and see what your new bottom line looks like. Can you afford help now? If the answer is no, how much more revenue do you need to generate to get help? Open a savings account and start saving a little money each month toward the goal of hiring someone to help you.
6. If the answer is yes, you can afford to get help, write a contract (or at least a letter of engagement) with the people you’re hiring. Get specific about the tasks and how and when you want them done. Put in a review process so you both know how and when to talk to each other to make sure things are going the way you want. Say how long you want this relationship to last—maybe you only want it to go for three months so you can re-evaluate.
7. Take the plunge!

Why You Should Try Hiring A Company First, Before You Hire Employees

The point of getting your first outside help from other companies is that the commitment to them is not as strong as it is to someone you hire as an actual employee. You can experiment with them and try different companies or different working arrangements, and God Forbid, if something happens to your cash flow, you can more easily let them go if you have to. Hiring other companies to help you will also give you practice in hiring (and possibly firing), so if the time comes that you need an employee you’ll have some experience.

Have you hired a company to help you? Tell me about it below.

In the last post I talked about what blocks people from doing their marketing. The fear that comes up over and over is this:

If I do my marketing regularly and well, I’ll attract too much business, and end up working seven days a week. My service level will drop off, everyone will get mad at me, I’ll lose a bunch of customers and be back where I started, except worse off because a lot of people will be mad who weren’t mad before.

Three Alternatives

Of course there is another alternative to this scenario. Three, actually. Raise prices, start a waiting list, or hire people to help. This week we’re going to talk about raising prices.

This option frequently scares people. It’s also not right for everyone. There are scenarios where you can’t raise your prices; and perhaps even if you could, you wouldn’t want to. That’s up to you to decide; but before you reject this idea out of hand, read on.

Raising Prices

If you absolutely love doing the primary work of your business and you don’t want to delegate any of that to someone else, and you don’t want to supervise employees, raising your prices is a good option.

How Do I Do It?

Here’s what to do. First, delegate everything you don’t enjoy or aren’t good at (bookkeeping and administrative work being two possible candidates). You can hire other companies or other solo entrepreneurs to do this work for you so you don’t have to directly employ anyone. Independent bookkeepers, virtual assistants, organizers, and lots of other kinds of administrative support people abound. Talk to your business friends about who they use and take the plunge. This should begin to free up some of your time.

If You Are The Spiritual Type

Next, if you are the spiritual type, read this blog post by Mark Silver about setting prices using your heart.

If this idea makes you scoff or cringe, read this blog post anyway. It contains some very practical advice about how to price.

If Your Are the Analytical Type

If you can’t stomach the spiritual approach, research your competition on line, even risking calling some people in your same business outside your competitive area and asking them what they charge.

Now Do It

Then raise your prices. Don’t go crazy, obviously, but I’m guessing that in your research, or in doing Mark’s method, you found that your prices were too low in the first place. Some customers may leave, but you’ll have less business at a higher price, which should give you some breathing room.

By the way, this is the law of supply and demand. Things in greater demand (non-stop plane flights, homes in good school districts) cost more. For some reason, we think this law doesn’t apply to us in small business. But it does. If you are great at what you do, your perfect clients want what you do, and you are communicating to them regularly about how you can help them, you’ll earn more business than you can handle. The demand will exceed the supply. One way you can respond to this is by raising your prices.

Got comments? Post them here.

Recently I was working with a woman, who, like the rest of us, knows she needs to market but resists doing it.

This is causing her a lot of pain. She doesn’t bring in enough work, which creates severe financial stress. It also causes her to feel bad about herself. (”I know what I need to do. Why in the *&^^&%$## don’t I do it? What’s wrong with me?”)

So I asked her, ”If you do your marketing, what will happen?”

Here’s what she said:

1. I’ll be overwhelmed with business that I can’t handle and everyone will get mad when I drop the ball.

2. Marketing will create too much work for me and I’ll collapse in exhaustion because I don’t have enough people I trust to help me when I can’t do it all myself.

3. I don’t really like this work I’m doing and I don’t want more of it.

In this client’s mind, doing the marketing would actually cause MORE pain than not doing it. To her, this seems perfectly logical.

Can you relate?

If you aren’t doing your marketing regularly, it’s time to find out why. Understanding the nature of your resistence is the key to doing your marketing.

Now that my client knows what’s driving her behavior, she’s in process finding trustworthy help and shifting her perspective about her business. Her work is not what she wants to do for the rest of her life, but rather a stepping stone to better things. She’s made the commitment to regular marketing because she knows that making this business consistently profitable is how she’ll fund her next venture.

Marketing can actually be enjoyable, especially if you use social media.

Here are the links to get you started on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. (Warning: profanity alert on the Twitter link).

But before you jump in, ask yourself the question above, and really listen to the answer.

Our marketing case study this month is Donna Maria Coles Johnson, founder of the Indie Beauty Network; a for-profit membership group that supports people who make handcrafted cosmetics, soaps and other natural products. Don’t miss Donna Maria’s brilliant marketing system (more like  a weekly cycle)  that she describes below.

IBN is the Internet equivalent of a television station, as you’ll see below when you read about her marketing activities. Donna Maria began by broadcasting information through special interest groups and Listservs in the early days of the Internet. Although her legal, business and marketing skills are still the cornerstone of her business, the way she makes them available to her members has shifted dramatically as the Internet has changed.

Her broadcasting has grown to include information posted on Facebook, Twitter, her blog and her weekly newsletter. You can read the complete article on my blog; whether you do that or not, don’t miss her system that I describe below for using Facebook, Twitter, her blog and newsletter, and her radio show to work the Indie Biz marketing magic.

What marketing did you start with?

Indie Beauty started at the beginning of 2000 with a free weekly newsletter that I sent to people I had connected with through e-groups on Yahoo and AOL, answering their questions about the business side of making cosmetics and aromatherapy products. I then self-published a book about how to make aromatherapy creams and lotions, which established me as a credible voice in the community.

At first I gave away everything I did. I was fortunate that people began joining me, and companies wanted to act as sponsors because they wanted to reach home-based cosmetics crafters. Membership was free until April of the year I started, then all the information went behind a membership website and I started charging people a membership fee to get access to everything.

It was obvious to me that I needed to behave like a media outlet (i.e. I broadcast all kinds of helpful information to members through as many outlets as I can, and members pick and choose what they want to get and when they want to get it). Creating this media outlet created credibility, which in turn attracted new members, as well as sponsors.

What marketing do you do now?

My free, weekly newsletter is in its 10^th year of publication. I have also have had a weekly internet radio show, interviewing business people, authors, and other people who can help our membership succeed, since 2005. I post the interviews on i-Tunes (they’re free), blog almost every day, post tweets on Twitter daily, and use my Facebook fan page. This is a lot of work, but also backed by a great deal of help from the members. They make it work. I provide the platform.

Here’s an example of how this marketing system works. Every Friday is Facebook Friday on the fan page. Every week we talk about how members can use their Facebook fan pages more effectively for their own clients.

I post a question or tip on the Indie Biz fan page, and that starts the discussion. Other people post questions and comments about what works and what doesn’t, so we share a lot of information with each other.

Over the weekend I do a blog post based on the questions and answers from Facebook Friday.

Monday, the newsletter goes out. Each week I feature a member of the Indie Biz Network in the newsletter, which encourages the person I feature to share the newsletter with their own network. I help the member by featuring her, and she in turn helps the Indie Biz Network by sharing the newsletter with her people.

On Wednesday we go back to Facebook for Workout Wednesday. Since the business of crafting products is sedentary, we share what we do to stay fit, eat right and stay healthy.

I put out tweets on Twitter all week about the person I am interviewing on the radio and the information we share on Facebook Friday and Workout Wednesday. I meet new people on Twitter, and also use Twitter to mobilize my followers to advocate for our interests. I recently mobilized a group of Indies (who were also some of my followers on Twitter) to make their voices heard in the Colorado legislature, when it was considering passing a bill that would have been detrimental to us. Interestingly, I’m using social media more and more in the advocacy work I do for the Network.

How do you stay consistent with your marketing?

I do the same thing every day for marketing. I have systems in place, so that 70% of my marketing is a set routine.

Any advice for us?

Big companies re-use the same content in different media outlets. All small businesses must figure out how to do this as well; people are trying to find us in all different outlets and if we aren’t there, they’ll go somewhere else.

You also have to be willing to experiment, even if technology intimidates you, and you have to be willing to stick with things because sometimes results don’t appear immediately.

There is a lot about the Internet to be wary of, but if you aren’t on it in a way that makes you available to your customers, you can’t survive. If people find you on the Internet but there’s no activity on your website or Facebook page or Twitter account, they’ll think you’re doing nothing, even when you are.

I have a member who is persnickety and who emails me every time she sees something she thinks is wrong with the Indie Business site. At first, I found this annoying. As part of our ongoing conversations I tried, and finally succeeded, in getting her to put up a Facebook fan page for her business. Her criticism used to drive me nuts; but I spent 30 minutes going through her fan page and saw who she was as a person. It made all the difference.

This is the power of social media on the Internet. My final advice is this: you have to take the time to understand social media and how it can help your business. Your clients are looking for you. You need to help them find you.

How is your marketing working for you? Got any good ideas to share? Post them below.

My life has changed profoundly in the last month. I moved my home and office, which together put me at the DefCon Five level of stress–right under graduating from college without a job in the middle of a deep recession.

This amount of change, even if it’s all good, produces intense disorientation in the brain. There’s a physiological reason for this feeling.

When you do anything repeatedly, your brain cells physically line up to facilitate doing that thing. The cells make it easier and faster for you to do it. This is true if whether you’re setting aside 90 minutes every morning to do your marketing activities or shooting heroin. Your brain doesn’t care. (Well, it probably cares right before you die of an overdose, if you’ve decided to make using heroin the habit that your brain is facilitating for you.) But in general, it doesn’t care. Your brain cells’ job is to make the things you do over and over, easier to do each time.

Why the brain rebels

Addiction and Grace by Gerald May offers a detailed and fascinating explanation of brain physiology and changes that result from giving up an addiction. Few changes are more radical than kicking drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.

When you stop doing something you’ve done for a long time, your brain rebels. It sends SOS alerts like, “Hey, this is wrong. What are you doing? Where are we? Why did you do that? We haven’t done that before. This feels weird.”

Your brain rebels even when the change you’ve made is positive. In my case, the changes are positive. And yet I still carry this vague sense of unease, as if something’s wrong and I’m not sure what.

What does this mean for business?

When you change something, especially something big, such as marketing program or a product line, even if all evidence says the change is beneficial, you’ll still feel a sense of unease. This is your brain on change.

For people who rely on their intuition, the vague sense of unease can mislead you into thinking you’ve made the wrong change, when all you’re experiencing is change malaise.

There is enough fear and resistance to go around already. Knowing a bit about the workings of your brain can help you weather some of the feelings that arise when you make changes. We have to make changes in our businesses all the time or the market leaves us behind. At least now you know why your brain objects to change, even when it’s great for you and your customers.

The solution is patience

As so many other problems in life, the solution to fear and unease is patience. Practice your new change as much as you can, so you can retrain your brain cells as fast as possible. Be patient with your poor old brain. Remember, she’s had the rug pulled out from under her.

Have you weathered any big (or small) changes lately, that have rocked your world, or at least given you a vague sense of unease, even if the change is good? Leave a comment below.

Marketing a therapy practice can be hard. Choosing a therapist or other mental health practitioner is a deeply personal decision. Most people wouldn’t consider hiring a therapist or counselor based on an advertisement, a Yellow Pages listing or–God forbid–a cold call.

As a result, healers must understand who their perfect clients are, and then figure out who else works with these clients.

Elizabeth McGuire of EMW Consulting owns a consulting and therapy practice that  matches young people and their families with the therapeutic resources they need. I spoke with Elizabeth recently about marketing to her perfect clients.

How did you get started?

“I began developing this business in grad school, but didn’t consciously realize that’s what I was doing until the first parent called me to ask for help, referred to me by the headmaster of a treatment program I had talked to while gathering information about all the different programs, schools and institutions available to help adolescents in trouble.

“I’ve always been deeply interested in theory. In graduate school, I was fascinated by the idea that a specific problem with a child or in a family could be most successfully addressed with a program that handled the child (and the family’s) specific issues.

“I didn’t think it was enough for people to look up a program on the internet and randomly choose it because they were desperate, or just because the website might look good. I wanted to match families to exactly the right program, even to the right therapist at a particular program.

“A cluster of symptoms and a label don’t help us define the central disturbance that is manifesting itself and affecting the child and the family. When a family comes to me, I spend time getting to the bottom of whatever the therapeutic issue is, so I make sure I send the child to the right place, and also get the right help for the rest of the family.

“I also provide a lot of support for the parents while the child is receiving treatment. A lot of parents don’t understand why kids need to go away in the first place, but in most cases, the child has to go away for 12-24 months because it takes that long to effect real change. Part of my work is helping the parents do their work at the same time the child is doing his.”

How do you find your clients?

“Initially, all my clients came to me via word-of-mouth advertising. As I helped the first few families, they in turn recommended me to other families. Now I have a website, so people can see that I am a legitimate business. I am also listed on the website www.strugglingteens.org.

“I also began creating relationships with social workers and psychologists I really respected, and who were working with kids in outpatient programs and who were highly skilled in testing kids to understand what their issues were. Once the child was tested, these psychologists would refer their families to me.

“I didn’t think about this consciously, but part of my marketing is doing a really good job; the best job I can do for these families. The other part of my marketing is relationships. I am a relationship person, so I don’t necessarily like to go out and meet a lot of people that I won’t have an ongoing connection with. I like to cultivate deeper relationships with a smaller number of people. I keep in touch with the social workers and psychologists who refer families to me, to tell them about the progress their clients are making, and we support each other in the work we do.”

What’s next for you?

“My clients, especially the families who stay behind while their child goes to treatment or to a school, need a lot of support. Just as the kids need to do their work; so do the parents. In fact, if the parents don’t do their work, the child’s progress is slowed. I am training other people to do what I do, and adding other services like ongoing coaching for the parents, so they are supported just as their child is.

“I am an introvert, so I do better with fewer, deeper relationships. In addition to the referrals from former clients, I am also making a point to deepen my relationships with the social workers and psychologists who already refer people to me, and trying to meet a few others.

“I am profoundly passionate about this work, and I think it shows when people talk to me. I think that even though being passionate about (and good at) my work isn’t usually considered to be marketing, I think it’s one of the things that attracts parents to me. They sense I can help them, and they are right.”

What do you think about Elizabeth’s approach to marketing? Post your comments below.

My idea behind starting this group was two-fold. First, we don’t take the time to review our business numbers thoroughly every month, and we might not review them at all if things aren’t going well. Second, we don’t always know about all the information our business numbers can provide. So I started a group to review our numbers together, and to teach new ways to learn more from them.

We’ve talked about a lot of different concepts: cash flow, breakeven point, the lifetime value of a client, and other business numbers topics.

But last month, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about what to do if we’re  afraid to look at our business numbers.

Nine Suggestions

Here’s what we came up with together. I think you’ll also find these suggestions helpful if you’re afraid to look at your numbers:

1.  Remember my purpose (i.e. why am I doing this business in the first place? Is that purpose still true? Can it sustain you through rough times?).

2.   Talk to other people (do you have people who support you? Fellow business owners, leads group, service club, coach?).

3.  Meditate (and/or pray). A little quiet time can clear the mind and make the next right action clearer.

4.  Take some action (marketing action, perhaps?).

5.Take a break from thinking about my business numbers (sometimes a break creates a breakthrough).

6.    Try to identify what my emotions are. This is a good one. There is the thing happening, and then there’s the story about the thing, i.e. “Sales are down, therefore I am a wretch.” (Only the first half of that sentence is true. Are you telling yourself a nasty story about a neutral fact?)

7. Remember to be kind (to yourself, especially).

8. Remember that business goes up and down in cycles (this is true for every business except possibly tax accountants and morticians, but I think even they are not exempt).

9. Build a prudent reserve (AKA business savings).

Prudence Pays

This last one, “Build a prudent reserve,” is possibly one of the most important. If you don’t have money set aside for emergencies, open a savings account RIGHT NOW and get started. I use www.ingdirect.com, but there are other banks that will automatically take money out of your checking account each month. You can start with as little as $10.00 per month, and create a savings account for both your personal and your business expenses. Even $10.00 builds up. It’s the miracle of two things; regular saving, and compound interest.

They are all related to my book: Passion, Plan, Profit, but you don’t have to buy the book to download the files. You’ll miss the explanations and the other work in the book, obviously, but I just want everyone who is keen to start a business to get going, whether they have the money to buy the book or not.

What Are These Resources?

I’ve included an excel template so that you can forecast your sales and expenses for 12 months, whether you sell products, services or bill by the hour. I’ve also included a spreadsheet that will help you figure out your break-even point and another one to help you get real about your cash flow. There is a business plan template from the book, as well as directions to guide you in setting up a group to complete your business plan with other people.

I know everyone is haranguing you about GETTING YOUR BUSINESS OFF TO A GREAT START IN 2010, but the reason that’s happening is because it really is a good time to start.  There’s lots of support. If you’re ready to start a new business, or want to get your current business onto a firm financial footing, download the templates, buy the book, or sign up for the accountability groups I’m leading that begin next week. This is the time.