What Is Holding Your Business Back From Success?

I'm just starting to get stuck into Rich Schefren's Business Growth Programme, and I was sorting out a folder to keep everything in, and tidying up the notes from listening to previous videos, when I found a bit of paper on which I had written "Rich's Theory Of Constraints" at the top.

Stopping to look it over, I realised that this bit of paper with my notes on it, contained some good stuff, which I could share with you.

Rich says that you have to start thinking of Business as a System and that if that is so, what is the constraint to growing that Business/System?

Apart from the size of your mailing list, the other constraint is whether you have a focused, clear and compelling offer, which you are making to a hungry marketplace.

Thinking about that in context of the Money Gym, we certainly have a hungry marketplace - the wealth creation industry is still in it's infancy in Europe although some competitors are coming in from the USA and Australia.

I personally think that a reputable UK based wealth creation education company - with a proven track record of creating UK millionaires - has the ability to seize significant market share, ahead of the Russ Whitneys, the Inside Tracks (both of which focus on property at the moment) and the XL Foundation (Roger Hamilton) from Asia, both of which follow a sales process and formula that a lot of Brits - particularly women - find quite "hard sell".

And unless you live, at least part time, in the personal development world it's doubtful you would come across them anyway.

Marcus De Maria's "Wealth Workout" has been neck and neck with The Money Gym for years, pioneering this market in the UK, and we love Marcus and Mudrika and their team. His main core business is "Investment Mastery" and at the WW weekends, he caters for the group coaching environment, with brilliant upbeat 2-day workshops (we speak at them for him on Internet marketing and he speaks for us on Stock Market investing and trading).

So, do we have a clear, focused and compelling offer. I think it's compelling, especially since we have stopped fighting shy of using words like wealth creation, becoming a millionaire etc.. I used to say "financial intelligence" and while accurate, it just didn't seem sexy enough for some. The word rich is much sexier than intelligence, it seems!

Is it focused? It has been for years, with one product which was the one year full coaching programme. We have flirted with other price points and other products, but it just diluted the focus, with mixed results.

However, as a result of Rich's videos, we have realised that, to build a multi-million company and to be able to reach more people with the Financial Freedom message, we need a range of products but to keep them focused, we are bringing them all under The Money Gym Club umbrella. If they don't fit under that, we won't offer them.

Hence, we are relaunching The Money Gym Club - with affordable levels for all, from Free, Silver (home study), Women Talk Money (group coaching) and the Gold & Gold Express levels (the latter for folks in a hurry).

Essentially the free level will get the ezine, the 101 day version of my book and early notification of events.

The Silver will get all the materials and monthly group coaching calls and access to some forums on a read-only basis.

The Gold will get all the materials, weekly Wealth creation Tele-Seminars, personal one-to-one wealth coaching sessions with a Money Gym coach (all ex-clients), the ability to attend our famed Experts Workshops and many other goodies.

Pretty focused if we keep it all under the Money Gym Club banner, I think.

Rich goes on to say that you should ideally initially pick businesses where you are the prospect, because it makes it easier to to know if your offer is compelling enough, and interestingly, I created the Money Gym originally because I wanted it - there just wasn't anything like it out there - and there still isn't.

My notes go onto say that a great offer with rubbish copywriting will always outsell a rubbish offer with great copywriting - I can just hear the howls of rage from various copywriter friends of mine out there.

This is good news for fledgling businesses, because good copywriters are - quite understandably - very expensive. Not expensive when you compare their results to what you were achieving before in terms of sales, and how much more you can sell if you have a great offer AND great copywriting, but often out of reach of a start-up unless you are in the enviable position of having a lot of wads of initial funding.

So what makes an irresistible offer?

Well, before we go there, I would just like to remind everyone of the late great founder of coaching Thomas Leonard, and the fact that he was teaching this stuff to new coaches as far back as 1997 - 1999. That man WAS a genius and he died nine years ago this week - too soon, way too soon.

Continued Below >>>>>

An irresistible offer solves an urgent and pressing need or problem.

An irresistible offer solves an urgent and pressing need or problem.

Well the Money Gym certainly does that. Most of our ezine readers say that their perception is that they don't earn enough to save, let alone invest for their future (and if you don't understand the difference between saving and investing, don't worry, neither did I for years!)

They may hate their job, be ill and stressed, or worry about being dependent on a man, or a job where they don't feel secure. They think about a poverty stricken old age, with no pension provision to speak of, perhaps because of divorce or not earning while having children.

That's pretty urgent and pressing.

An irresistible offer solves that pressing need or problem with a solution that is unique and/or superior - ideally both!

As far as I know, The Money Gym is unique in offering a one year programme with a personally matched up Wealth Coach, all of whom have all been clients themselves at one time. They are all experts in at least one, often two of the "Four Lanes of the Wealth Highway" and can refer clients onto other coaches and our team of experts.

An irresistible offer is backed up by proof - as much proof as possible. And proof by all sorts of people - different ages, races, educational background.....to show that you are offering a solution that works for many kinds of people.

We have testimonials from clients going as far back as 1999 - many of the first year students of the Money Gym are now millionaires and many more know that not only will they definitely become so, but when that will happen. One of our first clients, a dentist, still says to me, in a joking fashion, when he sees me "Nicola, when will I be a millionaire?" knowing full well he's been a multi-millionaire for several years now. Funny!

We have helped doctors, dentists, accountants, lawyers, teachers, singers, gym owners, coaches, biologists, chemists, property investors, artists, personal trainers, mums and unemployed people - even bankrupts ..... you name it, they can do it. Takes longer for some, but they get there.

You have to have an appealing proposition that is hard to resist. When I first launched The Money Gym, I hosted the workshops in my own boutique hotel. I laid on all the food, and there were no extra expenses beyond the travel to get there.

That was pretty irresistible. Sadly, the hotel is no more (my business mentors pointed out that the profit / reward ratio was non-existent on that one! ) so it has got harder to create an appealing proposition that is hard to resist.

I think the ever-growing, fun and helpful community that exists around the Money Gym now helps there, along with the success stories that have arisen from clients and members striking up strategic partnerships between themselves.

Finally, my notes say that you must not hype promises beyond your believable proof.

Proof works in a staggered tier as follows:

1. First comes proof that you have done it yourself. When I first thought about this I initially thought that I didn't' have this with the Money Gym when I first started, except then I realised that I had managed to build a coaching business and I had invested in the stock market, and I had bought a property "no money down" which I then launched as a hotel business.

1. Then comes proof that you can teach others how to do it - I had enough clients testimonials because I had been sharing what I was learning about wealth creation with my life coaching clients.

1. Finally, the best kind of proof is that you can teach others who are perceived to be worse off in some way than the person looking at the programme. Thus a successful business person or professional would be reassured if they can see that someone who they perceive to be less educated or successful than them has managed to take the principles taught and make a go of it.

This is a bit of a dangerous one though, because people can be a bit snobby and you might go too far the other way, and put off your more successful client if they perceive that the programme is full of people who are too different to them. A fine line indeed.

So what did I learn from these notes, looking at them again?

I remembered anew that I must make the three different levels very clear in what they offer.

I must make sure that we have a wide cross section of people giving video testimonials on the site.

And I have renewed my focus on my two target markets - professionals and dynamic business people. They are feeling pain, they need us, and they can afford us.

But all are welcome, that's for sure.