Turning Problems Into Profits – Ann Hession

Join me and my guest Michael Randazzo, author of Tales of An American Entrepreneur: Journey of a Small Business Owner.  Michael is the founder of a nationally ranked salon business and expert at  creating a lucrative business out of limited resources. Business is business, and there are best practices and key decisions all small business owners must make to successfully and permanently move themselves out of “owning a job” and into truly owning a business. In this episode, Michael and I hit hard on three of the most important, and give you simple steps you can take today to continually improve your business and grow it year after year. Michael’s book, Tales of An American Entrepreneur, is available now on Amazon, Author House, and your local retailer.

Join me and my guest Terra Farrar, Product Development Expert and Strategist, and author of Skyrocket Your Product Launch: Using 12 Proven Strategies from Experts Around the Globe, as we delve into one of the biggest “buzzwords” in online marketing – the “Free Report.”  Terra will share her 9 Simple Steps to Creating Your Freebie, as well as outlining the powerful strategies and tactics for any business owner, in any industry, to take this “freebie” and use it to quickly grow your business. To download your copy of the 9 Simple Steps to Creating Your Freebie: www.tinyurl.com/9stepsreport To find out about Terra’s awesome “done for you” offer: www.tinyurl.com/interview-terra

There aren’t many businesses – if any! – where December is “just another month.” For most, either the holiday season is your busiest, craziest, most high pressure time of year, or else it’s a low revenue, slow time, when everyone is focused on other things than your product or service. On top of the pressures that those situations create for you as a business owner, you also have to find time to acknowledge or celebrate the season for your employees, your clients, and your family! Join me and my guest, Celebration Expert Sherry Richert Belul, as we talk about the biggest challenges for this crazy time of year, and 3 simple tips to help you take charge of the holidays for yourself and your business, for good!

Join me and my guest, digital marketer Kathy Alice Brown, as we focus on a key aspect of successful websites that is too often overlooked – The User Experience. Not only does creating a better user experience on your site tend to directly improve sales, but it has more impact on your traffic and visibility than you think! Kathy will share 3 simple but powerful ways to quickly and permanently improve the User Experience on any website, as well as provide you with a simple and proven resource to quickly assess YOUR website’s User Experience, and pinpoint exactly how to improve it fast! Free tool to assess your website for user engagement:  http://yoursuccessfulwebsite.com/ux

That’s right, I said it – you know you were thinking it! Join me for a powerful, fact-based look at what kind of results, in real revenue, the online marketing industry has been producing for all of us. Spoiler alert: It’s not pretty. But there’s good news – I’m also providing you with some key tools you don’t yet have that will help you fix what’s broken about YOUR online marketing, for YOUR company – even I can’t fix the whole industry! To get the most out of this powerful episode of Turning Problems into Profits, go here now and download a free copy of this insider report: Online Marketing is Broken

Join me and my guest, Coach and Consultant Mandi Ellefson, as we dive into one of the most common problems facing small business owners: underperforming staff members.  We will especially focus in on those who fail to give YOUR customers the kind of care and experience you, as the owner, are so committed to providing! Mandi shares her 3 Step process to turning those tough situations around, setting up your staff to win, and turning that revenue crushing low performance into new growth for your business. To get access to Mandi’s free gift to you, The Resource Guide for Underperforming Staff, go to: www.mandiellefson.com/win

How many times have you, or one of your salespeople, lost a sale because you just didn’t know how to respond effectively and meaningfully to a customer objection? If you are like most business owners, there is a boatload of money that has been left on the table over the years. But there is simple, easy, two step Rule of Thumb that you can use ANY time, for ANY objection, and this one simple rule will save more sales than you can possibly imagine. Join me for a quick breakthrough session on the rule of thumb that can lead you straight to the gold, and make your prospects and customers love you in the process.

As we discussed in the previous show, most small business owners kind of stink at hiring. Yes, I said stink, and that’s the truth! They are reactive and they go on gut instead of having a system, and as a result they typically waste thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars every year as a direct result of bad hires. In this second part of our two part show, we fill in the rest of the critical steps you need to incorporate into your hiring, and toward the end I will you how to get a HUGE discount on the very best personality testing for hiring that I have ever used – the company I direct all my private clients to, and I’ll give you what you need to get a more than 60% discount on their testing services. Ready to transform your hiring forever? Let’s go!

Get Real about Hiring – A Hiring Guide to transform how you build your team Let me be blunt: Most small business owners stink at hiring. They are reactive and they go on gut instead of having a system, and as a result they typically waste thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars every year as a direct result of bad hires. Are you ready to STOP DOING THAT and start hiring the right people for the right job, and really start to build a business that will grow the way you want it? A business you can leave at the end of the day, or even leave to go on a real vacation, not worrying that it’s all going to fall apart without you? Then join me for the Get Real Hiring Guide – a 2 part (cuz it’s that important!) episode of Turning Problems into Profits, and learn how to hire right the first time.

To build a profitable business that will last, one of the most crucial strategies for a small business owner is to create and implement their own Ideal Customer Experience. If you ignore this simple fact, you will relegate yourself and your business to the status of a commodity, that has no option but to struggle and compete on price alone forever. People today have way too many options for where to purchase all of their products and services, so if you don’t give them a great experience, chances are they’ll go elsewhere next time, and never even let you know why, or how you failed them. Join this lively discussion of why Customer Experience is THE premier issue in business today, with Ann and her guest, Customer Experience Expert Don Thorpe of Shared Experience Consulting. Find out some key tips you could implement immediately to impact your own customer experience, such as the Always/Never Strategy, and you’ll see why creating your own Ideal Customer Experience is truly the competitive advantage no other business can ever take away from you.

Think discounting is just something you have to do in today’s economy? You couldn’t be more wrong, and it’s costing you every day! In this show I will show you exactly how the bad habit of discounting is absolutely killing your business’s profitability, and then I’ll show you a simple, low or no cost “1-2 PUNCH” strategy that will allow you to stop discounting forever, while at the same time creating customers who love you and highly value who you are and what you do. Download the “Discounting is Killing Your Profits” Guide and Action Plan here: http://tinyurl.com/AnnHessionEndDiscounting Follow along with the show, and then use it to walk your own business through the exact steps you need to follow to create your own “1-2 PUNCH” that will allow you to dominate your market, set your own prices, and leave your competition on the floor, wondering what happened!

Encore presentation of one of my most popular episodes — join me and my guest Robert Cornish, as we delve into the critical importance of deliberately creating a positive company culture, and how that one difference can have you outperforming your competitors by 300 — 500%! Think it’s too hard? Robert has some killer tips and some remarkably easy ways you can start to shift your company culture immediately. Find out how one struggling business owner turned things around and gave himself the top 3 things virtually all small business owners want (more leads, more sales, and more time — am I right, aren’t those your top 3?) just from a 10 minute meeting. That’s right, a 10 minute meeting. What are you waiting for?! Listen to the show, and then find out more from Robert at www.infinability.com    

Attention Solopreneurs: Are you charging what you are worth? Have you been telling yourself – or have others been telling you – that you should be charging more for what you do? Let us show you how to do that and take your business to a whole new level of profitability – and do that in way that is completely authentic and service oriented. My guest, Jessica Riverson, is your “Permission to Charge” mentor and Money Breakthrough coach, specializes in working with “soulful solopreneurs” – people who are passionate about what they do, but who all too often don’t know how to present and price their services the way they should. Jessica will discuss her three key steps to help you stop apologizing for your fees, stop feeling funny about asking for money, own your amazing worth and have the courage to receive it – in abundance! Find out how one of her clients tripled her income in just two months, just by using Jessica’s simple principles. You can also take Jessica’s brief assessment for yourself, to see just how well you are “charging your worth” right here: www.permissiontochargeprograms.com

One thing all business owners have is goals – short term goals, long term goals, goals we complete quickly, goals we keep putting off over and over, and everything in between. Setting smart goals and then prioritizing them effectively are both critical skills for any serious business owner. Do you have a process for goal setting? And just as important, how do you decide priority once you have your list of goals? If you are like most business owners, you may ask yourself certain questions such as “What will give me the biggest return?” or “What can we accomplish with the resources we have now?” or “Which is the biggest problem or challenge to business growth right now?” and so forth – all great questions. There is another very important question, though, that 99% of you are NOT asking when you prioritize your goals, and it may be costing you hugely in results, profits, business growth, productivity and your own fulfillment in your business. Listen in, and add this “missing” question to your business owner’s tool belt.

Did you start out your business with a lot of fire and passion, excited about being your own boss and just doing what you love every day? That’s what gets a lot of people started in business – but let’s face it, at some point you realize there’s a lot more to making a business successful than just doing what you love, and sometimes you end up so caught up in all the rest of it that you wonder why you started this in the first place – the passion is still there (you think!), but it’s buried under phone calls, paperwork and frustrating meetings. Sound familiar? Well, losing touch with that passion not only makes your business less enjoyable, chances are it’s making it less profitable as well. Join me and my guest Darin Adams, author of “Lights, Camera, PASSION: Discover Happiness, Discover Success” for a “get real” look at how your passion and excitement for your business may be the biggest untapped resource you have, as well as simple and practical steps you can take today to re-ignite that fire and your business! Use Darin’s Passion Pyramid to help you get a grip on exactly how far away you have gotten from focusing on what you love most about your business, and how to start to change that, starting today! Click here to get your Passion Pyramid: http://tinyurl.com/TPIP-PassionPyramid To learn more: www.darinspeaks.com

My guest, author Ron Sukenick, says you can. Ron has written three books on networking, the most recent, “21 Days to Success Through Networking: The Life and Times of Gnik Rowten” became an Amazon best seller in 2013. Let’s face it, for most small business owners, our experience with networking is often awkward and hit or miss at best – isn’t that your experience? And yet you know that it could be a huge plus for you and your business if you could just figure it out. Here’s your chance to put that “awkward and hit or miss” stuff behind you, and find out how to become a successful networker from one of the top experts in the field. And be sure to listen to the end, because Ron has an amazing bonus offer to make to my listeners! Find out more about the book, and Ron’s great bonus offer, at www.ronsukenick.com

If you are like most business owners, one of the reasons you started your business was because you wanted to build real wealth for yourself and your family. How’s the wealth part working out so far? Join me and my guest, Tom McFie of Life-Benefits.com, and learn the secrets I promise will BLOW YOUR MIND about how to change the way you handle your business, methods that will allow you to build the wealth you really want, strengthen your business, secure your family’s financial future, and get far better tax deductions, all at the same time. You will want a pen and paper for this one, guys – pay attention! This episode will change how you look at your business forever!

Attention Business Owners – did you know you could make far more money, in far less time, and develop a whole new revenue stream for yourself, by simply leveraging the unique ideas and experience you already have? Hmmm? Want to know how? Join me as I interview Terra Farrar, founder of www.SpeakPackageSell.com and find out exactly how to take the specialized knowledge between your ears and turn it into a whole new revenue stream for you. Terra works with not only authors and speakers, but also business owners in virtually any field to help them take the great ideas and processes they have developed over the years and turn them into highly profitable products, that in some cases can produce far more money with far less work than your own core business! Products such as home study courses, handbooks, audio programs, teleseminars and webinars – the kinds of programs you yourself have bought from others “at the back of the room” after a presentation, or online! You ARE an expert – it’s about time you owned that and started leveraging that expertise into solid, recurring income, the kind of income you can earn in your sleep. It’s time to start getting paid what you are really worth.

How many times have you, or one of your salespeople, lost a sale because you just didn’t know how to respond effectively and meaningfully to a customer objection? If you are like most business owners, there is a boatload of money that has been left on the table over the years. But there is simple, easy, two step Rule of Thumb that you can use ANY time, for ANY objection, and this one simple rule will save more sales than you can possibly imagine. Join me for a quick breakthrough session on the rule of thumb that can lead you straight to the gold, and make your prospects and customers love you in the process.

When someone asks “What do you do?” or “Tell me about your business” – what do you say? The experts say you’ve got 10 seconds, at most, to get someone’s interest, and get them to say the magic words, “Tell me more” or even better, “Wow, how do you do that?” In my experience, most business owners blow these opportunities more often than not – I’ve done it myself! — and what could have been a great opening conversation ends up as “go nowhere” small talk. Join me and my guest, Rich Austin, from www.speakingofsuccess.us, as we get into the details of the most common mistake business owners make in talking about what they do – and four great categories of “Openers” that you can use to really open up a great conversation in those first 10 seconds, with prospects, customers, and pretty much anyone else. Because a great opener is the first step to a great close!