In this post Jamie McIntyre discusses the lessons on branding in more detail using Virgin as an example. Virgin has been able to succeed through branding probably more than anyone else on the planet.
The Virgin Brand is carried over many industries including Virgin Group, building 8 separate, and billion dollar businesses over various industries.
Most people and entrepreneurs would like to have at least a single Billion dollar company, what to speak of 8.
However, many don’t realise the challenges involved in being able to protect a brand for over 3 decades like those which have been used on hundreds of various Virgin Companies. Many companies have tried and failed whilst the Virgin Brand has not only avoided any serious damage but flourished.
Perhaps their biggest brand damage was suffered by Virgin Trains in the UK which for many years failed to deliver the level of service and satisfaction consumers expected of Virgin and at one stage risked a major backlash against the entire Virgin Brand in the UK at the time. Eventually after many years of improvements they were able to improve the Virgin Train Brand and avoid it becoming a long-term negative.
I, like others, have modeled Richard Branson and the Virgin Branding concept in a much smaller way. I have been largely effective in building a brand and carrying it across various industries and numerous companies, by building over 8 separate million dollar companies in the last decade and numerous smaller companies the majority which have carried the 21st Century Brand and a few that have been independently branded. I still own most of these today including companies in education, trading, property, accounting, financial services, stock broking, publishing, media, licensing, coaching and rural enterprises.
I don’t share this with you to impress you but to impress upon you the power of modeling and how it can create tremendous wealth and success even if you only achieve a fraction of the success of those you are modeling. It’s a bit like modeling Warren Buffet as an investor. If you achieved just 1% of his success from modeling him as an investor, that’s a cool $300 million net worth.
However carrying a brand across numerous companies and industries can also come with the danger that if just one company doesn’t deliver to the high standards fans and clients expect, it can lead to short term damage like Virgin Trains did for Virgin’s UK brands, or in some cases irreparable damage, if not rectified in a way to resolve below expected performance. This can often occur if dealing with 3rd party suppliers who don’t always share the same values or concerns over ensuring your ‘raving fan’ clients always win or by having the need to delegate to be able to run a dozen companies or more and it’s not always possible to ensure the personal touch still occurs in each company.
It’s a credit to Richard Branson that despite the number of Virgin Companies there are he has still been able to not only protect the brand long-term, but continually enhance it and have it become one of the World’s top 5 recognized brands; And all of this despite Richard not being actively involved in many of the Virgin Companies, other than being the founder and PR, or face of the company.
The fact he has an open door policy and regularly meets Virgin clients and team members, enables him to access constant feedback to continually pass on to his various management teams to ensure problems in any of his companies are quickly rectified and the client experience improved.
To that end I realize for 21st Century to continue to expand and achieve even greater success it must continue to improve each of its branded companies and ensure all companies perform to the level my clients and I would come to expect.
So I ask you for a personal favor if I may, and ask for your assistance in this. I would like you to personally email me any areas of concern or areas of improvement you can suggest in dealing with any 21st Century Company. This will enable me to be informed, educated and aware of the performance levels in any 21st Century company so I can pass back to the relevant managers to ensure they as a team deliver what you and I would expect in terms of value and service levels.
So I appreciate in advance any feedback you can provide.
Simply email me on jamie@21stca.com.au and of course I also love reading the 1000s of success stories I receive from clients of our education companies so keep them coming as well whether large or small.
PS. Here is a previous article on the 7 lessons I learnt from Richard Branson.
Enjoy
One of my business mentors for over a decade has been the billionaire Richard Branson of the Virgin Group.
Initially I learnt valuable lessons from reading his books and modeling some of his business strategies, but then I was fortunate enough in recent years to have caught up with Richard in person on several occasions to learn even more valuable business lessons.
Here are 7 valuable lessons I’ve learnt, particularly in regards to business, from Richard.
1. Do what you love and are passionate about and you’ll increase your chances of success in any endeavor.
This is a common lesson shared by the majority of successful millionaires and billionaires I’ve studied, yet it is commonly overlooked by so many people.
Richard gets his passion from making a difference and ideally making a profit at the same time so he can continue to make a difference. I believe that many people have issues with making money, yet without it, money reduces ones capacity to make a positive difference in many ways.
Most people’s ideal career is to do something they love and make a lot of money doing it, thus one reason Richard Branson inspires so many of us is that it’s obvious he loves being an entrepreneur and does business with a passion.
2. Build a committed team around you and allow them to grow by delegating.
One of Richards’s successes has come from attracting a quality team of passionate managers and then allowing them to run his business and, thus allowing him to not micro manage.
Spending time with Richard’s Virgin Team at some of Virgin’s parties I could tell they all loved the Virgin Culture, were passionate about their roles and felt a part of the Virgin family and thus would go the extra distance to deliver results.
Richard realized that you’re either an entrepreneur or a manager, not both.
Too many entrepreneurs micro manage their companies to death and never allow it to grow to where it will run without them. On the other hand people that are better managers often start their own business and fail as they’d be better off partnering up with a good entrepreneur and running the entrepreneurs company for them.
3. Make business Fun.
Richard advised me personally to throw a lot more parties and celebrate more achievements with my team. He said you don’t even need to spend a lot of money, however look for ways to celebrate success and reward your team as much as possible. Not only is it a lot of fun as everyone loves a party it helps your team bond and enjoy their work more because it’s not all hard work and no play.
4. Branding.
This is probably the most valuable lesson I’ve learnt, for business, from Richard in a monetary sense.Virgin broke all the rules of marketing by using the same brand across completely unrelated industries, yet the value of the brand not only carried over but increased the value of Virgin as a Brand to such an extent it is now one of the most valuable brands in the world.
5. Never delegate financial control completely.
This is a crucial lesson and difficult to do as one needs to delegate work to allow a business or companies to grow. For myself, owning 12 companies, I couldn’t possibly do financial control for all companies and have a life; so I used to delegate it completely and as a result have lost millions, from fraud and mismanagement by financial controllers.
But Richard said no matter how big a company becomes the owners should go into the business and sign cheques every 6 months so they know the expenses and as a result question costs to lower the companies overhead. As a result I now keep a much closer eye on every expense throughout my companies and have saved millions as a result.
6. Life is an Adventure so take some risks.
Richard has become famous for his daredevil stunts in hot air balloons and ocean racing etc… One may not need to be a daredevil to succeed in business however one must be willing to embrace risk.
7. Make a difference.
Ultimately Richard is still motivated and passionate to work as he is focused on making a positive difference to the world and thus has boundless energy and money is a secondary driver. Personally to keep up with Richards schedule one would need boundless energy as he packs so much into every day of his life.
These are just some of the valuable business and life lessons I’ve learnt from Richard Branson that I believe, if applied, will increase anyone’s chances of success in business and life
Jamie McIntyre
Friday, 24 September 2010
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Growing a Profitable Internet Business...Even if You Don't Have One Yet.
“In the Trenches” Approach To Growing Your Business Online…. Even If You Don’t have One Yet! - By Lou Harty
I have spent over 20 years in the Australian Army, and one thing I did carry over into my civilian life was the importance of sticking to basics. Basics are the foundation of everything.
Whatever you build or create needs to have a strong foundation. With a strong foundation you can grow your business until it becomes an impenetrable tower. From there you can add more bricks for more growth. Running and operating a profitable, sustainable long-term business is exactly the same.
Over 8000 people start an Internet based business online everyday. However only 4% of those go on to become a long-term profitable businesses. There are a number of ways that you can be in the top 4%. Firstly you need to have the right Mindset.
MINDSET: When stating an Internet business you need to adopt the right mindset and ask yourself: - Why do I want an online business? - How badly do I want this? - What are my goals for an online business? - Can I adapt to changes easily? - I need to full responsibility for this?
One of Napoleon Hills success principles is “Desire”…Now having a strong burning desire to succeed is great, but having that desire alone is not going to help you get started. You need to take action and continue to grow with your business. Growing mentally and commercially, particularly when faced with obstacles. Remind yourself of the reasons you want this business to be successful.
The following are two case studies, each with individual desires and goals. This case study will show you the steps each will need to take in order to achieve their desired outcome.
Let me introduce you to Ken and Barbie. Both want to start an Internet based business. Firstly lets look at kens reasons for wanting this.
Kens Story:
Ken has a small gardening business. His needs are simple. He wants more customers, more money and wants his business to expand nation wide. He has no idea how to run an Internet business and is prepared to hire a team of experts to operate his business online. Ken doesn’t want to do the work and is happy to outsource.
Outsourcing is increasingly becoming a key business strategy and is a great way to leverage your time and help grow quickly. If you are not an expert then hire people who are. Many people waste time trying to learn all about online marketing techniques only to give up. If you have a team of experts you can simply tell them what you need and let them do the rest.
HOW TO OUTSOURCE
If you do a Google search for the term “outsourcing” you will find an endless stream of companies who are more than willing to assist you. You can also use Elance, Rentacoder and ReplaceMyself.
SELECTING A TEAM
Its recommended to initially hire 2-3 different people and task them and see who does the best job. Ideally if you are dealing with an overseas outsource team you want them to be able to speak English clearly to eliminate any miscommunication.
If this seems a bit daunting, then you can hire a Virtual Assistance (VA). The VA will find a suitable team based off your requirement. The VA can take care of the monitoring of task, the cost and can manage your account for you.
Here is a list of tasks for Kens VA to outsource:
WEBSITE CREATION • Design • Installation • Maintenance • Installing blogs & plugins • Moderating blog comments
CONTENT CREATION
• Article writing and distribution • Video and audio creation and distribution • Bonus offers • Info product creation
TRAFFIC GENERATION
• Article creation • Article distribution • Blog commenting • Video media • Audio media • Search engine optimization (SEO) • Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) • Building back links • Social Networking
COST OF OUTSOURCING
Outsourcing costs are relatively low in comparison to normal hiring and staff costs in Australia. Most outsourcing is done overseas in countries like The Philippines, India and Europe. Some are as low as $3- 4 an hour. Or you may prefer to hire a full time person for as little as $200 – $400 a month depending on the company you use.
Once ken has an outsourced team he can then focus on building client relations and providing a better gardening service for his clients.
For more on Outsourcing is Jamie McIntyre’s Book called Time Rich http://www.TimeRichBook.com.au
Barbie’s Story
Barbie is a stay at home mum who trades the markets electronically. She earns a great income from her day job. Barbie wants another stream of income and likes the idea of running an online business from home, however she doesn’t have a product or service to sell. Barbie wants to learn all facets of Internet marketing as she has the time to be creative.
Barbie doesn’t have a product or service to sell. But learns that she can make money from promoting other peoples products. Jill joins the trading company’s online affiliate program.
Here are the steps she will take;
STEP 1: Join an affiliate program An affiliate program is where you receive a commission from making referrals. Barbie will receive $500 for each referral.
Upon joining Barbie receives a unique affiliate ID that is tracked to all her referrals. So now Barbie has a ready made website and can focus on getting customers to the site.
STEP 2: Buy a domain name
As Barbie one day wants to become an expert trader and would like to create her own trading blog helping other mums become better traders, Barbie buys her own name. www.yourName.com. She also buys another domain name that is keyword rich and related to the product she’s promoting which is trading. She then redirects or points her affiliate link to the new domain names.
STEP 3: RESEARCH
Market research is where you will need to find if there is a demand for your products. There are number of ways to market research. You can visit authority sites of where people go to find good information, e.g. Forums, blogs etc on your topic. Search Google Trends and Google Insights, EBay Pulse and authority sites like Oprah.
Keyword research is finding the keywords that people are search for, what people are actually typing into the search engines. There are number of free research tools online.
STEP 4: CONTENT CREATION TRAFFIC
You want to become an authority in your market, and therefore will need to position and brand yourself. You want to offer your readers and subscribers relevant and awesome content on your subject. Soon you will have a following of people and they will see you as the expert. The next step is creating the content and driving traffic to your website.
There are three types of traffic online. Free, Paid and Borrowed.
Free traffic is in the form of written content such as Article, forum, blogs, and social network sites. You can visit blogs and forums and join discussion groups in your niche and make comments and link your comment back to your website.
Paid traffic includes Google Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This is where the business owner pays every time someone clicks on his or her ad. The ads are displayed on the right hand column and on top of search engines. The other content in search engines is known as organic listing. Ideally you want to own the first few pages of Google’s organic listing in your market.
CPA – Cost Per Action. This is on the forms of advertising banners, which can be displayed on other people’s websites and in search engines. You link the banners back to your website. Most affiliate programs provide banners in the marketing tools or the can be created easily at 20DollarBanners. You will see these are ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Google Ads.’
Borrowed Traffic is using lists of joint venture partners to promote your own product to their database. This is a great model and a good way of profit sharing.
ARTICLES
Articles are a great way of getting the word out. People go online for information. So begin by writing articles on various topics relating to your product. In Kens business he would write articles relating to gardening such as best soils to use to grow grass or the best time of the year to plant tomatoes and so on. Barbie would write articles relating to trading, this can include trading psychology, trading systems and money management.
You can either write the article yourself or have them written for you by using outsourcing or paid services. Once you have your articles you will need to place them on your website or blog and then distribute them.
ARTICLE SUBMISSION
Submit your articles into article directories such as EzineArticles, GoArticles so others can read them, share them and use them on their own sites. This will then become viral, as others will also share your content.
DISTRIBUTION
Once your articles have been submitted into article directories you want these to be distributed across the Internet. Ensure you have a link in your article pointing back to your site. Two links are betters, one for a video and one for your site. This is usually placed in the Bio or resources box. This again can be done manually which is time consuming, or you can use a paid service using sites like ISnare, SubmitYourArticle, AutoArticleMarketing, and many others available online.
MULTIMEDIA
The Internet has allowed users around the world multiple ways of gathering information. People can read about it, watch it, listen to it, share it and best of all; download it. Google loves media rich websites including the following: • Video • Audio • Picture, images • PDF • Google likes to display media rich content
VIDEO
Create a series of videos on your subject. You don’t need an expensive camera for this. Some of the world’s highest viewed videos are made with your trusty mobile phone or digital camera. You only have to visit YouTube to the most viewed videos. Get filmed talking about your product
• Ken could do a series of videos on the content he used in his articles, organic vegies in WA and the best lawn for tropical climates.
• Barbie could do videos on the mindset of traders, and a beginners guide to juggling family and trading.
• Submit your videos into media sharing sites such as You tube, Viddler and Tubemogul.
• Create videos in a MS PowerPoint presentation and record it in Camtasia or Screenflow
Add images in your videos • Use automated professional videos like http://www. ClickAnimoto
AUDIO
Audio is a popular way to also get your message online. You can go and buy a Dictaphone or recording device. They range from $50 – $400 and can record voice for up to 10hours, depending on the model.
- Record yourself reading your article, or talking candidly about your product. - Upload it into your blog using Audacity, this also converts into different files including Mp3 - Create a number of Podcasts on your subject, this will give you more traffic. - Start your own radio station. - Transcribe your audios into PDF documents - Share the information on social networks - Once done then distribute your audios, same as you do article and videos. There are a number of automatic audio submission sites available.
This is just a small list of techniques to increasing your traffic and converting them into paying customers. However it’s a great starting guide for those looking at growing your business online.
CONTINUED GROWTH
Although Ken and Barbie are adopting different business strategies, both want their businesses to grow and expand…don’t we all!
Just remember, the Internet is fluid, and you have to be like water. You will need to keep current and up-to-date with what’s going on. This means continually learning and can be achieved by:
• Attending seminars and workshops; • Reading forums and blogs, • Subscribing to newsletters and websites. • Reading journals, magazine and newspapers. • Modelling people who are successful already • Find mentors, people who will stretch you and take you with them.
You want the edge over your competition. You want to see what they are doing. Review their products, their websites, their advertisements. You want to be able to adapt quickly…. You want to innovate and you want to position and brand yourself as the leader in your market. Most of all you want your business to grow old with you.
If you like this article please share it with your friends.
For more on the author, please visit https://linktr.ee/louharty
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