When you start a business, it seems like you should be able to run it successfully.
You carefully make plans, create the product or prepare yourself for world-class service. However, when you go out into the real world, your plans turns to failure because there are not many customers. You get distracted by a lot of new-age management strategies and social media hypes.

Often this problem arises because of a simple strategy that we ignore.
In this podcast, we look at a simple idea to find the customers, without worrying where the next customer is coming from.

Right-click here to save this episode.

When you start a business, it seems like you should be able to run it successfully.
You carefully make plans, create the product or prepare yourself for world-class service. However, when you go out into the real world, your plans turns to failure because there are not many customers. You get distracted by a lot of new-age management strategies and social media hypes. Often this problem arises because of a simple strategy that we ignore. In this Podcast, we look at a simple idea to find the customers, without worrying where the next customer is coming from. Let’s dive in.

If you have heard of Willi Sutton, you probably know he has been one of the top 10 most wanted criminals listed by the FBI in 1950.
If you haven’t heard of him, well he has robbed more than 100 banks. Yes, he was very charismatic and he had great persuasion skills. He could influence people with his communication and get out of difficult situations.

Did he ever get caught in 100 robberies? Was he caught any time?
Of course yes. But he managed to escape. Once along with his other 11 inmates in prison, he dug a tunnel and escaped. On another occasion, he and a few of his friends in prison managed to get the uniform of prison guards. They climbed the high wall with two ladders and crossed the wall.  When they were running away, a guard with a searchlight found them running and focused on them. And Sutton simply yelled “It’s Okay!” – and no one stopped them!

He got caught and arrested for the final time in 1952.
After getting arrested for the final time, he still was running after banks not as a robber but as a consultant to banks and helping banks with security. He was interviewed by a journalist, Mitch Ohnstad. The journalist was impressed with the skill and attitude of Willie Sutton.  The journalist asked him “you are so smart why you he choose to rob banks instead of running a business and making millions?”.  His answer was short but profound. He said, “I rob banks because … that’s where the money is!”

Most people focus on their business operations only and expect customers to find them.
That’s not how it works. The fisherman never hunts for fish randomly, instead, he goes where fish gathers.  You can’t expect people to find you. You have to be where the customers gather, find what they are looking for and spend their money. Let’s find out more examples.

If you believe that McDonald’s is in the food business, here’s a small edition.
McDonald’s is in the real estate business. They spend their time and money in finding out the best location to open their outlet. They don’t open their outlet randomly. They carefully observe where most people pass through. They are mostly found at malls, airports, or places where people stop and stay for a longer time. Burger King and KFC are smarter than McDonalds. They don’t waste their time and money like McDonalds. Instead, they open their outlets next to or closer to McDonalds. It’s pointless to be where customers are not aware or customers don’t go

Find out where your competitors are going.
They probably know where your customers are. Ever wondered, why people open their shops in a market where there are 10s and hundreds of shops just like them? They don’t worry about competition because they know the market is the place where customers will come and spend money. And that’s where the money is.

So, see where your competitors are going and go to the place where the money is.

The One-Liner Report:

Why Customers Don’t Listen? – How to get them to listen to you with your One-Liner?

This report will show you how to explain your business in just one-line so that your customers listen and understand you as quickly as possible. Click on the button below and get a detailed ‘The One Liner Report’. It will take only 15 minutes to read.

When we look at big famous brands, we wish we get the same number of fans who promote our product. What we do is push our customers to promote us. It doesn’t look logical and good to move against their wish.

What if you can make people proudly promote your brand without you pushing them? There are some ways you make it happen. In this podcast, we will discuss why people feel proud to promote some brands and how you can get people to promote your brand without making them feel pushed.

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If you think of the popularity and following of any religion, you will also dream to have such a huge following for your brand.
All religions or cult religious leaders have a large number of people who believe in them. They do whatever to save and to popularise the religion. The books on religion are the highest-selling books in the world. The books of religion such as the Bible, Bhagwad Gita, and Quran are playing a huge role in spreading the word of religion.

Can you guess how many copies of bibles are given away every year?
It’s 100 million. Bible is perhaps the highest number of books purchased in the whole year. Surprisingly, most buyers of bibles are not buying for themselves. They are bought for gifting others. The group of fans of Christianity is spreading the word about Christianity. There is a huge army of fans in every single religion who is wholeheartedly spreading the word of their religion.

How can you get people to promote you so that you don’t have to do the work to be famous?
Like attracts like. Those who have similar interests, values and purposes walk together. Big corporations spend millions to hire celebrities and famous personalities to promote their product. But we don’t have a budget of millions so how is it possible to get recognised and accepted? When you give something to people to promote, they will promote it. But you can not just give away any random things and expect them to like to promote them.  To make them happily recommend your product, you need to understand the psychology of your target customers. For example, the owner of a Toyota would value the money they spend and on the hand, the owner of a Ferrari wants to show people how he values excellence and the best.

People buy because they want to tell themselves and others what they value and what showcases their identity.
They want to tell people whom they are showing the product they use. Now, you have to give something that makes them show others who they are. So, what should you give and how can you get others to use things they feel great to show to others? We are going to discuss 3 ways or 3 things that you can use to get people’s support to promote you.

Does the famous sporting goods brand ‘Nike’ push their customers to buy and promote? No, they don’t.
Yes, Nike spends a lot of money on hiring famous sportspersons but you have probably noticed that it’s the people who buy Nike’s products and show people that they use Nike’s products. The tagline of Nike is  ‘Just Do It’ is something which motivates people to buy and promote. What makes people buy some of the most expensive goods and happily promote them?

It’s the ideology or philosophy of Nike.
Nike’s philosophy is, Sports are a noble part of the human experience. Nike is a part of that experience. Nike encourages sportspersons and athletes to compete and take action. Nike’s mission is to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete and help them to expand their human potential by doing everything possible. You should come up with a philosophy that unites your consumers. Find and show people what you do and why you do what you do.

How do you create the ideology that people love to promote?
Well, you have to boldly tell people what you ‘believe’ in and what you strictly ‘don’t believe’ in. Then you have to make people promote your ideology, belief or philosophy. and also make it easy and fun for them to promote. Give them the book they want to happily share like religious books. Give them the T-shirts they can proudly wear and share the message.

For example, there is a cycling company that gives 12 prepaid postcards to their members to give to their friends.
The members need to fill in their names and drop the postcards in the mail to join biking in the city. You can see the similar practice done by many spiritual gurus, yoga teachers etc. Harley Davidson’s philosophy is uniting all Harley bikers together all over the world. So, find something that reflects your philosophy that people love to accept and spread. That takes us to the next part.

How can you turn your customers into a hero?
You don’t have to do anything but allow them to show themselves as a hero. In return, you or your brand will come out as a hero. A few years ago, one of my clients who was a gym owner did something similar. Just like any other gym owner, he wanted to have a huge following. We did a small trick. He used to arrange an open day where his existing members can bring one of their family members or friends and show how those members are doing and had transformed themselves. Those members were proudly showing off how they become awesome. Those members were directly or indirectly promoting the gym. As a result, the gym owner attracted more members and not just ordinary members, eventually, those members became the gym’s raving fans and invited more people to join.

Many dance classes do the same.
They book an auditorium and ask their students to invite their family and friends to attend and show their dance moves. People love to show off their transformation and how they are performing above average. What you can do for your customers is they can show them to others as a hero.

Let them look good and awesome.
Give them the spotlight and platform where they can be seen as a better version and in return, others would want to have their better version. They would want to know what transformed the person and they will buy your product or service to be the better of themselves. Make them a hero and people will look for what and who turned them from ordinary to awesome heroes. Let’s talk about the last part. Let’s dive in.

Social media has given the power and platforms to people to share their experiences, achievement and success with others.
You open a social media and you will find people showing receiving the key to their new car. The car showroom team takes their photo with a decorated brand-new car. When people buy their house,  the real estate broker takes their picture and lets their customers share the good news. In restaurants, there is an area where people gather and take photographs and share with their friends.

What is the pattern here?
There are scuba diving institutes that charge people to take photos underwater. But the smarter ones give these photos away for free. Because it’s these photos that will get them a lot more new clients! The same goes for skydiving. Many hotels are giving away free nicely framed photographs to their guests. People would love to hang those photos in their houses.

So, what can you do?
Make it easy for people to showcase what they’ve done or are doing. They will promote you. It’s similar to what we discussed in the second part of this podcast. Allow people where they feel proud of being associated with you. Give them the opportunity where they show people what and how they are doing. Such as scuba diving, and sky diving. This takes us to the end. Let’s quickly summarise what we have covered in this podcast.

People will be likely to promote your product if they like your philosophy and they want to follow the same philosophy.
You have to boldly tell people what you ‘believe’ in and what you strictly ‘don’t believe’ in. Then you have to make people promote your ideology, belief or philosophy. and also make it easy and fun for them to promote. People will promote you not because they like you. But because it makes their identity shine by being associated with you. Focus on their identity and help them feel proud.

Then,  think about what you can do for your customers that they can show to others as a hero.
Let them look good and awesome. Give them the spotlight and platform where they can be seen as a better version and in return, others would want to have their better version. Make them a hero and people will look for what and who turned them from ordinary to awesome heroes. And lastly, Make it easy for people to showcase what they’ve done or are doing. Allow people where they feel proud of being associated with you.

The One-Liner Report:

Why Customers Don’t Listen? – How to get them to listen to you with your One-Liner?

This report will show you how to explain your business in just one-line so that your customers listen and understand you as quickly as possible. Click on the button below and get a detailed ‘The One Liner Report’. It will take only 15 minutes to read.

We believe in working at our full potential and giving our 100% all the time. Yet, most of us fail to finish our tasks or reach our goals. We are told by people to work harder and always hustle. In fact, we can not improve our performance by working harder consistently.  

In this podcast, we are going to find out how to improve our performance without pushing ourselves too hard? What is it that we need to do so that we can relax and still be able to achieve our goals?

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Carl Lewis is one of the world’s greatest athletes of all time.
His career started in 1979 to played till 1996. And he is one of the very few who won nine gold medals and one silver medal in the Olympics. Also, he won ten world championship medals including eight gold medals. 

Surprisingly, Carl Lewis was not a good starter.
He used to be behind his competitors at the halfway mark in a 100-meter race. But instead of hurrying up and pushing himself forward, he was looking relaxed. Still, he used to win. This is how he won not one but 9 Olympic gold medals.  He was not pushing hard and his breathing would not even change. He was often misunderstood that he is not putting effort. He was putting in controlled efforts and he was winning because of it.

We also believe in working at our full potential and giving our 100% all the time.
Yet, most of us fail to finish our tasks or reach our goals. We are told by people to work harder and always hustle. In fact, we can not improve our performance by working harder consistently. In this podcast, we are going to find out how to improve our performance without pushing ourselves too hard? What is it that we need to do so that we can relax and still be able to achieve our goals? Let’s find out.

Adidas introduced the miCoach tracking chip in the shoes of the famous footballer from Argentina, Lionel Messi.
The chip could track certain things like how much ground Messi has covered on the soccer pitch and how fast he was moving and how far he was running. Adidas put this chip in Messi’s shoes during a match between Argentina and Germany in 2012. Messi scored a goal and Argentina beat Germany by 3 to 1. The most interesting study found that in a 90 minutes game, where most football players except the goalkeeper cover the distance of 12-15 km per match, Messi covered only 8.5 km.

He also did not even cover half of the ground.
And still, he made an impact in that match. When he was analysed, it was found that he was not even running most of the time. Instead, he walked 70% of the time during the match. Yes, he almost walked during the match.  He was tasted another time when he was playing for the Barcelona team. In a match against Real Madrid, he walked 80% of the time and ran only 5% time, and yet, he scored the goal and brought victory to Barcelona. 

What did Messi do?
He did not waste his energy. He was saving his precious energy most of the time to use when it needs the most. He was perfectly utilising his energy. We all are doing wrong when we do time management. We focus on managing our tasks against time and it’s wrong. We all have a physical or mental battery that releases the energy when we want. And the energy is always limited in our body, just like our laptop or mobile phone.

If we work consistently using our full energy, we get exhausted.
Hence, we can’t find the energy when we need the most. As discussed earlier in this podcast, the famous athlete Carl Lewis used the same technique. A coach of Carl Lewis studied him and found that Carl was using 85% of his energy most of the time. When you work with 80-85% of the capacity, your mind and body are relaxed. As a result, you perform better.

Find a balance in using your energy.
Use only 85% of your energy. If you use 100% of your energy, you will feel exhausted and it can lead to physical injury as well as enormous mental stress.  This can lead to poor performance. You should the same in your daily life and business because it works.

If you use 100% of your limit, you won’t have enough room to grow and find better creative ideas or solutions.
Because to find creative ideas and solutions, you need some room in your mind and body to create them. You need to find the free time to work with relax. When we have relaxed and unhurried culture and work system, we can increase our output and performance. You can never perform better by pushing yourself too hard.

Focus on using 85% of your energy instead of 100%.
Sometimes you need to be lazy to be more productive and to be creative. Say ‘No’ to things that suck your energy and relax. This will help you find ways to increase efficiency in your life. That’s what we need to aim for.

The One-Liner Report:

Why Customers Don’t Listen? – How to get them to listen to you with your One-Liner?

This report will show you how to explain your business in just one-line so that your customers listen and understand you as quickly as possible. Click on the button below and get a detailed ‘The One Liner Report’. It will take only 15 minutes to read.

We love our product so much that we don’t want to give it for free.
Obviously, if we give for free then we are not doing business and people don’t value what we give. But there is a way to give free things and still, you will not only make money but also become a market leader.

However, you need to have certain objectives in mind when you give things for free. In this podcast, you will know the ways to give things for free and still grow your business profitably?

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Have you heard of Vistaprint.com?
It was found by Robert Keane. He started this printing and graphic designing company in 1995.  He wanted to give small business owners access to the same high-quality, custom-printed products at a lower cost. Robert and his team developed patented technology that delivers professional-quality printing in small quantities at an affordable price.

They have transformed the printing industry.
Then they took a process that was traditionally only available offline and made it possible for both business owners and individuals to conveniently create and order their custom materials online. 20-25 years later,  Vistaprint is still dominating the market.

How did he make it possible?
He jumped into this business where many companies offer the same service. It is easy to enter the printing business because of the computer revolution. So, surviving and making a profit in this business is very difficult.

But Robert did something interesting.
He made a decision of investing at least one-third of his revenue into promoting his company. Thus the company grew faster than most of its competition. The company became the market leader. How did he revolutionise the industry? Let’s find out.

Robert had a fantastic idea after 5 years in his business.
If you know the early history of email services, you know how Hotmail.com was a highly used email service. He noticed that Hotmail.com was adding a tagline that says “Free email provided by Hotmail.com” to all the outgoing emails. And he wondered how he can use the same idea. He decided to give free business cards to people who were ready to allow him to add a small tagline on the back of each of the business cards.

And he started implementing the idea.
His company Vistaprint.com was giving business cards for free and people were paying for shipping and handling. They added the tagline “Business card for free at vistaprint.com” at the back of all cards. It turned out to be an incredible idea and it started generating a continuous flow of customers on autopilot. In just 10 years, mean by 2005, Vistaprint did the business of more than $90 million. It has millions of customers. They are adding 1,00,000 new customers every month. How is it happening? It’s because their free business cards are pulling more and more customers. Not just ordinary customers but loyal customers.

How can you use a similar idea for your business?
Honestly, it’s not easy to get customers to pull customers as Vistaprint did. But you can give something for free to your prospects or customers. I know it’s not easy to give something for free. However, When we have to give something for free, it is confusing what to give away for free or what not to. Let’s find out.

While giving a freebie, you should keep these three objectives.
First of all, the freebie has to be useful. People should be able to apply somewhere or be able to use it. Secondly, people should see free things. And thirdly, most importantly, your company’s name must be on it.

Your clients should be able to use it and they can also share it with their friends.
You can give anything that you want keeping the objectives in mind which are they are useful, they can be seen by your customers and your company’s name is on it.  So, think of what free things you can give that people see and use them. You can give Coffee mugs, bags, T-shirts, caps or a pen-stand.

You don’t have to create or print the freebies.
The best example is to give away a sample of your product to people. They should see and use it. If they like it, they look at the name on it and they will buy from you. Just like I share ideas and knowledge via my podcasts on the ‘Love Your Business’ podcast or on my website www.northstarangel.com for free. People try these free samples and they love it and they sooner or later end up buying from me or hiring me for their next training workshop or consultancy. Let me know what you wish to give away for free. Send your answers to contact@northstarangel.com.

The One-Liner Report:

Why Customers Don’t Listen? – How to get them to listen to you with your One-Liner?

This report will show you how to explain your business in just one-line so that your customers listen and understand you as quickly as possible. Click on the button below and get a detailed ‘The One Liner Report’. It will take only 15 minutes to read.

People and situations are not working as we expect. There is always a pain and frustration involved when we have to deal with people or situation. To live and run a life we need to develop a strong mindset that keep us happy and save us from pain and frustration

In this podcast, we will find out how to be happy and keep smiling even if things go wrong in our life. How to systematically trick our minds to stay psychologically sharp and calm when we are in pain? 

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How to run a marathon without feeling pain?
Running a marathon requires a lot of stamina and strength. Professional marathon runners work very hard day in and day out. In the first few kilometres, they don’t feel uncomfortable but after some kilometres, the real test begins.

Imagine how someone can finish 42 kilometres of a marathon in just 2 hours?
It was achieved by a famous marathon runner called ‘Eluid Kipchoge’. He tricked his mind with something that we all can do but, don’t do when we are in pain.

What did he do that we all should do?
He was smiling when he was having pain in his legs. Many research shows that smiling can relax you and can help you in improving your performance. Believe it or not, smiling is something to try while running (even when it feels tough). A simple smile will psychologically and possibly physiologically trick your body into relaxing a little more! It sounds good to know that we have to smile when we are in pain.

You heard it before but how exactly we can develop the same mindset?
Now that you know that keeping a smile and being happy helps you in pain, we are going to use it to our advantage. In this podcast, we will find out how to be happy and keep smiling even if things go wrong in our life. How to systematically trick our minds to stay psychologically sharp and calm when we are in pain? 

We are going to cover it in three parts.

1. Why you should accept what is wrong?
2. what can we do when the situation or people frustrate us?
3. What small change can you do to be happy?

About 20 years ago, I started reading motivational books.
I liked them. Some of them changed my mindset and made me stronger. But later on, I became addicted to it. I kept reading more books on self-development. After some point, those books on my shelf were not making any impact on me. 

So, along with self-development, I was doing shelf development.
I started asking myself what is something wrong with me? Then I came across a wonderful book called ‘t leadership’ by Dusan Djukich. It was a very good book with tons of good lessons.  But one of the most important lessons that I learned from that book was to accept that there is something wrong with you.

Previously, many motivational speakers told me to be positive and happy.
I completely agree with it and I became a better person. On the other hand, It’s difficult to change your attitude if you don’t accept the situation exactly as it is. You have to be honest with yourself and accept the situation as it is.  

We are far too blind with our ego that we can not accept that there is pain and loss.
You just have to accept it without excuses. We are in love with our emotions but the facts don’t care for our emotions.  It’s good to be positive and happy, and things become much better when we accept our faults and mistakes. When you accept, you start forgiving yourself and that’s how we begin to change our mindset. But many times, the situation and people we have to deal with are also causing pain and frustration. 

You know we all have those kinds of people.
We tried to change them but they don’t change when we want to change. They will change when they want to change. So, what can we do when the situation or people frustrate us?

George Clooney is one of the most famous Hollywood actors.
Just like almost every single actor, he too struggled to get a role in a movie. He was moving from one producer to another producer. He appeared in as many auditions as possible. He became poor and he had to sleep on a couch at someone’s house.

He faced failures at auditions and he became frustrated.
He was blaming the producers, directors, casting crew and even the entire Hollywood industry. He got angry with everyone. He started disliking the people.

And something interesting he realised on his way to another audition.
He used to believe that it was the job of a producer to give him a role and do a favour to him. Instead, he noticed that the producers have to evaluate hundreds of people just like him. It was not only equally painful for producers but also was draining their mental as well as physical energy.

The producers were also looking for the best actor that is fit for the role.
George realised that the producers did not want to pass through the frustration. So instead of getting angry at producers, he created empathy for the producers. He started looking from the eyes of the producers.

He changed the way he was thinking.
Instead of thinking, “How can I get the role?”, he started thinking, “How can I help the producers to choose me?” Instead of blaming them, he started thinking that he needs to help the producers to solve their problems.

As a result, his entire attitude changed dramatically.
His body language became positive. He became more polite and humble. His tone got changed. He found that he was not the only one who was going through the pain but every single person he met was going through some pain and frustration. He then started getting roles in Hollywood movies one after another.

When we are too focused on ourselves, we can’t connect emotionally with others.
Then we see others as problems and get frustrated. When you feel others’ pain, your language, tone and body language change. You become more sensitive towards others. You start caring for them and do whatever you can to serve them.

When you stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on serving and helping others, you become happy.
Instead of the situation or people being a help to you, start focusing on how you can be of any help to the situation or people. When your mind is focused on service, you don’t feel tired or frustrated. You enjoy helping others. So, to be happy and positive, we have to accept that everyone around us is going through some sort of pain and frustration. That takes us to the third thing that we have to do. Let’s cover it.

The reason for me being happy is because my wife ‘Dhruvi’ has taught me how to be happy.
Well, this is something that I never realised until she came into my life. Just like you and everyone, I also have to deal with problems and frustrations in life. The same with my wife ‘Dhruvi’ but she doesn’t react so badly like us for a long time. She gets angry but it’s almost always temporary. It amazed me in the first few years. Then I asked if she ever gets frustrated with situations or people. 

Her reply was life-changing for me. 
She said, “I decide to be happy.” Yes, then she said, “I don’t decide to be sad and frustrated. I choose to be happy!” And that’s it. I liked that idea. My wife taught me a wonderful lesson for the life. 

We have to choose how we want to react to any situation and people before we really react.
I am not saying that it will magically change the way you react but at least it will increase the probability of reacting positively and happily. Ultimately, you have to decide to be happy and positive.

It’s just a choice.
You don’t necessarily have to read a motivational quote to be happy. The more you decide the way you want to react, you will cultivate the habit of reacting in a better way than before. As we discussed earlier in this podcast, start reacting with a smile because it reduces psychological and physical pain.

Sometimes, you make mistakes and admit those mistakes.
Accept that you can go wrong and admit that there is something wrong. Then we talked about how seeing things from others’ perspectives can make us more humble and empathetic. Instead of thinking about how the situation or people can help you, think of how you can be helpful in any situation or to anyone. Lastly, it’s your choice how you want to react. Like my wife ‘Dhruvi’ can you choose to be happy and react to situations or people not with frustration or pain but with happiness and smile?

The One-Liner Report:

Why Customers Don’t Listen? – How to get them to listen to you with your One-Liner?

This report will show you how to explain your business in just one-line so that your customers listen and understand you as quickly as possible. Click on the button below and get a detailed ‘The One Liner Report’. It will take only 15 minutes to read.