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Tag: How to Start a Business With No Experience

Crush It With Crowdfunding: 7 Steps To Get Your Startup Fully Funded

If you’ve heard of crowdfunding, you’ve no doubt seen the heroic campaigns that manage to raise millions in just 30 days, exceed their goal by five thousand percent, and ascend to celebrity stardom on social media.

If you ask me, saying “yes” to humble, transparent companies with homestyle videos has some serious appeal. No doubt that’s why over $16.2 billion was raised through crowdfunding in 2014.

Despite all the bells and whistles, what’s not as well-known is the fact that 6 out of 10 crowdfunding campaigns fail to reach their funding goals. On all-or-nothing platforms like Kickstarter, this means companies lose all of the funds they raised.

But don’t be discouraged, aspiring startups. This is actually a great opportunity to shine bright among a sea of dull contenders — with the right tools, of course.

Meet Connor Young, a crowdfunding ninja who’s currently reached 391% of his campaign goal, a whopping $195k after being fully funded in the first 30 hours. I caught up with Young about his impressive feat on this week’s episode of Unconventional Life, “Hacking The Crowdfunding Algorithm: Get Fully Funded In 3 Days.”

Young beat the crowdfunding odds with his product Ample, a complete meal-in-a-bottle made from superior, real-food ingredients. The formula sprung from years of research Young did himself, equipped with a biology degree and the rare kind of patience required to read through 800+ clinical nutrition journals.

Young created Ample out of a desire to bring health to the “hacker house” he occupied in San Francisco, along with 50 other tech-type roommates.

As a former CrossFit trainer, Young was surprised to encounter so many people who simply didn’t have time to prioritize nutrition. His housemates were working busy schedules and filling up on unhealthy convenience snacks.

Troubled, Young sought to design a product that would both fulfill their nutrition needs and flow with their schedule. Over the course of the next year, he experimented with different combinations of real-food powders, amending the recipes daily.

“The absolutely critical part was the fact I was in this huge house where constant iteration was required,” Young says. “There would be 20 people, everyday, who were like, ‘what’s the newest version of Ample? What’s going on?’ Because there were so many iterations of this and because people really did want it, it took off almost immediately.”

In May 2016, Young launched Ample online via Indiegogo crowdfunding. Young now approaches the end of his campaign, with just over one week left.

Below, Young shares the magic formula behind his crowdfunding success, so you too can crush your campaign in just 7 steps.

1. Start 2-3 months in advance. Give yourself plenty of time to plan the campaign, create top-notch content, and coordinate the launch date. The growth leading up to the campaign is just as important as the growth during the campaign.

2. Understand your customer. Narrow your market down to as small as you possibly can — build your campaign for a single “avatar” customer. Young defined his avatar’s idols and sent them them samples of Ample to get testimonials from people his avatar trusted and admired.

3. Focus on the content. Write the entire campaign page before you begin anything else. Make sure it is organized and includes all of the relevant information. Then use the campaign page as a blueprint for your video, in which you’ll really bring your product to life.

4. Decide on a price that makes sense. Ideally, you’ll want your price point to allow you to reach your goal with just a few hundred backers or less. Keep in mind the average contribution tends to be about $75, so you won’t actually need to aim for as many backers as you think.

5. Create a “lifetime” perk. Give your backers the option to enjoy your product for life. Young priced a lifetime supply of Ample at $5,000, which enabled him to reach his goal quickly — viewers saw plenty of money funneling in early, which increased Ample’s credibility and perceived value.

6. Invest money into your campaign. It’s worth it to invest some money into your campaign upfront so that it appears professional, polished, and valuable. Consider hiring a film crew, a graphic designer, and an editor. The better your campaign looks, the more backers you’ll attract, so consider it an investment that will pay for itself.

7. Ride the wave of momentum. “People want to bet on a winner,” Young says. “If you really want to make this thing successful, you actually need to hit your campaign goal not within 30 days but within 3 days.” Capitalize on the excitement at the beginning of your campaign to maximize backers early on, get on your platform’s featured page, and appear on podcasts to spread the word.

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March 1, 2018
5 Steps To Perfecting A Pitch And Selling With Purpose

We’ve all heard or seen a sales pitch. It goes something like, “look at my this, you need this, let me tell you about this, you should want this, you should really buy this,” etc.

But, that’s the trouble with the traditional sales pitch – it is often unsolicited, immediately putting the other person on the defensive. They feel the need to defend themselves while the one doing the selling feels the need to jump.

It’s highly unlikely you’re going to close a sale when you’ve created a wall between you and your client. The key is, according to the host of The Foundation podcast and founder of the group Selling On Purpose, Frank Mocerino, to “help facilitate your client in discovering what they want and align yourself with them.”

Mocerino has personally negotiated over $6 million in deals, across a wide range of markets, in the last few years. He’s developed a unique method of negotiation based on the psychology of decision-making and the principle of selling on the foundation of integrity.

I caught up with him to talk about his game-changing sales strategy on this week’s podcast episode, “How To Overcome Your Fear Of Selling w/ Selling On Purpose’s Founder Frank Mocerino.”

Mocerino shares, “You should just throw the idea that you should pitch someone out the window. The way people decide [to bite is after] they need to come to an understanding from themselves. Once I started understanding the way people were actually making decisions, what I said didn’t matter as much, my tonality didn’t matter as much, but what mattered was that I was there to help people discover undiscovered problems in their life or business.”

Mocerino has found that the secret to selling boils down to these five steps:

Step #1: Ask Powerful Questions

In order to align yourself with your client, you need to understand what is going on in their mind when they are making a decision. Your role is to ask them powerful, clarifying questions to help them uncover the root of their problem before identifying a solution. Think about the last time you bought a car. If the salesperson was effective, they asked you what you were gonna use the car for, what features you wanted, how important gas mileage was, etc before you made the purchase.

Step #2: Connect Them To What They Really Desire

Ask them what their ideal experience would be like a year from now — where they want to be financially, the kind of experiences they want to have, the freedom this would afford them, and what this looks and feels like. Shift the focus away from their problems and connect them to what they are truly after.

Step #3: Facilitate A Discovery Process For Them

Don’t tell them what they need — help them to come to an understanding of things for themselves. Your ability to listen is what’s most important here. Mocerino says, “be interested rather than interesting.”

Step #4: Align Their Solution With What You Can Offer

Most people don’t realize they have a broken decision-making process.This is the trick to getting them to feel like they thought of your product before you even mentioned it. When they’ve identified a solution, frame your product as the perfect match.

Step #5: Refine Your Approach

Make sure to take note of what isn’t working, as well, so you can make adjustments and be more effective in the future. Mocerino says, “If you’re anything like me, you just want to focus on the things you’re doing well, and if somebody tells you that something isn’t working for them, or they question what you’re saying, you want to go bury your head in the sand. But that was exactly where I knew I could learn the most from.”

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
How To Increase Your Value So Your Clients Will Want To Pay You More Money

“How much should I charge?” Is one of the questions I frequently hear from those that are just starting out or have hit a plateau in their business. It is as if that one question in and of itself can hold you back from taking the next step. I have seen close friends and colleagues struggle over coming up with the “right answer” and as a result they decide on a number that is unsatisfying or just enough.

There are countless examples of talented creatives, coaches, service providers, and emerging thought leaders like 16-year-old Madison McGregor who is launching a movement to unite Generation Z, that deliver great value yet, at the end of each month, the dollar amount they take home doesn’t reflect the value they put out. According to Next Web, “66% of founders pay themselves less than $50,000 per year” of the 11,160 startups surveyed worldwide.

Figuring out what you are worth and how much value the services or products you have to offer can be difficult. It is a challenge of not wanting to charge too much for fear of facing rejection, yet not wanting to charge too little and be in a constant state of survival.

Lynan Saperstein, the founder of Experience Experts, a boutique company that helps clients in the tourism industry create more reach and profit, encounters this question of quantifying value daily.

Saperstein shares on this week’s podcast episode her process for determining what you are worth.

As Saperstein sees it, worth “has to do with how you value yourself, your personal growth, your spirituality journey, and your willingness to continue to learn and understand yourself.” She believes investing in yourself is like investing in your business. Being willing to spend the money upfront to develop the relationship with yourself, your interpersonal skills, and your mindset play essential roles in your business.

For Saperstein, it was jumping to take a Reiki training, with the last few dollars she had in her savings account, several years ago when she was transitioning out of a period of healing from a car accident and losing her job. She knew she just had to do it, even if it was scary and exciting.

“I just kept following my highest excitement. Whatever inspired me that got me lit up and turned on, I did. I did a coaching training, then a marketing training, then I got to see what I was really good at. When I started business coaching I was just a magnet, clients started flying at me and I got to choose who I wanted to work with”, according to Saperstein.

Once you realize that every aspect of your life is connected; the component parts function harmoniously rather than independently of one another. When you take a composite perspective of your life, the lines between work, recreation, relationships, health, spirituality and leisure begin to fade. You relationship to value then begins to change and you can thus have greater confidence to charge more for the services you provide.

As you expand your skillset, keep in mind that skills that might not seem directly applicable to the type of service you provide or the industry you work in can actually work in your favor and help you to stand out. Oftentimes, unexpected skills fulfill an unmet need and cause others to choose you above the competition. In turn, your business becomes more attractive and you can raise your price.

According to Saperstein, “By bringing marketing or some skill set that is desperately needed in an industry or marketplace you can charge a lot, they are so grateful for you, and you can get extremely ridiculous results with them and a massive return on their investment. Ultimately, that is all they want.”

When you have done the work on yourself upfront, the process for putting a price tag on your worth can actually be quite simple. If you find yourself stuck, consider these three things:

How much you should charge starts with how much you value yourself. By transforming the relationship you have to yourself you will find more confidence in communicating your value to someone else.
You are the only one that can offer what you do. There are no real competitors because you are going to do it your own way and certain clients are going to respond to you instead of someone else.
You can always ask.“What is this worth to you? How much is a client or sale worth to them. Would you be willing to make the investment of 1 person or 10 people with me?” Once you get one yes, it opens up a gateway for another.

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018