Creating a million dollar business model is really all about the basics. Doing the right thing coupled with delivering what you promise is at the core of long-term success in the speaking business. Here are 10 tips to keep in mind that will keep you growing in the right direction:

1. Know Why You’re the Best: Be able to tell your client WHY they are better off using your services than your competitors. Do you have more experience? Are you faster, more dependable? Do you offer a guarantee? Do you have excellent testimonials? Do you have a history of delivering a high quality end product? Clients like to work with top notch professionals and it’s your job to position yourself as an expert.

2. Always Tell the Truth About What You Can and Can’t Do: Do NOT fake it until you make it, as you will only ruin your reputation. Sell only what you can deliver. If you wish to grow, do it on your own dime and not your client’s. In other words, don’t promise to deliver a service in which you do not have a well-defined history of success. For example, if you create Web sites in general but don’t create Web site shopping carts, don’t sell shopping carts.

3. Expand Your Expertise to Meet Related Demands from Your Clients: However, there is nothing stopping you from learning and expanding your expertise. You can certainly learn how to create excellent shopping carts, but just don’t promise to create a shopping cart for a client if you have never done one before (that is just unfair to the client). Learn how to create a great shopping cart that is brilliantly designed to deliver sales before you offer it as a service to your clients. You’ll enjoy positive word of mouth and you will watch your business grow to new levels of success.

4. It’s About the Deliverables: When making a decision, the client should understand what the outcome would be for them. They want to know exactly what they are buying, therefore, be clear about the services you provide. Always provide a contract that outlines exactly what the client is paying with no fine print. If you need to hide terms with fine print, that’s a sure sign of trouble. It’s better to deal with the issues you are hiding with the fine print so they are no longer issues or stumbling blocks. You’ll find you will create a much stronger product with a better and more powerful deliverable.

5. What’s in it for Me: Be sure your client knows how they benefit in terms of how they can use your services. Use case studies from other clients in how they used your products or services to better themselves or grow their business. Educate your client on the ROI (return on their investment) they will receive if they invest their money in you.

6. Clients Like to Make an Investment — Not Incur an Expense: Nobody likes to throw their money away. It’s tough to make a living, and clients look at spending money as an investment in their growth and in their future. Businesses generally don’t like unjustified expenses. In other words, business don’t like to spend money without knowing in advance how the expenditure will benefit their company, lead them to the next step in their business plan, or lead them to their next client.

7. Clients Want Certainty: Clients like to know that the service or product they are purchasing delivers the results they are expecting. They like to know, based on the experience of the provider, what the likely results are for them.

8. Make a Guarantee a Benefit: That’s right, be sure to guarantee your work. That is, either the client gets what they pay for or they don’t pay. You will naturally create products that deliver a measurable outcome for the client.

9. Avoid Creating Your Business Model Around Trying: Instead of your service wrapping around the concept of trying, create a concept that wraps around outcome. No one likes to buy “hot air.” Here is an example: What if you walked into a car dealership intending to buy a car but the car was not available at that dealership. What if the car salesman said to you, “I will try to get you the car, however, if I can’t you will still have to pay for it.’ What would you do next? Walk out? Surely, as you do not want to pay someone for “trying” to give you the outcome you intend to purchase. In math terms it’s more like “A = B” with A being the purchase price and B being the deliverable of the outcome. It is not the client’s problem that you have to try to deliver B, they just want the B. The more you define the services you provide, the more in-demand you will be.

10. Emphasize How Your Service or Product Will Make Their Lives Easier: Clients can’t do everything themselves. There is just not enough time in the day. Be sure they know how investing in your services will make their lives easier. They don’t have to spend hours recreating the wheel and learning a new skill set. Your clients can concentrate on what they do best and excel at their own talents making more than enough money to cover the costs of your services. Use these tips to reevaluate your current business model and to determine the best ways to fine-tune your unique selling points.

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