Business Coaching

Business Turnaround Coaching With Mark Joyner & Simpleology

I am continuing to review the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit produced by Mark Joyner and Simpleology and an important bonus element of the program is that there are two series of coaching call recordings:

The first set of business turnaround coaching calls are with the original guinea pigs, (or Space Monkeys as Mark calls them) for the program and these are small group, interactive sessions.

The second set of business turnaround coaching calls are with the first batch of clients and because of large numbers, these are more of a presentation from Mark Joyner as he answers questions raised by the members.

Background To The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit

Before I look at the calls in any detail, if this is your first contact with the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit, it would be a good idea to read my earlier reviews so that you understand more about the program and in particular the structure of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit:

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit - Simpleology - introduction

Business Turnaround: To Thine Own Self Be True - Day 1

Cost Cutting In Your Business Turnaround - Day 2

Business Turnaround: Finding Your Cash Injections - Day 3

Business Turnaround: Generating Cash Urgently - Days 4 to 6 (Day 7 is preparing for the future)

7 Day Turnaround sales letter - at the moment this is available as a 7 day trial before you have to pay so that you can improve your business and generate the extra cash required.

Business Turnaround Coaching Calls - An Optional Extra?

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit is a very intensive program designed to do exactly what it says on the tin. You will be very busy working through the compulsory material, applying the ideas to your business and taking action (the essential step if you are going to get the results you want).

Because the coaching calls are not listed on the daily program, the two coaching calls in my opinion can be considered as optional extras but they will help you if you feel stuck or need extra information.

Day 1 Business Turnaround Coaching Calls

This is very much the introduction to the program and both the Space Monkeys call (50 minutes) and the first group call (80 minutes) have to be seen in that light.

Mark Joyner emphasises the importance of working purposefully through the program but Day 1 is about reviewing your own feelings towards the success (or failure) of the business and what it means to you and the people who depend on you together with the start of the review process to gain control and stop the bleeding on time and money.

Both calls have "celebrity guests" with Tellman Knudson on the Space Monkeys call and Joe Vitale (Hypnotic Marketing and "The Secret" film) on the first group call sharing their thoughts and experiences.

I consider these calls to be "nice to hears" rather than essentials assuming that you are serious about working through the turnaround program. Download and listen to in the car if you have long journeys but if you are short of time, concentrate on the main program activities for Day 1.

The Day 1 questions are challenging nut essential. You may find that the information is not easily available but you must not use that as an excuse to delay taking action.

To save time I listened to the recordings of the turnaround coaching calls through some clever software called FasterAudio which allows you to speed up and slow down recording speeds and I found it comfortable to listen at 135% of normal speed and take notes saving me about 30 minutes.

Day 2 Business Turnaround Coaching

There are another two hours of coaching calls for the Space Monkeys and the first group.

The Space Monkeys call reinforces the need to tackle the Day 2 issues and the relief that comes from taking action to cut your costs.

Focus then moves on to preparation for Day 3 in terms of developing cash injection missions with interesting stories from Andy Duncan (information product over the Internet) and Tellman Knudson (professional services) of how quickly cash can be generating. This is inspiring stuff and nicely balances the Internet/real world issues.

In the group coaching call, Mark Joyner is again reinforcing the important points from the first two days of material and then features interviews with of the two Space Monkeys. A great story from Andy Duncan about how the Day 2 Space Monkey call inspired him to take action with a new idea which generated significant cash very quickly.

Andy also offers a great bonus recording which you have to get for the Day 5, creating cash out of thin air.

The other Space Monkey featured is Tom Justin, author of "How To Take No For An Answer and Still Succeed". I haven't read it but it sounds a great philosophy.

A big problem is that people won't try things because of the fear of failure. Or people will start but not finish because of a desire to make it perfect.

In the business turnaround, you have to just go out and do it.

Take action.

If it works great, if it doesn't, identify what you have learned for next time.

Day 3 Business Turnaround Coaching

In day three the coaching calls get longer with a total of 169 minutes.

The Space Monkeys call (76 minutes) has a presentation from top copywriter Mike Morgan (in advance of his video in Day 4) which is again excellent and very focused on the topic of creating cash injections and then Mark Joyner explains methods for how you can find your thirsty crowds to make your offer to.

It is an excellent, informative call but I know that Mark Joyner would urge you to focus on completing your first cash injection mission as a higher priority.

Just taking action:

a) will create such a positive feeling for you. It marks the transition from being in totally reactive mode worrying about your lack of cash before you start the turnaround program to pro-actively making things happen that will generate cash for you.

b) you will learn so much from trying to use the PMCFT formula which will help you in your next cash injection mission tomorrow.

The group coaching call is even longer at 93 minutes and again features copywriter Mike Morgan taking you through the basics of copywriting and in particular short cash injection copy. This does mean that there is duplication between both calls. Whilst repetition takes time, it also reinforces your learning and makes it easier to move from theoretical knowledge to practical application.

In this group coaching call, Mike Morgan gives away some excellent free information to help you to create emotional copy to encourage browsers to become buyers together with several other valuable resources.

The more I look at the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit, the more I see this as a complete business development system.

Day 4 Business Turnaround Coaching

The Space Monkeys call (47 minutes) is more interactive than previous calls with Mark Joyner continuing to encourage taking action on the cash injection missions on a ready, fire, aim basis.

Just do it and then improve is the basic message at this stage.

The call also includes some recommended copywriting resources but the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is already strong in that area and particularly with the great bonuses from Mike Morgan.

The Group coaching call is 68 minutes long and Tellman Knudson pops up again with tips and stories about creating cash injections missions and Tellman also provides a bonus set of videos to help you with list building.

In my view neither of the Day 4 coaching calls fall into the "must hear" category although both are useful to hear but shouldn't be at the expense of taking action.

Day 5 Business Turnaround Coaching

The Space Monkeys coaching calls for day 5 lasts 68 minutes and is an interactive session answering questions about how you can create information products out of thin air.

The group coaching call was 68 minutes and featured two guests, Pat O'Bryan and Ladan Lashlan (one of the original Space Monkeys) to share their stories and ideas about creating information products.

This call also included a pooling of resources to help make teleseminars, ebooks, audio CDs easier to produce. Both guests also give away for free helpful resources to help you to develop your Internet information business further.

Again neither of these calls fit into the unmissable category if you need to create your cash injection missions urgently but both are valuable and interesting over the long term.

Day 6 Business Turnaround Coaching

The Space Monkeys coaching call for day 6 was an interactive session to help people complete their first cash injection mission.

The group coaching call included two guests and focused on helping to find the best ways to forge joint venture deals or in Mark Joyner's terms advanced integration marketing - Jason Henderson, the space monkey who was using the course to attract votes for The Next Internet Millionaire contest and Stirling Valentine, an expert in joint ventures.

Day 7 Business Turnaround Coaching

On day seven, Mark Joyner is laying the foundations for the future development of the business and explains the extra resources which are included as bonuses in the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit.

The Space Monkeys call is a summary of people's success stories but also includes some important lessons about persuasion and in particular presuppositions.

The group coaching call introduced us to Dr Michael Hudson who has provided four business development calls to cover the future strategy for the business.

Conclusion on the Business Turnaround Coaching Calls

All the calls are good to listen to and valuable as the issues brought up will be relevant to at least some people but none of the calls are essential in my view.

If you are in a cash crunch then it is essential that you concentrate on taking action on both blades of the scissors - your revenue/cash receipts and your costs/payments. To be fair to Mark, this is a point that he keeps emphasising in the calls. The cash flow problems in the business will only be corrected with action.

The main Seven Day Business Turnaround Program is already comprehensive with the necessary information introduced in the daily lessons and supplemented in the guest videos.

Listening to more learning material if your business is rushing down the slippery slope to oblivion is not the thing to be doing. On average you will have more than two hours worth of calls per day to listen to and I believe the time is better spent working on your cash injections missions:

1. Thinking about them
2. Creating them
3. Marketing them

If you need help, I recommend reviewing past post on the forum and if necessary posting a question yourself. Just remember the forum is visible to Google so be discrete.

I continue to be very impressed with the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit and while I haven't done a cash injection mission because I want to work on some longer term strategic issues, I can see that the techniques work and this is confirmed by all the success stories for the product. I have gone back and reviewed more of my costs and knocked a few more regular payments on the head because I'm not getting value.

Mini Moans

Inevitably there are a few ways that the product could be improved:

1. The emphasis remains on selling information products for Internet marketers and I would have liked to have seen more effort to relate it back to non-Internet businesses.
    
   The basic process of the seven day turnaround kit applies to any business and I understand the attractions of creating information products to sell on the Internet but I would have liked to see examples of how this approach can quickly drive extra leads and cash to a primarily off-line business. It looks like I will have to write my own article on using information to sell tangible products
    
   
2. Given the critical importance of time which is the theme of Simpleology 101, I would have liked to see summaries of these coaching calls so that it was clear what was included or transcripts available so that they could be quickly scan reviewed.
    
   
3. The focus on the coaching calls was very much on the cash injections but many people will have difficulty dealing with the difficult decisions required in day 2 to cut costs and this will be especially true if there are excess staff to remove. It is an unpleasant task so more support and reassurance about how handle the conversation would have been helpful.

But these are minor niggles and I continue to believe that the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is an excellent product for any small business in financial difficulty or for any small business which wants to give itself a quick boost in performance.

There are still a lot of bonus resources which I haven't worked through including Dr Michael Hudson's "Making It Stick" coaching calls, and the Simpleology courses to implement the ideas  from Mark's books "The Irresistible Offer" and "The Great Formula".
To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Mark Joyner Basketball Challenge

I don't know anything about basketball but I do know a good deal when I hear about it and that's exactly what Mark Joyner from Simpleology is offering if you can pick the winner of the NBA 2008 finals.

You only have to pick between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics and you stand a chance of winning all of the Simpleology courses.

That has to be worth a try doesn't it?

Even if you are not one of the lucky winners, you'll be offered to make a small investment (Mark mentions a steep discount) on the Word of Mouth Transformation reply and you will have all the other courses opened for free.

Just click over to Mark's blog and take your pick.

Lakers or Celtics

I voted for Celtics but I didn't have a good reason.

You can find out the latest in this seven match series

As I write this, The Celtics are leading the series 2 to 1

Why bother?
You may be thinking that you are not going to be one of the selected people to scoop the lot so why bother?

But I can't think of a better way of protecting your business in these difficult times than by improving the quality of your referrals and word of mouth recommendations.

It has always been the best way to bring in new customers because it is usually low cost, low risk and the prospects are predisposed to buy from you.

So I can't see any reason for not being interested in the Word of Mouth Transformation program and then you have a choice - take up Mark's offer of a steep discount or say no.

Even if you pick the wrong team, you can still be a winner with Simpleology because of Mark Joyner's current generosity with giving you two of his best selling marketing books as a free download.

The Irresistible Offer

The Great Formula

Good luck

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Mark Joyner - The Great Formula Giveaway - Free PDF

After the early success of giving away a free copy of his best selling book "The Irresistible Offer", Mark Joyner of Simpleology is going one step further and has now announced that he will give away a free copy of the best selling follow up book "The Great Formula".

To gain access to both books for free, you just need to click on the links below and sign up:

The Irresistible Offer

The Great Formula

When I reviewed The Great Formula I had mixed feelings and only gave it 3 Stars - see The Great Formula review to find out why.

It was about a year ago when I read the book and wrote out my thoughts and that was before I had bought into Mark Joyner's special ability for taking complex ideas and making them simple. I suspect that my review would be more generous now.

The message in The Great Formula is essential and the final element forms the sixth pillar of my own Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity model - turning one time buyers into regular customers.

The other big difference is that now I am not considering whether to recommend that you buy it, just read it so the fact that I thought the book was too short now becomes an advantage. It is quick and easy to read and the if you haven't previously grasped the key messages, it will be a revelation.

Get your free copy of The Great Formula - and even more importantly, put the ideas into action and see your sales and profits shoot up like a rocket.

Business Turnaround: Generating Cash Urgently

The Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology focuses on generating extra cash for your business throughout Days 4 to 7.

The objective is to find enough cash to cover your operating expenses for the next 60 days so that you have the time to put longer term growth strategies into place.

Lack of sales may have been the main problem for your business from the start so it is important to be realistic about what can be achieved in the seven day turnaround period.

But Mark Joyner believes that every business has hidden assets which can be used to generate revenue and cash quickly.

But your cash generation will only happen if:

a) You open up your mind. Don't hear an idea and immediately think "I'm not doing that" or "I already know that".

b) You take action to put one cash injection strategy into place each day.

Hopefully the actions from Day 3 when you listed your assets and did the creative thinking exercise has already had your mind racing ahead with ideas to generate cash urgently.

I won't go into too much detail about the cash generation strategies themselves because I have to respect the Simpleology intellectual property and these next few days are the guts of the program.

• Day 4 - Money out of thin air with existing resources
   
• Day 5 - Quick new products from thin air
   
• Day 6 - Last ditch cash injection tactics - if all else fails
   
• Day 7 - What's next

Mark Joyner's lessons are supported by guest videos from Mike Morgan (excellent with some great extras thrown in), Dave Lakhani, Pat O'Brien, Ray Edwards (very good), Kevin Wilke, Dearl Miller (excellent), Ewen Chia, Matt Gill, Joel Comm, David Garfinkel, Marc Goldman (very good) and Paul Lemberg (good tips on time management).

Copywriters & Internet Marketers

Many of the guest presenters in the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit are copywriters and Internet marketers.

It would be easy to think "I'm not really on the Internet. It doesn't apply to me." and dismiss the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit.

That would be a mistake in my mind and while I would have liked to see more adaptation of the cash generation ideas to other types of businesses in the turnaround program, these two skills are very relevant to you, regardless of what type of business you are in.

Why Copywriting is Critical

To be successful as a copywriter you have to be an expert in direct response marketing.

Direct response marketing is advertising or promotion which causes the prospective customer to call or visit you (real world or Internet) within a deadline because they have a compelling reason to do "what's good for them" and what's also good for you.

This type of advertising is the exact opposite of the big brand advertising you see on television. Direct response is designed to encourage people to take action straight away and not build a long term brand with various psychological associations to the nicer things in life. You don't have time for that kind of luxury and trying brand advertising may be one of the causes of your current problems.

Internet Marketing - Much More Than A Website

You don't have the time or money for traditional advertising in Yellow Pages, newspapers and magazines and you probably don't have the opportunity for much direct mail.

As I explained in Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet, you don't even need a website to market on the Internet but you can get your business name and details out to people looking for your products or people who may be interested easily, quickly and cheaply.

Email marketing is a great way to contact your existing or past customers and you can find email marketing services which allow you to send and monitor campaigns. I use Campaign Monitor but the best known in Aweber.

Combined Impact of Message and Media

Since marketing is a combination of the message (which you have refined from the copywriting lessons) and media used to transmit the message (the Internet and all the variations), you can see that the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is focused on doing exactly what was promised in the only way it can in the seven days.

But I Don't Have An Internet Business

You have proved that you have a PC and can use the Internet, the next aspect is to use the Internet to promote your business.

You need cash and you need it quickly which is why I said at the start you must not close your mind to ideas which conflict with the current way you think.

Do you have a business where people could search on the Internet for your products or services?

If so there are ways and means to get on the front page of many Google searches provided you are realistic about what you are trying to achieve. Target popular keywords and you will fail because people spend years working on their optimisation but target your service in the small region where your customers are likely to be searching and you can succeed.

Do you have a business where there is an opportunity for an information product?

There is a big opportunity in this area although you need to check that it is a market where people are prepared to pay rather than expect it all for free.

Information that you know and take for granted can be a revelation for other people.

If you don't believe me, think back to some of your recent purchases when you've thought "I wish I knew more about this." How can you take the stress out of making a decision or enhance the benefits of a purchase?

It's not just the Internet

The big advantage of the Internet is that it is quick, cheap and has a vast reach. I have readers from 142 countries so far.

The Internet is one route for you to contact your prospective customers and email marketing allows you to contact many people if you have been building up a list.

I would also recommend that you follow up by telephone with your largest customers who may be receptive to the idea of buying more together with any big lapsed customers. You never know, they may have been thinking about you but just never got around to giving you a call.

Conclusion - Urgent Cash Generation

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit continues to deliver the goods but you have to appreciate the challenge.

There are no magic wands or silver bullets which can instantly turn on a stream of cash and as you work through these sessions, you may become more aware of the limitations of your past business practices.

If you haven't been collecting email addresses from your clients and prospects and following up with them periodically, then it is obviously going to be more difficult and time consuming to make contact now.

If your business turnaround is a rescue bid for a business that has never really got off the ground and you don't have past clients and prospects, then the barrier is raised even higher since you have to generate these new leads in such a short time period.

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Program does contain various ideas which you can adapt if you are effectively starting from nothing but it will be tough.

But what's the option?

Back in Day 1 you identified why it was so important for you that your business survives and it is now a case of doing whatever has to be done (while staying legal) to generate the cash necessary to give you more time to improve your business.

Click on the link to find out more about the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology.

Preliminary Assessment of the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit

I have come to the end of the structured course as laid out by the work-plan  and I have read a number of postings in the Business Turnaround forum but:

a) I have not listened to the Mark Joyner coaching calls for each day he did with the first group or the separate coaching calls  with the small group of trialists (the Space Monkeys referred to in the sales letter)

b) I have not worked my way through the two bonus programs based on Mark Joyner's best selling marketing books, "The Irresistible Offer" and "The Great Formula".

c) I have not watched the Outsourcing Secret Weapon videos from Mark Joyner

d) I have not listened to the six hours of Making It Stick calls from Dr Michael Hudson

e) I have not read the other bonus materials and reports.

so you can see why this is only my preliminary conclusion. I have a lot more homework to do from the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit to appreciate the full benefits.

I give the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit a Strong Buy Recommendation

I like the structured approach of the program and it makes a great deal of sense to:

Day 1 - Find out the facts and work out just what the business means to you

Day 2 - Take the unpleasant actions to trim away the excess weight from the business

Days 3 to 6 - Create cash injections to buy you time for longer term business development

Day 7 - Prepare the business for the future.

If you find yourself in an under-performing business facing an imminent cash flow problem, just having this guidance and a program like this will make you feel so much better and more in control.

The primary videos in the program which Mark Joyner presents are very clear and concise and clarify your priorities. The back up systems and notes are also very good.

Some of the guest videos are excellent although some are disappointing, either because they are very short and don't really contribute, because they are difficult to hear or because they consume your time without adding much value. But we are different and videos I didn't like may turn on a light bulb in your brain.

The seven day turnaround is a very demanding challenge and for bigger small businesses, the process may turn from 7 days to 14,21 or even 28 days depending on whether you can allow the duration to expand.

Even for a one man business the program is intensive and requires time to work through the program materials, to collect and analyse data and find creative solutions and implement.

It can't be any other way but the stakes are very high since we are talking about the future of your business.

So who do I think the course will suit most?

• Small businesses that are under-performing but not yet facing an imminent cash crisis. You have time to work through the whole program and really implement the ideas effectively. Prevention is better than cure.
     
• Small businesses with an Internet presence. As I have explained above, the seven day time horizon means that the Internet is the cheapest and fastest way of marketing. The more organised your web marketing the better.
   
• Small businesses with a good number of current and past customers. It is much easier to sell to people who have bought from you before and again the seven days gives you little time to go through a selling process which builds confidence with new leads.
   
• Knowledge based small businesses who can quickly produce (or source) and market digital products over the Internet.
   
• Small businesses with saleable stock/inventory since there are a number of techniques which will help you to promote a "firesale"

Who should give the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit a miss?

• Anyone who is not prepared to commit to saving their business and working exceptionally hard over the turnaround period. It will take purposeful, determined action.
   
• Anyone who is unsure that they want to rescue their business. If you have lost your passion for your business or it was always just an opportunity to make some money, then you may be better letting the business crash rather than staggering on for an extended period while you are not happy.
   
• Anyone who is not prepared to try new ideas. It will be easy to say "that's not relevant to me" rather than taking the basic concept of say an upsell and asking "how can I apply that in my business?"
   
• The more complex your business, the longer the sales cycle and the bigger your business, the more I believe you need customised advice rather than a generic small business turnaround process. That's not to say that the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit won't give you ideas. It will and on basis that the bigger the business, the smaller the relative price, it could still be an invaluable purchase. In a larger business, just taking one idea could payback the purchase price many times over.

The Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is an exceptional product for the price but I urge you to turn to it before your final seven days is about to begin.

I believe that the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is a great product to help you to survive the tough times that are ahead and then provide the base for you to build a successful business. You can order it from the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit.

Mark Joyner is so confident in the power of his Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit that he is offering it to you free to try. That's right, you pay at the end of the seven days so that gives you time to review it and make sure that you are getting your monies worth.

It looks one of the easier decisions you have to make to me.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Related postings:

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit Simpleology - general introduction to the program

Cost cutting in your business turnaround - Day 2, getting your business in order

Business turnaround: Finding your cash injection - Day 3 learning how to generate extra cash quickly

Business Turnaround: Finding Your Cash Injection

Day 2 from the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit was tough but in Day 3 you now have to turn your attention to giving your business a cash injection.

Mark Joyner recommends targeting two months of operating expenses as a cash injection but this is a balancing act. Personally I'd like more cash coverage and to know that my business has more than 60 days to live but as with any goal, you have to balance what you want with what you believe you can achieve.

There is no point having a goal which your self talk tells you is unlikely. That defeats the entire psychological benefit of goal setting although you do need to have some stretch to open up your mind to new opportunities.

I know that having two months cash will be a great relief if you came into the Seven Day Business Turnaround Program with a severe cash crisis and you are uncertain whether you can last more than a handful of days.

In the Day 3 material, Mark Joyner busts the myths that only a few people can bring in cash quickly to a company. According to Mark, anybody can do find a cash injection provided they go through the right process.

As I watched the video and the work book, I could see the Jay Abraham influences come out (but what marketer hasn't been influenced by Jay Abraham, and if not why not?)

Jay Abraham talks a lot about finding hidden assets and opportunities and leveraging these for profit. The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit takes you through the process of finding these assets and helping you to think creativity about how you can commercialise and monetarise ideas for quick cash.

The Business Turnaround Kit also has a Cash Injection Mission Worksheet to give you a high level business planning tool for each idea which can then be turned into specific actions for you and your staff.

I like this PMCFT method and while different, it struck me with the same power as the 7 Sentence Guerrilla Marketing Plan from Jay Conrad Levinson.

This brings to mind two essentials of planning:

1. Proper planning prevents poor performance.
    
2. Planning need to be specific, focused on results and turned into actions. It is not meant to be a long-winded, time consuming activity.

Extra video training teaches you how to apply the PMCFT method and also gives you a lesson from mark Joyner about the main copywriting formulae. While the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit also includes as bonuses training programs based on Mark Joyner's best selling books, "The Irresistible Offer" and "The Great Formula", the emphasis in the turnaround program is quick action to solve your immediate cash problems.

Day 3 includes two bonus videos.

The first video features Joshua Shafran explaining that business turnaround is easier than you think. That message comes through in the entire 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit but the video has some excellent content.

Unfortunately sound and vision quality are not up to standard. The Joshua Shafran video is incredibly quiet. It had me checking my PC settings. searching the web for how to make it louder, re-booting my PC to see if there was a booting error in my sound card. Eventually I remembered I had bought some PC headphones and I found them which allowed me to hear what was said.

The second video was also quiet and features Buck Rizvi and Brock Felt explaining how you can make money from teleseminars. This may not seem immediately relevant to you but I like to see it as an example of how you need to break out of your current revenue generation methods and try something new.

It is an excellent call and links back very well to making better use of your hidden assets, in this case, a large network of relationships and skill or knowledge that people would like to learn more about.

Conclusion

By the end of Day 3 of the 7 Day Business Turnaround, you are starting to put your cash injection strategies into place and we will learn more about ways to generate revenue and cash in the next few days.

So far the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit has been very structured and it leads you through the process very well. Given the uncertainty you may be facing if your business is in a crisis state, this is just what you need.

Click on the link to learn more about the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Related postings: 

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit Simpleology - general introduction to the program

Cost cutting in your business turnaround - Day 2, getting your business in order

Business turnaround: Generating cash urgently - Day 4 to 6 three fundamentally different approaches to raising cash.

Cost Cutting In Your Business Turnaround

In Day 1 of the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology, you were told to identify your motives for saving the business and then you made sure you knew your financial position and identified all your costs.

The first step in the turnaround plan is to stop the bleeding of unproductive time and money and the second step is to reduce your stress by dealing with your problems and knowing where you are heading.

Day 2 of the Business Turnaround Kit is when you put your cost cutting plans into action and you speak to your creditors.

Make no mistake, Day 2 is a nightmare

You have to make hard decisions, take action and live with the consequences. Cost cutting is never pleasant but you will feel purged.

If you are serious about turning around your business cutting costs is 100% necessary.

I talk about cost creep in my coaching. It is much easier spending money that earning it and that's why you need to go back and review you costs. In a business turnaround situation saving $1,000 of costs in a month is just as good as earning an extra $1,000 of margin from your sales.

You will not survive if you don't stop the bleeding of cash and wasted time. Day 2 of the Business Turnaround Kit is the day that you take action.

Cost Cutting 101

Stop incurring unnecessary costs and anything else which doesn't give you an immediate payback.

When you are fighting for business survival with possibly only a few weeks to go, the "must go to" exhibition in six months time doesn't matter.These are the type of costs you have to cut, the "nice if's" as well as the wasteful and extravagant costs.

If you didn't read about the zero based thinking for making difficult decisions in my Day 1 review, do so now. Take each cost in turn and ask yourself, "Knowing what you know now, would you still start incurring this cost?"

If not you have identified a cost to be cut.

In the cost cutting phase you only have three options:

1. Keep it
    
2. Reduce it
    
3. Stop it

Let's take office cleaning as an example and imagine you have an office of 15 people and you are considering whether you can cut your cleaning costs.

Can you stop the contract with the cleaning company and ask your own team to clean their areas? Is this the best use of their time? Will it retain their goodwill and serve as an example of the stringency measures required? What are the consequences if some people take up the cleaning chore and do it but others don't?

If you decide to keep office cleaning but to reduce the cost can you:

1. Reduce the quantity and move from cleaning every day to three days per week?
    
2. Reduce the quality so that certain cleaning tasks are taken out of the scope of the work?
    
3. Reduce the cost by negotiating a lower rate per hour?

Cost cutting means looking at your external purchases and being ruthless. If your business goes bankrupt, they have lost the business anyway so don't feel bad. Cost cutting also means looking hard at your own employee team.

Now is not the time to be trying to carry passengers and it's not fair to your other employees who rely on their salaries from you.

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit takes you through a generic process for reducing the number of people you employ although you must take legal advice. Mistakes under the employment laws are very expensive. In the UK, you may want to join the Federation of Small Businesses which gives you access to a legal helpline.

Cutting future costs is a great start but if your business has a cash crisis, you have a long list of creditors who expect to be paid and the next step in the 7 Day Turnaround Plan is to deal with these creditors.

Facing Up To Your Existing Creditors

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit encourages you to approach your creditors and come to an arrangement. It even gives you a sample script.

This is on the basis that the worst thing you can usually do is to go into hiding and avoid any contact with your suppliers/vendors. They will lose patience quickly and start proceedings to recover their debts and restrict future supplies.

The Business Turnaround Kit doesn't tell you to take insolvency advice but you do need to consider it so that you are clear about your legal responsibilities.

One of the definitions of an insolvent company in the UK is a business which is unable to meet its debts as they fall due. Once you are insolvent, there are serious issues to consider both for your business and for you personally. In the UK the directors become liable for company debts if their company is insolvent and continue to trade when the business has little or no chance of recovery.

There are two options:

1. Delayed payments - you agree a schedule for past debts but you pay immediately for current purchases.
    
2. Waived payments - the supplier agrees to settle for a certain percentage of the debt and to waive the remainder.

You may think that there is no way your hard nosed suppliers will accept this but they have little other option if your business is close to collapse. Some money is better than nothing.

The Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit takes you through the process of doing these difficult negotiations yourself or bringing in a debt restructuring company to do it for you. One debt restructuring firm is recommended but they only cover the USA.

There are risks in talking to your creditors (but there are big risks in not talking as well). Some vendors/suppliers may act precipitately out of self interest on the basis that they can extract their cash before you become bankrupt so you can't hold back on just how serious the situation is.

In the UK there is a formal insolvency procedure called a Company Voluntary Arrangement which covers the agreed reduction of creditors while the business is in a legally protected position. These CVAs require the involvement of a licensed insolvency practitioner. (see CVA for more details).

If your cash crisis is so bad that you believe that you need to consider talking to your creditors, and especially if you are thinking of proposing a reduced settlement, I strongly recommend you take legal advice about the local insolvency/bankruptcy laws.

At The End Of Day 2

Day 2 is as tough as it gets in your business turnaround.

You have cut costs and may have admitted your problems to all the businesses who depend on you for payment.

It is likely that you will have heard tales of hardship and how your actions are ruining the dreams of employees and putting your suppliers' businesses at risk.

But you can look yourself in the eye when you see a mirror. You are facing up to your difficult circumstances, you are taking action, you are being honest and you are dealing systematically with your responsibilities.

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit is supporting you throughout the process and by the end of day 2, you have achieved so much.

You have stopped the bleeding.

Your stress levels should be lower. People know the situation and can make their own informed decisions. You can move on to thinking about how you can find your cash injection to give you more breathing space which is covered in Day 3 of the turnaround plan.

Day 2 Assessment of the Business Turnaround Kit

There is no way that the business turnaround kit can cover the local legal compliance issues so you will need to supplement it with legal advice about employment law and insolvency/debt.

The Business Turnaround Kit supports you through the cost cutting process and shows that however difficult and unpleasant Day 2 is, it is an essential part of the process.

Skip over Day 2 and your stress levels remain sky high because you haven't dealt with your problems. Without reviewing your costs and cutting out the non-essential items, you are forcing your business to carry a heavier weight and you are reducing the likelihood of a successful turnaround.

Also included in the Day 2 material is an excellent video from Spiker Humer, an experienced turnaround manager who is now Chief Operating Officer for the Jay Abraham companies which looks at the turnaround process in larger small businesses. [Turnaround is different in a one or two person business compared with a thirty to fifty employee business but they are both considered to be small businesses.]

There is also a long, very quiet video from Internet marketer Tellman Knudson which is well meaning but self indulgent. I would be surprised if many people watch this video given how much has to be done on Day 2 and I would recommend that you skip it.

The intention is to show that you can overcome any obstacle but Tellman does not have the ra ra style of a motivational speaker and I doubt that you are interested in the problems he has overcome. The lessons probably won't be relevant to you and you don't have much time.

Everything else in the Business Turnaround Kit has been short, concise and very focused.

The Day 3 of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit review will appear in a few days.

In the meantime, if you need to know more about business turnaround quickly check out this link to the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit if you want to know more about it.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Related postings: 

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit Simpleology - general introduction to the program

Business turnaround: Finding your cash injection - Day 3 learning how to generate extra cash quickly

Business turnaround: Generating cash urgently - Day 4 to 6 three fundamentally different approaches to raising cash.

Business Turnaround: To Thine Own Self Be True

This is my Day 1 review of the Mark Joyner & Simpleology 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit and the Shakespeare's quote seems particularly relevant.

If your business is going in trouble but you are want to turn it around, it all has to start by being brutally realistic.

Mark Joyner's title for Day 1 is:

Grab Your Gut, Stare Down Reality, Map the Road Ahead

In this first day we have an animated 6 minute video which overviews the entire program and motivates you to take action. This is then followed by a quiz to make sure that you have retained and understood the important points.

The course is structured around a course check list and workbook, backed up the the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit Virtuosity Book (the theory) and the memory joggers to keep you focused on the essentials.

The workbook for Day 1 focuses on your motivations and emotions. What the survival of your business means to you and your family.

If you remember, the turnaround is separated into a four stage process:

1. Stop the bleeding - both time and money.
    
2. Stop the stress - move from uncertainty to clarity.
    
3. Inject the business with cash - Mark Joyner's tip is to aim for 2 months of operating expenses to give you time to breathe.
    
4. Refocus the business.

Day 1 is the time for reflection and you will complete analyses which look in detail at the time and money aspects of your business.

The first step is knowledge.

You cannot operate in a position of uncertainty when you don't know the facts about your business and to this extent the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit follow my own Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity model where the first pillar is knowing your key numbers.

Some businesses I come into contact with have very poor book-keeping systems and getting the house in order can take months so:

a) Don't let yourself fall into that trap if you are just starting out

b) Start improving your record keeping if you are not in a crisis. Find an outsourced book-keeping service to help you.

c) If you are in crisis and you are not up-to-date, you don't have the time to put in the systems so you will have to make the best estimates you can. This is not a good position to be in because without proper records it is very difficult to see exactly what is going on in a business.

When you have your cost details, you will go through and identify which you will keep and which you will stop. The decisions are hard but you can sleep on it overnight. Brian Tracy uses a great technique called zero based thinking for making difficult decisions which I highly recommend.

Day 1 ends with three videos of very contrasting styles from three gurus -

• Larry Winget who tells you to accept that you are responsible for the problems but to get over it and move on,
   
• Joe Vitale who takes a much softer approach and calls on the Law of Attraction to focus on the positives
   
• Ted Nicholas who gives you practical advice to help you work with the right mentality, deal with creditors, cut costs and find a cash injection.

There are also a series of coaching calls which Mark Joyner did with a number of people trialing the system (he calls them Space Monkeys) which allow for questions to be raised and answered. As these are not on the official 7 Day Turnaround Program, my intention is to review these calls at the end but they are there to help.

Assessment of Day 1

By the end of the day, you will be clear on just how important it is to fight for the survival of your business and the bald facts about your current business.

It will take a few hours to get this done but nothing is more important than to clarify your position and face up to your situation.

7 Day Business Turnaround Kit sales letter

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit Simpleology - general introduction to the program

Cost cutting in your business turnaround - Day 2, getting your business in order

Business turnaround: Finding your cash injection - Day 3 learning how to generate extra cash quickly

Business turnaround: Generating cash urgently - Day 4 to 6 three fundamentally different approaches to raising cash.

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit - Simpleology

Over the next two weeks or so I will be testing and reviewing the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology.

I am taking longer to go through this course than the seven days because;

a) my business is not in a crisis so the program is not my highest priority

b) I am having to write the reviews as well as work my way through the materials and

c) I don't want my blog to be taken over completely by the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit in particular or business turnaround in general.

Scary Times Could Be Ahead

Each year tens of thousands of small businesses in the UK fail and many more struggle to survive while operating at little more than a subsistence level.

Working harder, longer hours for less money seems to be the curse of many entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses.

But I am gloomy about the UK and Western world economies for the next eighteen months. With disposable incomes down and credit more difficult to find, consumer spending has to reduce.

If it is tough to build a sustainable business in the good years, just imagine the problems there will be in a recession.

This will be my first recession with my own business, even though I have been trading for thirteen years but I remember the 1990-92 recession when I was a senior manager of a much bigger business. I told the story in Business coaching in a recession.

I had never seen profit fall out of a business so quickly. We had a six month swing from making £100k profit per month to at the worst stage losing £90k in on month before employee termination costs and other restructuring.

A Time Of Unbelievable Pressure & Strain

If you find yourself in the situation where your business is failing and it may only have weeks to survive and recover, you will know just how much pressure and stress you can face.

Often it is not just the business at stake.

Business loans are secured on personal assets like your house.

Business worries become personal worries about how you can provide the basics for your family.

You are scared and confused.

You may have times when you rush around like a headless chicken, starting one task and then another but never finishing any.

But at other times you may be paralysed by fear. Your mind freezes and you can't think straight.

You are overwhelmed by what has to be done but you don't know what has to be done first.

You need help!

You Are One Of Many

It's easy to see your business problems as all your fault and that you are alone.

But many other people are going through exactly the same problems and emotions at the moment.

Some will take action and turnaround their business but many won't. The fact that you are reading this says that you are an action taker who is looking for guidance.

That's a great start to rescuing your business.

The Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit

I want to introduce you to the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology.

It could be just what you are looking for to provide focus and clarity to your actions so that you do what is necessary while you still have a chance to save your business.

You could pop straight over to the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit sales letter and read it for yourself or you could carry on reading as I try to highlight some of the important points from the letter.

Mark Joyner Is A Great Copywriter

Mark Joyner is the author of Mind Control Marketing, The Irresistible Offer and The Great Formula and has probably forgotten more about marketing than I'll ever know

but

I think he has slipped up with his headline (although Mark may still be testing and you may see a different headline) so please don't be put off if you read:

"How Does A Full Time 2nd Grade Teacher Struggling To Make $417 A Month Online. Triple It in 4 Days... And Eliminate Worry About Having A Cash Crunch Again?"

My problem is that the headline may not pass the relevancy test for you and you may dismiss the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit without properly reading the copy because you're not a teacher, your problems are much bigger than $417 per month and because you don't market on the Internet.

I believe that would be a big mistake.

Later on in the letter it says about the program:

"It's the same thing a Fortune 500 would do, just made so bloody simple a 2nd grade teacher could do it" and yes, there is a testimonial from the teacher.

I bet your business is somewhere in between the teacher and the Fortune 500 (the largest companies on the US stock market).

The Generic Business Turnaround Process

Whatever the size of your business, there are four things that you have to do:

1. Stop the bleeding - both time and money.
    
2. Stop the stress - move from uncertainty to clarity.
    
3. Inject the business with cash - Mark Joyner's tip is to aim for 2 months of operating expenses to give you time to breathe.
    
4. Refocus the business.

Read the list again.

Doesn't that make sense to you even though you don't know how to do each stage?

That's what a turnaround is and the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit has been developed to help you do it.

Look Who Has The Risk

When your business is in trouble, we both know that you can't afford to take any risks and at the moment you have two major risks:

1. Wasting time when you should be taking purposeful action.
   
   I like the idea that the 7 Day Business Turnaround Lot is intensive but it is designed to be completed in a very short time period. It creates a momentum of its own but it's a manageable amount of time.
    
2. Wasting money you can't afford.
   
   It's one thing buying something as a gamble when you have a stash of cash but I admire Mark Joyner's approach to his marketing of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit.
   
   Yes you have to surrender your payments details but you get to experience the 7 day program before the money is paid AND you have a 90 day money back guarantee (please check the sales letter - it is correct at the time of writing but these things can change as Simpleology test the offer).
   
   It's also a terrific price if it does succeed.
   
   No downside and virtually unlimited upside.
   
   This is a deal that is only possible because the program is systematised and man-hours have been designed out of it.

The Next Review

If you can wait because your business isn't in crisis, then my next review will appear in a few days time.

If you are already in a crisis but you're not ready to give up the fight until you've had one final throw of the dice, the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit could be exactly what you are looking for.

It's an interesting idea isn't it? Try it, then buy it.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Related postings:

Business Turnaround: To Thine Own Self Be True - Day 1 facing up to your issues and understanding what is required

Cost cutting in your business turnaround - Day 2, getting your business in order

Business turnaround: Finding your cash injection - Day 3 learning how to generate extra cash quickly

Business turnaround: Generating cash urgently - Day 4 to 6 three fundamentally different approaches to raising cash.