What’s the easiest way to start making money online? If you answered sell products online, even then you’ve got a
few hurdles to leap. The first is the price is still a barrier to entry for many people. The second is the information is
lacking.
As an e-commerce expert, I’ve been there.
I’ve learned that to overcome these obstacles, I needed to provide quality content. I needed to provide information
so people could make informed decisions.
Because of this, I developed a simple formula that works. I call it “The Cost of Doing Business”
I’ve discovered that to overcome price hesitancy, I need to inform my prospects.
This includes all aspects of my products, services and products/services. It also includes all aspects of other
people’s products and services. This includes the quality, price and service.
By informing them on all those aspects I break even my price, and by taking this approach, I can sell my products
and services for much higher prices. And the best part? Many people are buying my products and services and
telling others about them.
This all ties into what I call “The Cost of Doing Business.”
The cost of doing business is the cost of what you’re wanting to do.
This includes legal, accounting, marketing and advertising. By simply telling the truth about all those costs, I’m able
to make much more money.
Let’s start with a question: Do you know exactly what it costs to run a business?
Maybe you’re not sure, and I’m not sure you do. That’s because I’m the one who’s been there, done that and done it
all myself. We’ve done it all and I’m here to tell you that if you have similar experience, you’ve got a problem.
The problem here is you haven’t made your costs public yet.
The only way you can do this is if you go with a “cost of doing business” calculator.
You can select your business, select your costs, and the calculator takes care of the rest.
This simple tool will tell you the cost of doing business for your business, including legal, accounting and everything
else. The results here will tell you how much business you’re losing, and why. This is as good as it gets in terms of
costs.
There are two things going on here. There’s a thing that I’m going to call “satisficing,” and there’s a thing that I’m
going to call “distressing.”
The problem with satisfaction
Satisficing is the cost of doing business – what it costs to get a customer.
If your satisfaction results are very good, and you have a lot of new prospects, your costs are small.
If they’re not good, and you’ve lost a lot of prospects, you’re probably spending way too much.
The answer to the problem is to find out why, and fix it.
Then, you can begin to look at the distressed side. How many customers have you lost, in terms of their distress
level? Find out the distress levels for both your satisfied and unsatisfied customers, and start to fix the problem.
You’ll be surprised by how easy it is to move a distressed customer from “wanting to buy” to “just trying to figure
out something.” Remember that fixing your distressed customers’ distress will have far less cost than satisfying their
satisfaction, so you have incentive to do so.
To get the distressed data, measure your cost of doing business in terms of the price you pay for a new customer.
Is it very high, or not so high? Now, measure the distress you’re causing with your distressed customers.
Are they very distressed, or just a little distressed? I found that the difference between very distressed and just
distressed is worth about 20% more than 20% higher prices. So, if you have to charge about 10% more to get a
customer that was worth 20% more, the money you’re investing in those distressed customers is only worth about
$40. So, you can invest $40 in just distressed customers, and get $1,000 worth of business from those happy
customers.
Now you’ll see why I always suggested looking at “satisficing” first, before “distress.” Distress is much harder to fix
than satisficing, because the cost of distress is much higher.
And you don’t get any special powers from finding out the actual dollars involved in doing business.
That’s what they call, “operating cost.” How much money have you sunk into a purchase, including the advertising
campaign, etc. The money doesn’t matter; it’s the impact of that money that makes it business.
By measuring distress, you’re measuring the cost of doing business. And that’s what you should be doing first,
before doing “distress.”
Try this test: Take the cost of distress test, and let me know how it works for you.
Then, do the “distress index.” Then test the “impact of the impact” test. Then, the “cost of getting on the phone”
test. Keep looking at the “cost of doing business” test.