This morning Ole Tillman (@oletillmann) opened Next 2012 at the main stage.

Ole talked about how technology is dissapearing into the background. It is everywhere that we do not even notice it anymore and feel it is normal. But what is beyond digital?

A location based Micro blogging service Echofy – with this app only people that are in your area can answer your message and you can only send messages to the people in your area. Blogging with ‘close’ friends or Micro microblogging.

Then Ole went on to introduce Matthias Schrader (@mattesmattes) of Sinnerschrader the company behind NEXT and Martin Enderle of Deutsche Telekom the new partner of Next Berlin.

This is the third NEXT in Berlin.

Digital is no longer Sexy René Overmann

Now really starting with the first presentation of René Overmann – CEO Deutsch Telekom

This presentation was kind of weird as he talked about low pricing with many people from abroad that are not using the internet connection on their phone at Next due to the high coast of roaming.  See also Henriette’s post A thin red line from analogue to digital to connectness

As Overmann was really talking from a telco point of view and not the consumers view here “Bad news Prices go down, traffic goes up. Good news: connectivity matters.”

Telcos will change and open up. These are 4 steps that Deutsche Telekom is doing today:

• incubation (BT’s incubator located in Berlin – launched now)
• Venturing
• Enabling
• Partnering

The origins of the digital univers by George Dyson

George Dyson is a science historian (Wikipedia)

Dyson’s presentation went so fast and was so interesting for a techie like me I could not blog during his presentation. So I am borrowing something here:

“The world has flipped from reliable code on unreliable machines, to reliable hardware but bugs in code…

Where will this go?

Four ideas:

The last point is interesting, we are going back to analog computing instead of more digital. Not sure but it is an interesting vision.

See Adam Tinworth’s post on the Next blog The Future of the Network – and the History of the Computer for more about these two talks.

You can watch a talk of Dyson at TED in 2003 here

High Performance Mobile – Steve Souders

Steve Souders (@souders) of Google talked about the importance of fast loading sites on mobile devices. You can download the slides (29 Mb) from his site or watch it at Slideboom now

The most interesting points I got from this presentation:

• Today fast internet access is the third most important thing on a mobile phone.
• If you want you see what your website experience is on mobile devices do the test at Blaze Mobile.
• For the images on your website, resize them based on the screen size of the user. For this you can use sencha.io another option is adaptive-images.com
• With HTML5 you can use app cache (offline apps, longer cache)
• Local storage 5 Mb allocation per website (instead of cache)

Take aways that Steve gave at the end of the presentation:

1. mobile WPO – speed matters even more
2. run Page Speed (Google)
3. mobile best practices (reducing requests, image size)

More on this topic at the O’Reilly Velocity event in Berlin , London, US

Smartphone and Tablet Development in 2012/2013 – Sundeep Madra

Sundeep Madra (@sundeep) of Xtreme Labs – talked about Smartphone and Tablet Development in 2012/2013: Trends and Best Practices

Best Practices

Embrace design and touch

Create that A-ha moment. The app needs to be fast (must be below 15 seconds)

Rethink the maps application
Rethink behaviors – ordering from scanned pictures in the supermarket.

2012/2013 Trends
Some of the best apps to come will be the ones you don’t need to see or touch

• Siri is just the beginning

Top experience trends:

• 3 clicks reward
• <15x experience (waiting for train/bus)
• think about a life without a laptop (dropbox, CloudOn, Fuze)
• Tablets as a second screen (airplay, TV)
• Retina Display is breaking your designs
• it looks ugly if you don’t fix it, and your design team will need to spend a lot more extra time to fix this
• More powerful hardware (Quad Core SGS3) will open up the possibilties for more power clients applications

Top developement trends

• Hybrid Apps (HTML5 + Native)
• Very Fast Mobile Web Experience (Twitter recently changed design and now uses one third less bandwidth)
• Apple UUID change required rewiring your apps and to spend more time managing your user’s indenties across your portfolios
• WP7/Windows 8 – major tablet player?

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

NEXT Berlin opens – morning sessions

Overall I am really happy. It is in my DNA. However sometimes I wonder why am I doing what I am doing. Do you know the feeling?

On a day like this I just start answering these questions again.

Why am I doing this?
How can I attract a great community?
What is my strategy?

Every now and then you need to write down the answer to these questions again. There is no use working on things that just keeps you busy. I want to make a difference.
You want to make a difference.

Some of the answers I have written down this morning when I asked the Why question again. I want to:

• help the self-employed to help more people and spread their message
• help independent professionals to earn more money and support their community
• help entrepreneurs in developing a wealthy balance in building their business and enjoy their family

Finding your purpose and making a living at it

Last week I came across this venn diagram. It was shared a number of times on Facebook.

The original is by Dorothy Shapland and can be found on Reflecting on “What I do”

It is a great diagram that you can use to find your bliss.

Answer the following questions:

• What you love
• What the world needs
• What the world will pay for
• What you are good at

In the core of this diagram you will find your bliss. It is where the answers to these four questions come together.

My Bliss

As an example I will answer these questions as I have written down earlier today in my diary.

What the world needs

• Successful Entrepreneurs that help people
• Entrepreneurs that help to develop their region
• Wealthy balanced entrepreneurs so that can continue to do what they need to do and take care of their family

What the world will pay for

• Guidance and support for entrepreneurs that want to grow
• Training for entrepreneurs to move forward
• Meet similar entrepreneurs

What I do well

• Explain in a practical way
• Make the self-employed think about why
• Start and develop communities

What I love

• Discover new things and sharing it to make people enthusiastic
• Cultures and countries
• Building and supporting the community
• Spending time with the family

In my webinar on Choosing your target audience I used a similar diagram to write down your big goal.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

The Hedgehog concept by Jim Collins from the book Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t (aff)

To find your BHAG you can answer these 3 questions:

• What can you be the best in world at
• What drives your economic engine
• What are you deeply passionate about

In the core of this Venn diagram is your Big Hairy Audacious Goal or BHAG.

This is also covered in my book Choose Your Target Audience which will be released in the next month.

Credit photo Buddhist Temple – Sala Thai

Your Bliss

Have you answered the 4 questions to find your bliss? Let me know what your bliss in the comments below.
Or share your Big Goal with the world below.

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Finding your purpose and making a living at it

You and I, we both have boundaries that are holding us back. These boundaries insure us that we stay safely in our comfort zone. How do you breakthrough these barriers to build a bridge to your next playing level?

Do these boundaries sound familiar

You have 190 subscribers in your newsletter and you will add some new subscribers every week, but when you send a newsletter you will also lose some. It feels like you can’t get past that 200 subscribers boundary.

You once had 900 visitors in one day in your blog. Normally it is around 200 visitors per day. The number of visitors is growing slowly but it seems like you will never get past the 900 visitors in one day mark again.

You earn EUR 48,000 in a year. The last few years you made a plan to make EUR 65,000. Then various things happen during the year that turns your plan upside down and again you do not make more than EUR 50,000.

The funny thing is that these are all imaginary boundaries.
Boundaries that are only true in your head.

Let me share an intimate boundary with you.

My money boundary

In my youth my father worked a lot. He worked at a furniture factory and they build beautiful oak interiors. Many days, weeks, months he worked over time. It felt like he was always late coming from his work.

Then the factory had to downsize to survive, the location in my hometown was closed and my father was laid off. He was in his forties, and this is not a good age to start looking for a new job. Like most people he already worked for more than 20 years in this job.

For 2 years we lived on unemployment pay. He did all kind of voluntary work, just to have something to do during the day. Then he got a new job and things got better.

In these 2 years I developed a drive to make sure I got a good diploma. One that would make it possible to switch jobs more easily and even when I was laid off I would be able to get a new job quickly. I was going to the higher technical school.

When I started the higher technical school (Hogeschool Enschede), there was a high demand for engineers. Students were asked to work for a company when they were still in school.

In this period I developed a feeling that the highest I would make was about NLG 50,000 (about EUR 22,500). Which was a good pay at that time.

By the time I finished this school there was a recession and no demand for engineers. Slowly but surely I worked myself in jobs that I liked. Jobs that made more money.

When I started my own business there again I constantly run into this money boundary that I can’t seem to pass.

Why imaginary?

When people subscribe for your newsletter they have no idea about your imaginary boundary. Your ideal client subscribes because they like what they read and want to get more of you.

There is no agreement with all your subscribers or readers when you are getting close to your number that they will unsubscribe to keep you safely below your boundary.

It is all in your head. Or even worse you may even perform some self-destructive actions because of your own boundaries.

The same is true for the number of visitors. And for my earnings boundary. It is all in your and my head.

The world did not come to an agreement that I could never earn more than EUR 50,000.

Of course you can sabotage yourself or more importantly you can sabotage potential clients that are desperately waiting for your solution. Every time you come close to that boundary you can do things that will hold you back.

What is the solution?

Honestly, I don’t know yet.

What I do know is that talking to other people about it helps.

Today we had our quarterly mastermind meeting. They helped me to face my fears. To look at what is really going on. What is this boundary.

Looking at the results of today I understand NOW that I am selling myself short. I am practically giving away my program and therefore attracting not my ideal clients.

I know how my model helped me and my clients to attract clients. I am afraid to quantify what the result for the client is, even though I truly belief in my program and know what the results can be.

Therefor I will have to get used to a new playing level in order to grow.
Growing to a new barrier, because there are always new issues coming up when a next playing level comes insight.

When I am alone thinking about how to get to that new playing level, it feels like I am the only one with these struggles.
When I am going to my mastermind it feels like I am the only one with these problems.
When the mastermind is over I know I am not alone, I see that we all have our own difficulties and my mastermind friends help me to find the bridge to my next playing level.

How do you breakthrough your barriers

Do you talk to other entrepreneurs? Do you meet with people who make you stretch?
Do you write about it?
Do you do it on your own?

How do you breakthrough your barriers?

Share it below.

Credit photo Jonathan Wheeler Mountain Road

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Breakthrough your imaginary boundaries #30DTC

When you are looking for products to add to your online services think about programs. This can be a training program or coaching program for example.

Online services are great for entrepreneurship/life balance. You can run these programs from your home office with teleseminars or webinars. A teleseminar is by phone and the program members call a special service where you speak via the phone.

A webinar runs via your webbrowser. The advantage of a webinar over a teleseminar is that the program members can see a presentation, images, or you via their browser. Your presentation can help the attendees understanding your story.

After the webinar or teleseminar you can distribute the recording of the training, Q&A session, mentor session, coaching session. This can be an mp3 file with just audio of the telesemiar or webinar, or a video of the webinar.

You can also support the program members with preparation documents that you share before the training. Extra material that you supply after the training.

Members of the program can ask questions about the training or program. You can ask the program members to do home work.

A great tool for you as the program manager is a forum. In the forum you can supply the members with the above mentioned tools. The members can ask questions that you or other members or moderators can reply to. The members can enter and upload their home work.

Working on my own program and 2 programs for our clients we found that Simple:Press, a WordPress plugin, is the best Forum in a WordPress site for these kind of programs.

Simple:Press for real

This is how the forum looks on the special website for my Attract Clients and Grow Your Business program

The core is Genesis with the Tapestry child theme (aff). The forum is the Simple:Press plugin for WordPress.

Why a Forum

A forum is a place on the web where you can have (closed) discussions with the members of your program.

You can also have closed discussions in a closed group on Facebook. This is convenient for people who already spend a lot of time on Facebook. They do not have to switch to your forum to join the conversation or ask a question.

The advantage of a forum over a closed group on Facebook is that you will always have it on your own domain. You are the owner and keeper of the content, the topics and the discussions.

For the members of the forum it will also be easier to find their discussions, topics they replied to and searching in general in your forum is easier.

A forum on your domain will also brand this domain with you, with your expertise.

A group on Facebook will always have the Facebook look and feel. When Facebook changes something to the groups that you don’t like you will have to learn to live with it.

Why Simple:Press

WordPress is my favorite Content Management System (CMS). I have been working with it since end 2005 and never had problems with it. The sites I build with WordPress always give good results in the search engines.

All my websites, hubs, blogs are build with WordPress and I only use WordPress for my clients hubs, blogs and sites.

There are a number forum plugins available that you can use for WordPress. These plugins add a forum to your website. For example, Tal.ki forums, bbPress, Zingiri Forum, Simple:Press and more.

Using the Simple:Press forum for your client programs has a number of advantages:

• You can create user groups – for each program you start a separate user group
• You can create groups of forums for specific user groups
• You can hide admins from the member lists

Free download

You can download the Simple:Press plugin for free. Of course a donation is really appreciated to keep the plugin updated. Note: I have no relation to the developers of this plugin.

I love the support we got in the Support Forum while building and fine tuning our forum. The developers of the plugin actually incorporated a suggestion we made and made it available in the next update. This way we were able to support our clients.

For the owners and users of the membership forums of our clients I have created a owners manual and user guide. Feel free to download one or both for your forum with WordPress and Simple:Press.

Owners Manual

The owners guide for a Simple:Press membership forum. Feel free to download it

Table of Content Owners Manual

The Owners Manual has 59 pages and is a PDF of 2.5Mb. You can download it for free.

Users Guide

The Users Guide for the members of your Membership forum. Feel free to download it.

Table of Content Users Guide

The Users Guide has 29 pages and is a PDF of 1Mb. You can download it for free.

Do you use a forum for your program?

Are you thinking about a forum for your membership program or training?
Do you already have a forum for your members? If yes, what software are you using? What do you like about it?
If not, what is stopping you? It is a great support for the members to make more from your program, training, coaching.

Love to hear your thoughts on this.

Credit: Image Members Entrance by smlp.co.uk

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Membership program with a forum? WordPress and Simple:Press

Working more and more on my English website and using the success factors from Dutch website I find interesting things. Success in client attraction is directly connected to sales.

Quantity vs Quality

Quality is an important factor in attracting the ideal client. You need to create content and products of high quality. That is a fact.

However the quantity factor can not be left out.

1,000 true fans should be enough to have a good business and earn EUR 50,000 – EUR 100,000 when you are able to sell your true fans EUR 50.00 – EUR 100.00 per year.

But how do you get 1,000 true fans? Lots of people need to see you, find you, read about you.

4 keys for successful client attraction:

1. visitors,
2. subscribers,
3. fans and
4. clients.

In that order.

1. Visitors

It all starts with attracting visitors to your content. There are several ways to attract visitors to your hub (website and blog combination).

Ads – you can use advertising to draw fans to your content
Search Engines – when you have good content and you use a good technical platform like WordPress, the search engines will pickup on your content. People are looking for the content that you supply in the search engines.
Social Networking Sites – people on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube want to share their discoveries with their network. This is how people find you, new and people who have seen your content before.
Bookmarks – People bookmark great content for later to read, for inspiration. The bookmarks in the browser and bookmarking sites turn into visitors for your website.
Newsletter or RSS – when people want to stay updated to what you are doing they subscribe to your updates. You can supply these updates via newsletter and/or RSS. People will visit your Hub from your updates via email.

Subscribers

People that visit your website via any of the above ways come to your website, a visitor. When they are interested in your topic at this time they want to stay updated. They want you to keep them informed on this topic, for now.

A great way to do this is to let people subscribe to your newsletter. It is a great thing you can offer the visitors of your website.

They will stay updated and it will give you the opportunity to send time sensitive messages.

Fans

A small part of the people who follow you, read every thing that you publish. They spread your articles, share it with their fans. These fans love what you do, learn from you and pass the information on.

Clients

Clients, customers, true fans, these are the people who buy from you. They like what you do so much, they are willing to pay for even more information.

You need products when you want to make a living from your business. But it is also true that your true fans need products from you. They want the limited edition, the extended version, they want more.

Your are letting your true fans down when you are not offering this. They will be disappointed. I know now.

What you need to do

There are only 3 things you need to focus on:

• Create great content,
• listening and interacting with your audience, and
• create great products that your ideal client wants to buy.

Content

Great content will keep attracting new visitors. It makes new visitors, returning visitors. It makes visitors willing to share your content, bookmark it. It makes them want to subscribe to the updates. It will turn them into fans when you continue to deliver and surprise them.

Create great content and people will use it and add a link to your content in their articles. This will make you more visible in the search engines and rank you higher.

Great content gets shared in the social networking sites even by people who have never heard from you before.

Interact

The visitors of your website can only turn into fans when they get to know the real you. When they trust you. You do not have to meet in person to get to know each other.

People will learn a lot about you from your writing, videos, photos and audio. This is you sending. People will even learn more about you when they interact directly with you. You will build trust with them.

When you listen and reply to comments, replies, messages, people can turn from visitors and subscribers into fans and true fans.

Products

Create products. With products you are able to support your true fans. It will make you a living.

Creating products looks sometimes more complicated than it really is.
Listen to your true fans. What are they looking for. Ask.
Then, create it.
Ship it.
Done.

Shipping is the hardest part here. You are looking for perfection. You may think the product is still not good enough for your true fans. There are plenty of other things to do.

However a product doesn’t count if it hasn’t been shipped. When a product is not on your website, in your shop with a price attached to it so people can buy ut, it doesn’t count. You need to complete this step.

How about you?

How do you feel about this model?
Do you see it working for you? Do you miss something?

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

From visitors to clients and the 3 things you need to do

Just as we are enjoying the last hours of 2011, and celebrating the first hours of 2012 I want share this with you.
Friends that made me shine in 2011. Great company

Pieter van Osch

Pieter van Osch – now working on his Dutch bog customervibes.com and Refresh Interactive but has an international plan on mindful marketing for 2012 @pyotr

Drive your business growth with super enthusiastic customers.

Monique Bolung

Monique Bolung – a coach that is really good in team coaching especially management teams. She is launching a new program and starts in January 2012. So glad that I am her Greater Than Yourself project. She is helping me to face my fear for earning more money and making me look beyond myself. A warm hard and a sharp mind. @breinkorf

boardroom consultant, executive coach, team coach, conflictcoach

Brigitte van Tuijl

Brigitte van Tuijl – She is going to make a big difference in people’s life in 2012 with her new program Big Mission, Big Impact. We talked in September and concluded that 2012 is the year we will make the full switch to English. Or as she says on her blog “A Purpose & Breakthrough Expert for Heart-centered Entrepreneurs. @brigittevanT

Helping heart-centered entrepreneurs that struggle to reach more people with their message to get unstuck so they make a bigger difference and contribution while making more money.

Lianne Ebbinkhuijsen

Lianne Ebbinkhuijsen – of Being In The Room from she moved from fear of speaking to selling with your presentation. A great move. A skill that a lot of self-employed are missing. I see a great future for her new program Sell Your Excellence by Speaking from the Heart, launching in January. @lianneebbink

Moving your Audience

Becky McCray

Becky McCray – a Small town business specialist. What a wonderful business women. Building on several business at the same time. Running a liquor store in Alva, Oklahoma, starting Tourism Currents and taking care of the farm. Enjoyed our long talks during SOBCon and our monthly master mind sessions.

Specialist in small town and rural issues in small business, government and tourism.

Stephanie Ward

Stephanie Ward – my first English webinars was earlier this year together with Stephanie. We did even a workshop together for the AABC members in Amsterdam April 18, 2011. A good start for my international aspirations.

I am passionate about helping Business Owners attract more clients and grow their businesses!

Liz Strauss and Terry St. Marie

Liz Strauss – we had a couple long chats via Skype about my direction earlier this year. She and Terry ‘Starbucker’ St. Marie are making it possible that there will be a SOBCon Europe in 2012. Looking forward to this energetic event. @lizstrauss and @starbucker

Liz is truly a community builder and develops a warm relationship with readers of her blog.

Laura Babeliowsky

Laura Babeliowsky – missed working with her this year. We stopped the Social Media Event that we have organised for 3 years together. She invested in coaching and training during 2011. Expect to see some great things from her in 2012. I feel she will move into the 7 figures revenues this year. @laurababel

Business Coach for the self-employed to get more clients

SMC Amsterdam team

The Social Media Club Amsterdam team – Olchert Vels, Remco Janssen, Leo Verdonck, Sandy de Roos, Pieter van Osch for 2 years of SMC Amsterdam already and the great plans we have for 2012. Meeting great and smart people who attend the monthly events and listen to great speakers. Personal highlight for SMC Amsterdam in 2011: presentation David Meerman Scott. @smcamsterdam @olchert @remcojanssen @leoverdonck @sandydr @pyotr

WordCamp NL team

After some hard thinking I decided to step down of the WordCamp Netherlands board. As initiator for this WordCamp it feels like letting your baby go after 3 years. Wishing the team lots of fun and a sold out event for WordCamp Netherlands 2012 @wordcampnl @chantalcoolsma @yoast @defries @illutic

Clients, freelancers and friends

Love working with clients like Selma Foeken, Brigitte van Tuijl, Lianne Ebbinkhuijsen, Chi-Yeun Gulick-Lee, Marianne Schutten, Marije van Duijne Strobosch, Olaf Rutten, Marietta Boland, Karla Mooij, Suzanne Meijles, Marina van Walsum, Minky Spijkerman, Josephine Bots, Marjon de Stefano, Marlene Langbroek. Thank you for sharing your business and experiences.

Impressed by the work of Chantal Coolsma @chantalcoolsma, Matthew Rockow @rochow, Sinian Nienhuis @Virtualsz, Sabine Schmidt @smdsocialmedia and my wife whom all helped me out in 2011. Looking forward to outsource even more work to you in 2012. Love to keep you busy.

Coaches

Learned a lot from these coaches and trainers in 2011 – they help me to make progress without meeting them in person:

Sandi Krakowski – A Real Change – a really smart business women and serial entrepreneur. From bankruptcy to multi millionaire. A hard-working mom that found the peace to take care of business AND her family.

Kendall Summerhawk – shows me new ways of looking at earning money. Have been following Kendall a few months now.

Fabienne Fredrickson of Client Attraction, great tips and insight on how to grow as an entrepreneur in business and life.

Brendon Burchard founder of Experts Academy. Respect of how is over US $ 10 million in just 2 years.

Derek Halpern of Social Triggers – learning about better website from Derek. Was following him from the beginning of 2011 and got to listen to him at SOBCon in Chicago. Love his way.

I did not hire these coaches, I followed them online. In 2012 I will hire a business coach.

Authors that made a difference for me

I have read a lot of books last year. It feels like the most books I have ever read in a year. About every 2 weeks I finish reading a book. The books and authors that really touched me were:

Tim Sanders @sandersays – Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence

Steve Farber @stevefarber – The Radical Leap Re-Energized: Doing What You Love in the Service of People Who Love What You Do

Scott Belsky @scottbelsky – Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality

Arjan van Erkel @aartjan – Verleiden op Internet

Paulo Coelho @pauloCoelho – Aleph

Blogs

Blogs that I read the most in 2011 and shared a lot of stories from. Thank you for your high quality content.

Social Media Examiner – an online magazine on social media with Michael Stelzner, Cindy King and many more.

ChrisBrogan.com – don’t know how he does it, writing multiple post every day.

Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni

Jonathan Fields – great launch of his new book Uncertainty.

Dan Zarella – great statistics and insights

Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch – small business support

ProBlogger – with Darren Rowse and others. Great about making money with your blog and more.

Social Media Explorer – Jason Falls

Mack Collier – Helping companies understand the “social” part of social media.

Jeff Bullas

James Altucher – serial entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist

Mari Smith – the Facebook Queen.

Convince & Convert by Jason Bear

Brian Solis

HubSpot Blog

And you?

Whom are you proud of?
Share your inspiration below.

The inspiration for this post came from 20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012 by @jadecraven

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Which friends made you shine in 2011? Here are 50 of mine

One word to describe what your focus is going to be for the coming year. For me this really helped the last year. One word to remind yourself everyday what your focus is. One word you can use to say Yes or No to new projects.

Last year I found this blog post by Mari Smith on her One-Word Theme for 2011, Commitment. I saw the potential of this one word theme.

International
My one-word theme for 2011 was: International. I thought I wrote a blog post about it, but I can’t find it.

My goal is to speak internationally. I love working, investigating, being involved in various cultures. My goal is to speak at international events.

Although I haven’t spoken at an international event in 2011, I feel that this word made a significant change in my focus for the past year.

What I did do was write more on this blog, I paid more attention to English updates on Twitter and Facebook. Together with Stephanie Ward I organized two English webinars and converted these to products for sale on this website

• Use Social Media to Grow Your Business
• Facebook for your business

It always played a role in my monthly mastermind discussions. Especially the full day mastermind session in August 2011. In the preparation and during that day I have decided to switch to English in 2012.

Meaning that I will blog less on ernohannink.nl and my main focus will go to this website and blog ernohannink.com. Articles, pages, products and services in English. Twitter updates in English, Facebook focus more on my English page and so on.

To give this a good start I have developed a 30 day free course, with 30 short tips in videos of 2-3 minutes. We will start 2012 with a great program “Attracting Clients and Grow Your Business”

Maybe I was a bit optimistic for 2011 but the attention was there and the shift is happening now.

Grow

The last 2 months I have blocked most of my time for planning and preparing for 2012. I have worked out the details for the program that starts January. Boiling down this one sheet with my plan for 2012 I concluded it is all about growing.

I want to grow on many levels.
One of main goals is start a foundation to help the self-employed in developing countries.
One other goal on my list is to get this blog on the AdAge Power 150 list. I want to become visible internationally. Grow my audience, grow the traffic, grow the number of subscribers for my newsletter to 25.000, grow.

I want to grow as an entrepreneur
On my expenses list for 2012 this is visible, two trainings, one on copy writing.
Hire a business coach – she will help meon a weekly basis to grow.
Speak at 4 international events – yes, expenses to go to these events and speak, just to get the experience.

I want to grow my clients
Help as many as I can. Change the way I am working. Have programs and products so I help more people than just 1-on-1.
Substantially grow my clients and show them the fast track to, more visitors, more subscribers, more ideal clients, attracting clients.

I want to grow financially
Yes, I will talk money this year. I have been afraid about this word and feeling way to long. It has been a roadblock for me. That has changed since August 2011. Like I said here, I need the money to accomplish my big and bold goal.

What is your one-word theme?

So let’s share. What is your one-word theme for 2012?
It will help you to focus on your goals.

I just read that I am on a similar path as Mari Smith. Her one-word theme for 2012? Growth

Credit photo: Growth by Caleb Roenigk

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Grow is my theme for 2012

When you want to make progress and grow the coming year as a business owner, it is smart to have a plan. I must admit planning has never been my strongest point, especially setting financial goals for the coming year.

Often I worked without a real plan, and when there was a plan I tended not to look at it again during the year. From my mastermind group I learned a new way of looking at it.

“Why are you doing this? What do you want to accomplish?”, they asked me. I answered this with my biggest goal “Support the self employed in developing countries with my foundation.”

“And, do you need money to start this foundation?” Yes!
“You see, you need those revenues.” I agreed again and was ready to start my plan for the coming year.

1. Goals

The start of the planning proces is goal setting.
The major question that you want to answer is:

What do you want accomplish the coming year?

Set your goals for the coming year.
Select only a few (bold) goals.

These are my top goals:

• help as many independent professionals as I can to get a better balance in entrepreneurship and family. A healthy business is important for this balance and attracting you ideal client is ideal.
• Speaking internationally: at least in 4 different countries or states
• Start the foundation to support the self employed in developing countries
• Get on the AdAge Power150 list

To do this, I love to use the whiteboard. Of course you can also do it on a piece of paper or in Google Docs.

2. Outline

Cost
Write down the cost and investments that you are expecting and planning for the coming year that aline with your goals.

1. What is your management fee? What do you need to support your family? EUR
2. What do you want to learn and improve the coming year. Is it in line with your goals?
   What training or coaching do you need to accomplish this and what are the cost? EUR
3. What other investments or cost do you need to reach your goals? EUR
4. What are your other business expenses? EUR

Revenues
Now let’s look at the products and services that you have or are planning to introduce the coming year.
Add the numbers (€ or $ or your currency) that you can do for these points:

1. Products that you have that aline with your goals
2. Services that you have that aline with your goals
3. What products or services are you launching
4. Affiliate sales

In total you want enough revenues to cover your projected cost and investments.
Are you clear on this? You really need these revenues to accomplish your goals!

3. Detail

Now let’s break down the number of products you need to sell to get the above revenues.

1. How many products do you sell each month
2. What services do you sell in what month
3. When do you launch the new products and services, which month?

Are the numbers above doable? If not, what actions do you need to take to make these doable. Add promotion, launches or products where necessary.

Further detail
You want to break it down even further.
What do you need to do to get these revenues and when are you investing or expecting the costs.

In what week do you need to promote your launch?
In what week do you need to promote product x and product y?
In what week do you have an event scheduled?
When are your trips?
When is your holiday?

Blog posts
Since you are on a roll here it, let’s start making a rough blogging schedule.

Schedule topics for each week in relation to the tasks you planned above. Topics that relate to the launches you want to do.
Schedule a blogging series, 4 posts in a serie, 10 days or 30 days series.

This blogging schedule will help you to grow the number of visitors and traffic to your blog and website. Resulting in a growing number of subscribers to your newsletter.

Focus

An important reason you want to do this planning on this detailed level is that you are less distracted from all kind of ‘interesting’ activities that pop up every day. When you have a plan it is easier to say NO.

Looking at the big picture now, it is easy to exclude taks that do not contribute to your goals.

John Jantsch in his post Effective Planning Is About What to Leave Out

I recently hired my own business coach and one of the first things we’re focused on is getting me to stop doing things that don’t make sense and start spending more concentrated time on my highest payoff activities.

My coach would do the same, my guess is that when you have a coach he/she would do the same with you.

Go back to your detailed planning list and erase the tasks that do not contribute to your goals.

Interesting read:
Effective Planning Is About What to Leave Out by John Jantsch
Objectives, goals, strategies and tactics by Ben McConnell

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Grow your business, set your goals and start planning

Your wish

Are you a coach, author, speaker and/or trainer with a true passion for your work? You believe in the power of your services and products. So, You have a wish:

• earn more money
• let clients come to you
• become visible in the online world

You are an Independent Professional, a solopreneur, thus you are self employed and you have one major point of attention: more business with less effort.

More Clients

I have spoken with hundreds of coaches, authors, writers, speakers, and see one issue coming up again and again: they want more clients.

I love getting deeper into this issue. I love talking about getting more clients with my clients and followers. When people subscribe to my newsletter I ask this question: “What are you struggling with?”

This is a sampling of the answers I read the most:

I love what I do but I need more clients
How do I setup Facebook to get more clients
How do I use LinkedIn to get more business
I want a better price for my services.

So you see, you are not alone.

You are making plans for 2012 and this year everything will be different. Right?
You want to grow your business substantially in 2012. Maybe 2011 was not your best year ever, but in 2012 you want to change this. You want to make a leap in your income with all the experience and expertise that you have build up in the past years.

This new year everything will change for you.

What is happening now

You have been reading about blogs, newsletters, social network sites for the last months. Possibly you have followed one or two trainings on Twitter or LinkedIn. You learned all these great features and you are really thrilled of what it can bring. But there is still something missing.

You meet new people on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, really nice people. But still something is missing.

You are missing new clients.

You hear all these great stories about people making money via these social media. They are setting up their business and finding clients just via social media. You keep thinking “What am I doing wrong here?”

What do you need

There are so many social network sites and blogs out there it is impossible to keep up with it all. And you don’t need to. There is no need to work hard, you need work smart.

You do not need a guide that will show you all the great and shiny new things that are out there. You need a guide that shows you what works when you want to attract clients using the internet.

You want someone that is your lens to the new world and can show you only what you need to see.

Pure Willpower is not enough

Willpower is like a muscle that easily overloads. The solution for showing great willpower is using it as little as possible and to create order and regularity.

Order and Regularity for your client attraction will be more successful than working on willpower.

That is why this program lasts for seven months. We want to create your system, your order and regularity to attract your ideal clients. Monthly, weekly and daily routines so it becomes part of your life without thinking about it.

What could happen

When you are clear what you offer to which people you could just attract your ideal client. You know the one.
You have some of those clients already and you would just love that you could work only with these kind of clients.

You can start working only for your ideal clients. Clients that enjoy you and talk about you. Clients that pay the bill on time. Clients that make you happy and are happy with you.

Your business will be even more fun

Why is this program different

In this program I will only show you the tools that make you visible for your target audience. No need to overload you with all the new stuff that has not worked yet for client attraction.

You can talk with like minded, ambitious entrepreneurs in the online network for this program. We can help each other with detailed steps, ask questions, answer questions, support each other.

As Adriaan Wagenaar once said after a Facebook workshop: “His expert-style was ‘What makes you successful on Facebook.’ instead of ‘Just do like me and everything will be OK.’”

When you follow the Gold or Silver program we will talk numbers. You will make yourself accountable to the group. In the Gold program I will be your mentor and will support you in your accountability on a monthly basis.

What is the program going to bring you

With my help you will learn what tools to use so you can attract your ideal client. Following the program you will become an Online Rock Star in your niche.

You will separate yourself from your competitors and become the Expert in your niche.

Ideal clients are calling you, sending you an email or a message to one of your profiles on the social network sites. They want to work with you.

Attracting your ideal client will result in a raise of your prices and earning more money.

Why am I doing this

Teach and support as many independent professionals as I can to attract clients. I want to touch as many self employed people and show them what happens when sales is no longer a struggle. When the clients just come knocking on your virtual door.

For more than 5 years I have been working on this topic with my clients and on the web. My book Attracting Clients, is in it’s second print, the first print sold out in less than 9 months. The digital version has been downloaded more than 5,500 times!

Attracting Clients is an import topic to me. I want to help as many independent professionals as I can to make their business successful. I want you to find a happy balance in entrepreneurship and family. A healthy business is the basis for this balance.

Attracting the right clients should be an important topic for you!

What do I want to accomplish

By the end of 2012 I want to have enough funds to start a new foundation. This foundation will support the self employed in developing countries to grow their business. The foundation will support these solopreneurs in their effort to make their business work locally.

I really want to support the local area by supporting local people to make their business successful so they are staying. I want to do this with training and mentoring, locally and via the web of course, and with micro loans.

What are you getting

After doing workshops, webinars and presentations I have created this special program to support you. The program is completely online so you don’t loose valuable time traveling. Balance in your entrepreneurship and family is important to me.

Via the link below you will find an overview of all the topics we will cover in those 7 steps starting January 2012.

During the 7 months we will develop a routine, so attracting your ideal client becomes a habit for you.

Attract Clients and Grow Your Business
Work with me for 7 months and become an Online Rock Star

My latest webinar sold out in 3 weeks. Make sure you reserve your seat now to start working on your business January 2012. When you register now you will get some bonus materials so you can start right away and can get in the spirit of the steps you and I are going to take in 2012. Register now.

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

You love what you do and you want more clients – 7 steps to do just that

Do your clients need some training to work with you? Are your clients always asking for something that you have not available. It is time to train you.

Yes, I just said “It is time to train YOU.”

Recently I watched a few episodes of the “Dog Whisperer” and “Supernanny”. I know there are better things to do, but bare with me for a moment.

Who asks for these experts to come and help them out with their problem children or aggressively barking dog? The parents of the children or the dog owner.

They think the Dog Whisperer or SuperNanny will come and train the dog or the children. And they do. However, that is just a small part of what they do. Most of the time goes to the training of the parents or the dog owners.

So if you feel your Clients need a training in paying earlier, doing the things at the right time, doing the right thing…. start with You. How can we you train you to make these changes possible.

Are you a pact leader or are clients leading you?

5 tips to become the leader that your clients are looking for:

1. Investigate – always investigate the situation. Find out what your client is used to. First you look at the situation of your client and let them get used to you, even though your method is always the same. You create the ‘feeling’ that you are adapting your method to their situation.
    
2. Consistency – always use the same order and same process. The process of your company is very clear and consistent, you actually have it all written down in a Word document. Every time you start working with a new client you send them the personalized ‘Ideal Process for best results’ document.
    
   This document will make it clear for the clients what you expect how, when and why. For your client this document also explains exactly what they can expect from you, how, when and why.

   This ‘Ideal Process for best results’ is just ONE sheet. If it is longer, you need to simplify the process. No wonder your clients don’t understand your process.

3. Communicate all the time. Be clear about what you are doing or what you are waiting for. Include a call to action at the end. This way your client knows exactly what to do without feeling belittled. Use the 4 state of minds: be dominant, appreciative, emotional and waiting in your communication.
    
4. Timely reaction – As the “Dog Whisperer” says “Correct before things go wrong.” When you correct at the moment things are already progressed to the next level it is difficult to be heard.

   When you send a signal just before things tend to go wild you can get their attention easily. Sometimes this requires more than words, you may need to ‘touch’ them to get their attention.

   When you do this you will prevent that they will move to the next level and become less sensitive for your input. 

5. Reward – when the client is doing what the both of you agreed upon it is time to reward your client. This has nothing to do with big gifts. You can thank your client when they pay the invoice on time. When they supplied you with an answer so you can move forward in time, send them a short message and thank them.
    
   Let your client know that you appreciate what they did. Even though you think it went exactly how it should have, your client will feel good about your compliment. This will stimulate similar actions in the future.

Bonus:
Trust – now you have to let go and trust that you have given your clients all the materials and attention so they can do it on their own. After a few weeks or months you go back and do the last fine tuning. Explain what happened and show how this can go even better with your final tips.

New Client

Yes, you will need to train your client. They are used to doing things in a certain way. This may not be the way for the best results when working with you.

But it all starts with you. When you have a clear process and a consistent way of doing things, your clients will experience the best results when working with you.

This is a win-win situation. The client is happy because they get the best results and you are happy because the client was easy to work with.

Although your client does not experience it that way but you have made sure that the client was easy to work with from the beginning.

You can do this with existing clients, however it takes a lot longer than training dogs according to the Dog Whisperer.

Credit: Image Class dismissed

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Make your Life Easier, Train your Clients