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3 Important Lessons from Merry Jane – part 3
Posted on April 29, 2009 - Filed Under Jane Thoughts, Success Tips for Jane
This article focuses on a type of business owner known as Merry Jane, an entrepreneur who has created a business she enjoys and that meets her needs for time freedom. Consequently, she tends to be able to take time off on a regular basis-whether it’s to enjoy friends and family, her career/employment, or other passions and interests she may have. Merry Jane also typically has some other source of income (whether from her own employment, her spouse’s employment, or retirement/savings income), so she does not feel the extreme stress some other entrepreneurs encounter related to profitability. Though her business is not generating a large amount of income at the moment, Merry Jane is happy with the balance and freedom she’s created in her life. According to the study, roughly 19% of women business owners fit the Merry Jane type.
Because Merry Jane has such a unique approach to business, she presents a number of lessons of interest to anyone considering starting a business in their spare time.
Lesson #3
Keep the business simple and focus on the marketing.
Many Merry Janes are able to build businesses that meet their needs by doing one thing only and doing it really well. Whether they offer a specific type of coaching or whether they are selling a product, the key is to get as many customers buying their “one great thing” as possible. In fact, that’s really the primary challenge our Merry Jane friends report: “I know what I’m doing and how. I’ve got systems that will help me serve customers quickly, easily and well. How do I find more customers?” That’s where the marketing focus comes in.
When you have a systematized process that will allow you to take on more customers with minimal effort, it’s time to fine-tune your marketing. Because Merry Jane is generally trying to add income incrementally and not focused on growing a huge business immediately, one powerful method is using referral and frequent-customer techniques to grow her business.
If you’ve already incorporated these methods and/or if you need to grow more quickly, it’s time to experiment with other approaches. Have you built a simple web sales page that gives an enticing offer so you can collect contact information for prospects? Have you built a system to follow up on those leads? Do you have a regular communication vehicle to help you stay in front of your prospects regularly (like a free e-zine or tips newsletter) so they will remember to recommend and refer you? And, if you have all of these already, how could you fine-tune your language or your process to increase your success rate?
Finally, if all of these are working well for you, it may be time to consider incorporating additional marketing techniques, like trying Google Ad Words, buying classified ads in ezines or local newspapers, holding a free teleseminar, or any of a dozen different business building tactics. The key is to pick one new method and test it to see how it works for your business. Then systematize it, perfect it and seek the next marketing idea. This stepwise approach is a great way to improve your marketing effectiveness without making yourself crazy.
These are 3 great lessons to be learned from Merry Jane. Why not implement them into your business today?
<–Read part 1……………<–Read part 2
One Response to “3 Important Lessons from Merry Jane – part 3”
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Wow! I have never looked at business this way. We sell gift baskets and when we get a sales lull our first thought is “we need more baskets!” After reading this post, I realize we don’t need more baskets, we need more customers buying the baskets we already have!