5 step plan on how to create a successful business.

In this article, I am going to teach you how to build a successful business. This step-by-step guide is one of the best articles you have read in a long time because it really helps you to create another success story in your marketplace.

We are going to cover everything you need to understand. These are 5 topics you are going to learn:

I will show you how to build the best product using 5 simple steps. People want solutions that truly help them to solve their problems.

One Famous economist invented the five levels of a successful product in 1960. For 70+ years, it helped marketers and business owners to create successful products and services.

The same model is responsible for our world’s best products and services. They create millions and millions of euros every year. You have a chance to build your very own money machine by walking thru this model.

Next step, you have to find buyers for your product. You want to attract the right customers and make them interested. Potential customers are those who have the problems you solve, have interest and are capable of buying your solution.

I will tell you clearly how to find those customers who are ready to open their wallets and buy.

People don´t buy products or services. People buy brands, lifestyles, trends. What the brand looks like? What does the brand mean? Brands attract people and they make a buying decision based on that?

People have many reasons for purchasing a product or service. They can imitate somebody for example celebrity. They can follow market trends and popularity. They can buy because of friends’ testimonials. The brand attracts and positions itself based on customers buying habits.

Wrong pricing can push customers backwards. I am going to tell you 5 common pricing strategies and how you can apply them to your business.

Price is not something you can just set without extra thinking. You must follow pricing strategies to analyse the market and the customer psychology.

Nowadays businesses focus more on inbound where customers contact you directly rather than contacting them via cold call or cold email. Inbound is successful when you put more time into brand management and marketing. I´ll share with you 3 different ways you can do inbound marketing.

Inbound is all about valuable content where you show people that you are a skilled, professional company that can solve even the toughest problems. Knowledge attracts customers because they what to get the best possible solution.

I´ll tell you how to do inbound, what type of content to produce and where to share them.

Read, study, understand then apply what you have learnt. You will get massive results. I am not saying you will become a millionaire in a year or two without doing anything. My job is to give you all the tools you need. How you change your life depends on you how you are going to use this plan.

How to make the best product or service in your market?

Why good and different products or services are important?

Let’s start with the product. It’s what you sell. Without it, the business doesn’t exist. The first job you have is to design and create one of the best products in your market.

A great product makes you more forward-looking. It encourages you to make powerful marketing campaigns that will grab a large market share under competitors’ eyes.

Now I´m going to explain the five levels of a successful product.

Level 1

It starts with the products core benefit. What is the basic benefit of your product? Maybe its bike and its benefit are to ride with it. Helps you to get from place a to b. The car’s benefit is the same, but it moves when you push the gas.

Maybe it´s a food delivery company. Its job is to take the food from a restaurant and bring it to your table.

What is the simple meaning of your product? We will add more value around it in the next steps.

Level 2

What are the basic product elements? Elements every product like it should have. These elements are something considered self-evidence that can´t be missing. Customers are waiting for them.

Every smartphone has a screen, camera, calling function, microphone, and internet. Every hairdryer fans hot air and it has a unique shape.

Every product should have all basic elements. Without them, the product is valueless that nobody would buy. A car without tires doesn´t make any sense. Or imagine a lamp without a light function. A cup that has a hole is the worst.

In this step, you must write down all basic elements. Make sure you have them all.

Level 3

Your customers must get everything they normally expect. Expectations are things they wait the business includes.

For example, for hotels, customers expect clean beds, clean toilets, 24/7 customer service, room service and restaurants. Expectations are linked to how much they pay. If you charge a premium price, they expect a wide range of extra services.

If you exclude 1 or 2, it will not put you in bankruptcy, but you will make fewer sales and get less loyal clients because people will get sad.

People expect chocolate to be delicious, if it’s not, nobody buys it again and it kills the brand.

What are those expectations people normally get when people buy similar products or services? How important are they?

Level 4

This level is all about finding those differentiating parts that make your product better than competitors.

How can your business add more value to your product or service?

If it’s renting or selling real estate, you can offer full furniture and internet. Customers often set a decision based on extra stuff they get with a core product. People want more than what they are looking for.

People also love a product with multiple functions.

Level 5

You must think about new ways to attract your customers. Continuously develop your product.

Market changes all the time. New trends and innovations can begin multiple times a year.

To be first, analyse and predict when peoples need might change. You will get an advantage if you are first to bring something new to the market. Let competitors be imitators.

How to find your potential customers.

You have a solution, but who is the potential buyer? Who has the problems you solve?

Create different segments based on commonalities and interests. Those in the same segment share similar needs and wants. Good segmentation makes marketing more accurate. You can even make identify potential buyers.

Mix different information’s and create buyer personas. They tell you clearly what do your potential clients look like.

There are 4 main segmentation strategies:

Demographic segmentation is grouping people based on different areas such as income, age, gender, job, status, race, religion and much more.

Geographic segmentation is grouping people based on their location details such as country, city, climate, language, and cultural differences.

Behavioral segmentation is segmenting people based on their behavior and how they live their life. This tells what decisions people make in different situations. There you analyse for example what people do in-store on in website? Behavioral information helps you give them personalized content.

Psychographic segmentation is grouping people based on their beliefs, motivations, and priorities. Why do people make the decisions they make? This segmentation gives a more personal view of customers likes, dislikes, wants, and needs. Personality, lifestyles, and social class can be analysed.

After you know your customer, you must define your target market strategy. The target market is where the company wants to focus and put all its marketing effort. Targets, money-making machines can be only one or multiple segments.

I will teach you how you choose what segment(s) to target. You can have 5 different strategies:

Single-segment strategy work if you want to focus to serve one type of people who are looking for one benefit. Headphones are for people who want to get a personal sound experience. You can get an advantage over your competitors if you understand people deeply and develop the best products in that category.

You can use the Selective segment strategy. Write down all possible buyers, make multiple segments and target those money makers. Choose this method if you want to make money in the first place. Because you can´t master multiple areas. A good product that sells is enough.

Product specialization is a good strategy when you decide to focus on the same product. Then find all the possible buyers. That product can be easily replaced by new technology.

However, if you decide to stick to your product or service, update, innovate something new and listen to your customers to hear what they need.

Your company can focus on one market. Market specialization is serving the customers and solving their problems with different products and services. You must continuously be awake about their situation and offer what do they need.

Full market coverage is going after the whole market with one offer. When it comes to marketing, each group needs a different approach and communication. Different people require different communication that is emotional for them.

What do your strategy might be, always analyse your customer and design the product to meet current requirements and demands.

How to build the best brand that motivates your customers to buy from you.

Probably many firms sell similar products or services. People make a buying decision based on brand. I believe you want to know what a brand is and how to make a good brand.

A brand is what do people think when they see your products and how do they feel after they have used them. A brand is a feeling. It´s what happens in customers heads. Identifying the producer is the first meaning.

A brand is a reputation, image in a marketplace. Parts that build a brand are marketing, messaging, employees, company culture and many more.

A brand is a promise between the firm and the people about possible benefits. Expectations help people to choose a good product and to reduce risks.

It takes years to build a strong brand, but one little mistake can destroy it all. You always have to be aware of what is happening around you. Setbacks happen to everyone. Have a plan for how to survive during hard times.

For a company, a good brand gives the protection and uniqueness of its products which means it can´t be copied. Trademarks, patents, and copyrights are ways to cast uniqueness to an iron.

Now we are going to build a brand using a 4-step brand resonance model.

1. What is your identity?

How can people recognize you? It’s the first elements, colors, slogans, product names, packaging, symbols they see. There is not something beautiful that sound and looks good.

Identity must be:

Easy to memorize that are made from simple parts. Too colorful or complicated designs are hard to keep in mind.

Meaningful. It must not be pointless at all.

Research what do your customers might like. Show those attractive elements, colors, and words they love.

Easily adapts to your business. Especially, if you make new products make sure new brands are similar to other products or somehow adaptive.

You must be able to protect your brand. Don´t imitate others. Identity must be unique that is hard to imitate.

2. Why does your business exist?

What values and benefits you are offering to your customers? How will your customer’s life change? How different you are from your competitors?

Brand meaning is divided into two: Performance and Imagery. Performance is how do you satisfy your customer’s needs. Imagery is how does your customer feel about you.

Let’s break down performance first:

It’s about keeping the brand value high thru continuously brand equity development and marketing.

Innovations and new products or updated elements for example new package but same product.

New accessories for the product that make it better. A book can have an online course, an audiobook, the best notes from previous readers and a cover.

Introduce a new product under the same brand (brand extension). For example, Lime juice, Lime juice Lite, Lime juice no sugar.

What about imagery:

Marketing can control peoples imagination. You must always think about what do you want people to think about you. Do your marketing based on that. For example, want to be kind? Make lots of charity and help weaker.

Testimonials and ratings are the big part that creates trust. People believe what others are experiencing. The bigger or famous name has more impact on people.

Video testimonials, press releases, interviews all have an impact. Words of mouth are powerful.

How does your brand affect your customer’s feelings thru the social and psychological levels?

3. How do your customers respond to your marketing?

What do they feel and think about your brand?

The response is divided into judgements and feelings. Judgements are what do they believe your brand makes happen. Feelings are what emotions and feelings did your brand create.

What are judgement?

People can have an opinion about product quality. You want to have better quality than competitors. Be better in areas where your competitors are better than you.

People want to trust the brand. you can increase it by offering information, showing client testimonials and feedback, encouraging your team to be micro-influencers.

Being consistent in content creation creates trust in many ways.

A business gets a sale if it’s liked. A customer who has a positive connection will become a loyal client. Include happiness and enjoyment in your brand strategy.

All stages must lead to a client that is considering buying from you. If you attract lots of potential customers but with minimal sales fix the customer response.

What are feelings?

Feelings and emotions your brand creates. For example, Bentley creates luxury. Make-up brands beauty.

What emotions (Sadness, happiness etc.) do your firm messaging create? If you show beaches, yachts and money,

Think about what emotions you want people to have before doing your marketing.

You must have an emotional connection to your customers. It makes them loyal customers that want to buy continuously even if the price changes.

For example, wearing a Rolex brings strong emotion about luxury and success. It´s more than just a watch.

4. You need to have a good relationship with your customers.

The aim is to maximise customer loyalty in all touchpoints (Reading blogs, following social media, sharing recommendations and buying products and services).

Customized products make people happier and they pay more. Things that are something only for them. For example, tailored clothes or cars cost more and customers stick to brands longer.

Build a network where you keep in touch frequently. A Linkedin group, an email list, a Facebook group. They all work. Based on statistics, email-list has the biggest ROI.

Feedback helps you to better understand customer needs and wants. Improve your products to better serve your customers.

5. How to price your product or service?

I will teach you a few common pricing strategies. Everything must have a price. If you are thinking a price is just a number that can be set you are wrong. The pricing strategy is real.

I would say the easiest and the most common way to set a price is to calculate your costs and to add a small markup fee.

Ask yourself how much it takes your business to make the end product or service (Working hours, salaries, raw materials, office rent and so on.) then add a profit. Maybe 5-10% profit is good, depending on what do you sell.

If you sell food that people buy many times profit margin is lower than products people buy once or twice in their lifetime (cars, real estate.)

Profit margin depends on volume, brand quality and costs. Expensive products like yachts with a low volume and unknown brands can have a low-profit margin. An expensive product doesn’t always mean low profit.

If Apple make a car, it would be expensive. Now Apple phones have a higher profit margin. In the end brand quality make a difference.

Bundle, package. Multiple products with the same price. Multiple products add more value to the product while offering a discount on everything. Usually, if the customers want to buy products separately, they cost more.

The bundle is a good choice if the business wants to offer a discount, give more value and get rid of older products to make room for newer products.

The bundle is also one effective way to grow the buying probability. People would love to buy everything needed at once.

Pricing on time is used in some services where the customer needs urgent help. If you call a lawyer, interpreter, or coach, they will charge you the more you take their time.

That pricing model has some cons. Customers will most likely hustle to ask all questions because they want to get through with the smallest charge possible. It´s not good to hustle. The mind doesn’t function correctly under pressure.

Pay-per-time used with terms is a good idea:

- A minimum and maximum fee have many benefits. Customer, employee and the business all calm down. The business can´t cheat for example in cleaning space employees slowly take their time. The business charges more and the employee make more money. Bad for the customer who pays for everything.

- Discounts if the booking is stretched. For example, you could offer 1h on coaching for 99€. The next hour is 50% off. People will surely take another hour even if they don´t need that much.

Same or average price than your competitors works for you if your product and brand do not differ from the majority of firms. If you sell, for example, milk, taxi services and massage services set your price based on what competitors are charging.

But if it’s Ferrari drive, milk with special flavour or special massage from china, you can charge more than average.

If you have a higher price, nobody will buy from you. Lower price looks cheap and low quality. 2€ for milk is too much or 200€ for a 1-hour massage. Different price is good when the product or service is also different.

That strategy has one negative side. You are not the leader. Your prices and profits depend on other businesses. If they cut their prices, you also cut. If they lift you lift. You are a follower and react to what others are doing.

Being a follower is good in some industries where people don´t care about being different. A pen, a calculator and toilet paper are those normal products you can design differently just a little bit, but the function is simple.

Price based on results. The more results you make, the more money you charge. If you fail to deliver your promise, you can send no more than a 0€ invoice.

This strategy motivates the entrepreneur to do their job perfectly with lots of passion because getting money depends on results. Good for the customers. First of all the customer gets the best possible service. Secondly, the price on results is itself a money-back guarantee because the customer carries zero risks.

Delivered results have nothing to do with how much time you have put into the project. You can increase the client’s revenue by 200% with 2 hours of work per day. You can take multiple clients at the same time.

The entrepreneur gets also more if it breaks the bank and delivers way more than expected. The goal is to over-deliver and make the customer happier. Money will follow immediately.

The top strategy to attract potential customers

It´s inbound strategy! Be the expert. Let clients contact you

I will share with you the common ways to get inbound leads and sales.

What is video marketing?

Video marketing is using videos for different purposes. Statistics tell us more than 60% of businesses use videos as a marketing tool and the number is increasing every year. It means that there is a big demand for videos.

We have many different video types. I will share with you some common video types you are likely to use:

1. Video ads and business promotion videos. These are quick videos under 10 – 15 seconds. Start with a hook then tell how you bring the promise, and lastly, it’s time for closing. For example:

Hook: I will teach you how you can 10x your sales in only 180 days.

How: We will go thru the best and proven inbound strategy. Responsible for 100 of millions of dollars in sales worldwide.

Close: Book a free 15-minute call with me so I can explain how this strategy works for you. Book a call today.

A good ad is a strong lead magnet. It has to be designed to persuade everybody who sees the ad.

2. Explainer videos are done to provide value. Talk about one topic and teach your audience in about 15-20 minutes, for example, marketing trends in 2022. Start with a hook and introduction to what you will teach them.

Then dive straight to your content.

3. Testimonials are usually about 3 minutes. They are excellent social proof. People trust videos where your customer are talking about how the product or services worked.

People easily think that if it worked for him, it´ll work for me too. That is the power of testimonials.

You can ask customers things like how this product helped them, how much time and money the product or service have saved, what problems it kept away.

4. Mini-courses and educational videos can be between 30 minutes to 90 minutes. Videos can be multiple for example, part, 1,2 and 3 versions. They offer deep information that is well detailed.

5. Social media videos are short, under 1 minute. You can make motivational, inspirational videos. Remind them of something important and educate them.

Tell updates about your business life and share how are you doing. People love people’s true life. You can even share your personal life but be careful. Don´t be too open!

What benefits do they have?

You must understand the three video types for every stage of your marketing funnel: Awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Awareness videos are designed for people who don´t know about you. Short videos where you talk about your business and its benefits. These videos must talk clearly about your existence.

Consideration is the people considering what is next. Many businesses sell similar stuff. You want to stand out from the crowd to be customers primary choice.

You want to build your brand very attractive. This stage is all about building a brand and trust.

The conversion stage is all about selling and closing. You need to ask customers to buy your solution.

Tell about your products, discounts, new products, limited-editions, packages, prices and many more. Consideration videos.

How to get leads and sales from a video?

The answer for that is to have a CALL-TO-ACTION. CTA motivates people to take action like downloading a book, scheduling a call, buying your product. You don´t just tell them to do something.

You must motivate them to take that action. You must give them a reason. Tell them what they´ll get if they do that. The same closing methods apply to video CTAs. I´ll teach you a few:

Tell me your email to get a 25% discount.

Grab a free 30 min call where I´ll teach you how you can 10x your profits in one year.

If you buy your membership today, you will get 1 month free.

I have 10 free physical books left, order now to get yours tomorrow.

Follow me to get free daily tips.

Like that. You got the idea. You can copy and paste them to your next project. I´ll not become angry.

Give them a good reason why they must take that action. If the reason is good enough, they will do it.

Why being social is good for your business?

Social media has one simple rule: “You are what you show”. This is true from a brand perspective. Your brand is simply what people see with their eyes. If potential customers smell your high skills, they will probably buy from you.

All posts, contents, pictures, quotes, videos everything must build your brand. You must prove your skills. Be creative. Be creator. Do something different. Offer value all the time.

You can serve, help, and answer your customer’s questions. Be customer-centric. It makes them happy. See example from Elon Musk. The billionaire serves and gets ideas from its customers.

What social media channels you should focus on?

There are tons of channels to choose from: Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and many more. How to know which is the best platform for you?

Simple. Who are your customers? Where do you think you can find them?

Instagram is for visual content. For example, for photographers, graphic designers, clothing models and travel companies IG is the perfect platform.

Instagram is also good for sharing backstage materials and diving deeper into your business/lifestyle. People are interested in real people.

TikTok is for having fun. Content makes absolutely no sense there. Music videos, vines, dances, lies, funny stories, games and others. You can attract a younger audience, mostly under 25-year-old people.

LinkedIn is for btob professionals. For me, it´s my primary channel to get sales, leads and collaborate with someone like me, a marketer, and a business professional. A valuable network creates room for big opportunities you can only dream of.

On YouTube, you can find many video content. Very good learning platform. You can nearly get a small 10 min video on any subject. Most internet traffic goes thru Google. YouTube is the second.

It´s not a bad idea to focus on YouTube. Articles and YouTube videos together are a powerful way to get inbound leads.

Answer comments, answer questions from users. Have a real conversation with them. They will engage more and tell their friend about your content.

How to get leads from social media?

One of the best ways to get more attention is to organise a competition where the winner can get something big. It can be a PS5-game console or a brand-new iPhone. Draws are a good idea too. It´s hard to not attend an exciting program.

Social media works best when you build your brand and let them visit your website. They will land on a landing page where the copy does the selling part.

I don’t recommend selling in any social media posts and content. Those who are interested want to do business with you and buy from stuff.

Always answer direct messages. Don´t ignore them! Take your messages seriously. The Sender can be interested. You want to contact them in buying mode. That’s why you have to be fast.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation is a way to get seen on Google search results so your potential customers can find you.

Usually, people search for their problems on Google. They can search things like “What is a personal brand?”. Search results are those that answer the problem.

The first few results are paid advertisement. Businesses pay money to be seen on those key results.

Under the ads are the organic results. Google designed its search robot to sort articles based on how good the answer is to that question and how relevant they are. The search giant wants to serve its users in the best possible way. The better the article the better ranking it gets.

There are many more factors that define the end ranking.

How many articles should I write each week and how long they should be?

Based on statistics 500 to 1000 words long article is rich enough to bring the best value. Answering a question in many ways makes people fall in love with you and engage in your content.

Maybe they will leave a comment, or they can share with their entrepreneur friends, their LinkedIn connections, or other social media channels. The article makes more noise and reaches more people. More reach means more traffic.

That kind of long-form article one time a week is enough.

Less than 300 words don´t solve the problem. People get upset and never will visit your blog again.

What are other things that decide my rankings?

Page speed

Mastering this you should go a little deeper on technical stuff. What code you are using and how your website is made. WordPress does a very good job. It´s mostly used website in the world.

Your website must fully load as fast as possible. We are talking about seconds. About half of customers will leave if the website takes more than 3 seconds. Every second matters.

Mobile readiness

This should be a global law. Every year more and more people are surfing the internet using a mobile device. Nowadays Google has a mobile-first design.

That means if your site doesn’t work on mobiles, I will probably fall behind. More sites are not working fully on mobiles which is sad because they lose the traffic they deserve.

Security

Search engines care about their user’s security. They want to show websites that are safe to visit. Google doesn’t want that a virus follows its users from a broken or polluted website.

Security depends on what is your homepage is about. Do you sell products? Do you collect credit card information? Address information?

Security matters for the visitor as well as the business. The business doesn’t want to get spam emails or annoying fake appointments on its calendar.

There is free website encryption called Let’s encrypt. It works very well for small businesses. But if you are a little bit bigger, you must buy quality encryption. You have tons of providers to choose from.

How to get leads from an article?

Now you want to turn the visitor into paying customer, right? I will show you some common ways that are possible.

You want to know the visitor so you can contact them. Visitors are a sign they are interested in this content. If it’s about branding or marketing. Probably they are marketers, entrepreneurs, business people as a general.

We have to collect their information. By giving them more value (Book, online course, or video) probability of them sharing their email with you increases. You can contact them thru email.

Also, you can give them free 30 min consultation. 25 min value and 5 min selling. Consultation can be on a video call or a normal call.

You can subscribe to them in your newsletter. Slowly get them to trust you. Once in a while talk about your services.

Host a free webinar or seminar. People love to attend events and they are more focused than on a webinar. Free seminar gives attendees much more value, networking.