Be in the Right Place at the Right Time

Resumes generally are impulse purchases, which is why the Yellow Pages can be an effective tool for capturing new clients.

Think about most of your new clients. Chances are, it was a specific trigger that led them to seek out your services. Maybe it was a layoff or merger. Perhaps he or she got a new boss. For college students, it's the impending graduation date. A spouse's relocation is not an unusual motivator. Being in the right place at the right time can help you win new clients.

Guest Article: Make More, Work Less

This guest article is by David Dinsmore, founder of Certified Business Appraisal in Morrow, Ohio. David was quoted in the Inc. Magazine article I wrote about in my post earlier this week. If you'd like more information on moving your business towards this model, read the "E-Myth Revisited."

Topic: How to Gain Greater Freedom & Fortune

After interacting with business owners over the years, we have learned with absolute clarity that your goal as a business owner should be to design a company that is distinct from you and quite candidly, works in your absence. You should create a separate cash flow entity, not merely a job for yourself. It should pay you a healthy salary plus a return on your investment of money, time and effort. You should build equity! You should build wealth! Bottom line, your role should be to shape, manage and grow this independent and enduring asset � your business.

Your enterprise should function without you, not because of you. I know this sounds bizarre, but hear me out. While you can be the brains behind the enterprise, you should not be like Hercules trying to hold up the entire weight of the company! You will be crushed!

Your business should work harder so you don't have to. You should be able to make money everyday without having to work everyday. You should invest more brain equity and leadership equity and much less sweat equity into your company. Your business should be a product of your brain, not your brawn.

You should strive to build a business that does not enslave you and does not rely on your being present every minute of every day doing all the thinking, deciding, worrying, and working. You must adopt a new way of thinking and acting.

You must become a strategic business owner. Specifically, you must learn to adopt a CEO mindset; systematize and document your business; lead more and work less; create a simple business plan; utilize the leverage of marketing; effectively manage your greatest asset, your people; and learn to let go. In short, you must transform the way you see yourself and your business.

As a strategic business owner, your primary aim should be to develop a self-managing and systems-oriented business that still runs consistently, predictably, smoothly, and profitably while you are not there. You should shape and own the business system (again, an integrated web of processes) and employ competent and caring employees to operate the system. You should document the work of your business so that you can effectively train others to execute the work. You must make yourself replaceable in the technical trenches of your business. To repeat, define and document the specific work to be done and then train and delegate. This is how you begin successfully to beat the blues, escape death by details, and gain greater freedom.

With a documented operating system, your employees should be able to carry on the work of the business while you focus on big picture priorities or God forbid, decide to take a break. You should be able to escape the daily drudgery. In fact, your company should run on autopilot status even while you're on an extended, work-free, guilt-free vacation. If it does, you will have designed and built a business that truly works and is worth a fortune. More importantly, in the process, you will have gained back a personal life that is fulfilling.

To maintain freedom, independence and fulfillment, as your business grows, so must your leadership effectiveness and operating systems. You must stop micromanaging and start leading (macro managing). You must become more purposeful and proactive. Specifically, we take business owners and managers on a life-changing process:

Step one: learn to work on yourself by transitioning to a new way of thinking and behaving. Re-program yourself and your habits. Stop acting like an employee and start thinking like a CEO. Learn to work on your business, not in your business. Adopt the theory of optimization. Be strategic, not tactical; work less, lead more!

Step two: systematize your company by creating, documenting and continually improving all your key processes, procedures and policies. Trust the business system and personnel you put in place and remove yourself from the company's daily details. Be more hands-off and more brains-on. Replace yourself with other people. Define and document the work to be done. Train others and delegate the work. This operating system is your foundation for freedom.

Step three: increase your leadership capabilities. Excel at leadership, not doer-ship. Your business needs a clear vision and strong leader to hold others accountable, not another employee doing technical work. Help build and direct your team.

Step four: develop clarity of direction for your business and employees by creating a simple business plan and an effective implementation process.

Step five: learn to effectively manage your people, your greatest asset.

Step six: instead of incremental growth, engage the leverage of marketing to achieve substantial, profitable growth.

Step seven: learn to let go, delegate, and truly enjoy business ownership, your relationships, and your life.

By working less in your business, you gain more time to work on your business and make those essential changes necessary to optimize your company and your life. You may well be skeptical. That's normal. However, let me ask you "Are your current paths and strategies working"? If so, you wouldn't be searching for answers here. If not, I invite you to acknowledge the problems in your business, take responsibility for them, and dare to try new approaches.

Follow the advice in this article from Tim Shepelak and your company's market value will consistently grow. You will also build compelling evidence for that value growth to show prospective buyers why.

Getting Ready to Sell?

I've written before about closing your business, but a recent e-mail campaign (with the dozens of bounced e-mails) has brought this issue to my attention again. I usually try to find a new e-mail address for the ones that are bounced back to me -- and it's easier if the e-mail address includes the company domain name -- like info@yourresumesite.com.

But even then, I've got a list of more than 100 domains that no longer exist. That can be valuable real estate -- I'm half-tempted to go out and register them myself. After all, some resume writer out there spent a lot of time building up that brand name ... only to let it lapse if they left the business.

Does anyone know a business broker that does any work in the careers industry? I'd like to interview him or her for a future article -- and I think I could send some business their way.

In the March 2008 issue of Inc. Magazine, the "Ask Inc." column featured a question from a business owner who would like to sell the company in the next 18 months.

It made some very good points. Among them:

• "What is the business without me? Most of your company's value is in your relationships with clients and the knowledge you have gained from experience."
• Business owners should begin preparing for a sale 3-5 years in advance. (Of course, resume writers who are leaving the field for another career won't have that long. But ideally, you'd make time to grow the value of the company. That's the catch-22 -- if you grew the company, you probably would stay in the field!)
• Update any manuals you've written or materials you've created to make the business transition smooth -- to help a buyer understand the business -- it can't just be all in your head.
• If you're selling the business (and not just your client list or domain), make sure you have solid sales record documentation in place.
• Your client list is your biggest asset. Ideally, you've been keeping in contact with your clients, so the information is still "fresh." The ultimate value of your client list to a prospective buyer is how many of those clients he or she can convert/retain. If you help make the transition possible, your client list will be worth more.

Here are some additional resources:
Closing a Business Checklist (IRS)
Small Business Planner: Getting Out (SBA)

Autoresponders and A Sales Approach

I've been mailing to my non-Vertical Response e-mail list this week, trying to drum up respondents for my two open surveys (Conference Attendance and Subcontracting). Along the way, I get a fair number of e-mails back from autoresponders.

You know, the ones that usually say, "Hi! I will be out of the office until Monday, March 24. I will respond to your message when I return to the office."

Usually.

Sometimes they'll have a sales message. Like: "I'm sorry I am unavailable to respond to your message at this time. If you are interested in learning more about our services, please visit our website, www.yourresumesite.com."

But then I got this interesting response from one resume writer's autoresponder:

Subject: Resume Writing

I doubt that you can afford me. If you are still interested in this subject, please call.
(Resume writer name, CEO), Company Name, Phone Number)

Wow. I'm not sure what to make of that. Either she is *really* prequalifying customers, or she doesn't want the business. I'll have to follow up with her (when she's back in the office, of course), and see which is the case.

[PS - I use Vertical Response for my opt-in e-mail management for Resume Writers' Digest. There are no monthly fees -- you buy e-mail credits as you need them, for $.015 each (or, in bulk, for less than a penny each). Plus VR gives you the tools to simply create sign-up forms to collect your opt-in form. Plus, they have great templtes for creating your e-mails. If you'd like to try Vertical Response, e-mail me at RWDigest.com. You can try it for FREE and send 25 emails. Once you become a customer, you and I will both receive free email credits for the amount you purchase (up to 2,500).]