Mar 28, 2018
Do you want MORE customers, profit, loyalty and productivity for your business? If that’s a YES, then you’re in for a treat.
Our guest today is business and leadership coach, Charlene Norman. She has 30 years of experience in operational and finance executive leadership, and has developed a Bullet Proof System that helps frustrated entrepreneurs make MORE than they ever dreamed possible. [BIO]
Today on the podcast she shares how she started over in a new city, her “crazy” advice for entrepreneurs, how to setup business events, and a lot more.
Click the play button below to tune in to the rest of the episode. Don’t forget to subscribe!
How to build your business when you have no contacts
When Charlene moved to a new city, the first thing she decided to do was meet people and understand the new community she was living in. She moved from a town of almost a million people to a town of slightly 100,000 – a big change in population.
The first thing she did was set up a meetup, looking for serious entrepreneurs. Her background is all business, so if she can meet all the serious entrepreneurs in the city, she will get to know people and exchange some ideas.
When you go to these meetups, you have to come with an open mind, a clean slate, like you don’t know anything. As long as you’re in a new city, never say “I used to do it this way.” Ask the attendees open-ended questions, and you will have them thinking you’re the best thing since sliced bread.
Give everything away for free
Charlene is a big proponent of relationships first and getting to know people. Yes, you have to be social, make sure to let people know who you are, your family, your relationships, but you also have to give away everything in your head for free.
Once you get over the age of 50, a lot of people think they’re God and that everybody has to pay for whatever’s between their ears at the drop of a hat.
But we live in an information age, and everything is available for free on the internet. What we charge for is the value that we bring, and the value that we bring is that we save time, we provide a service, and that service is based on the money we bring to the person’s bottom line, the peace and quiet we bring to their lives or the time we save for them.
The education we give them, they can find it on the internet if they take time. The skills that we can give them, they can do it themselves. It will take them years and years to learn what we can do for them in five minutes. Truthfully, we can give all this stuff we have away for free. 97% of folks aren’t going to do it themselves, and the 3% that are going to do it, they’re not going to do it the proper way anyway so we’ve got nothing to lose.
I hammer this away to so many people and they look at me like I’m crazy.
Go outside, and talk to three people.
If you don't like going to events, Charlene proposes an alternative:
“Tell three people every single day what you do. Get out from behind your computer, go take your dry cleaning in, go take your groceries, go get a coffee, go do something. Go outside, and talk to somebody and just say, “Hey, what do you do?”
Listen to them. And then say, “You know what? This is what I do. Can I help you?”
You don’t have to be grandiose about it, just have a casual conversation. You don’t have to go and start your own group, just talk to three people.”
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