 I'd like to introduce our guest, Melinda F. Emerson. Melinda Small Biz Lady is America's number one small business expert. She is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, marketing expert and business coach. As CEO of Quint Essence Group, her marketing consulting firm serves Fortune 500 brands to target the small business market. Melinda is here today to share with us her secrets on your business, a 90-day plan to get back your life and reduce chaos in your business. Aloha and welcome, Melinda. Thank you so much for having me. It is just such a pleasure to speak with you Sharon and have the opportunity to just share what I know about how to start and grow a successful small business. Well, that is definitely needed today, especially with the pandemic going into our third year. But before we start, Sharon, we must thank our dear friend, Queen Connie Evans. Tell us a little bit about Connie. That's how I met you in February during Black History Month. Yeah, so Connie is the CEO of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity known as AEO and they are the leading advocacy nonprofit in the country for microfinance and micro entrepreneurs. Connie is regarded as one of the esteemed, oligarchs of our whole industry. I am a small business expert in large part because of the work of Connie's organization. She is the umbrella organization for over 2,800 other nonprofits that do small business development work and in particular work with micro entrepreneurs and people of color in particular. So, I am thrilled to have her as my friend, colleague, mentor, and so there's a lot of work to be done in this field and she's been a leader for a long time. Yeah, I'm thrilled. Sisters and friends, we plan to honor her doing Women's History Month in March, but let's get to you, you are a powerhouse within itself. Let's talk about business now. Why is it, why is now a great time to start a business? Well, first of all, the only way to build true wealth in America is as an entrepreneur and now is as good of a time as any to pursue a business and the reason why is because the world is still waiting on a better mousetrap and if you build that mousetrap, the world will be the path to your door and so the thing that's different now though is that the runway is shorter. You really have to be clear about who your target customer is because if everybody can use your product or service, unfortunately no one will. So it's gonna be really important for you to get clear about your offer, your value proposition, how are you different in the marketplace and who you are serving with your product or service. If you can do those three things and figure out where that target customer spends time online, you can build content to attract them to beg to do business with you. Oh, wow, I love that advice. So let's talk about your book, Fix Your Business. Tell us about the book and what it entails and I know every person that's listening to this interview, they need to purchase your book. So let's talk about Fix Your Business a 90 day plan to get back your life and we need our life back after this pandemic. Oh, no, we definitely do. I wrote Fix Your Business for existing entrepreneurs. I, for years and years and years, I've been known as a startup queen because of my other bestselling book, Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months but I wrote Fix Your Business two years before the pandemic and who knew everybody was gonna need it, right? So Fix Your Business is based on what I call the 12 Ps of running a successful business and the first P is preparation, right? And the reason why the first P is preparation is because you have to make the decision that you're ready to fix your business because I don't believe you don't know what's wrong in your business. I believe you haven't made the decision yet that you're ready to fix it. So when I say preparation, I'm talking about your mental preparation for what you know you have to do. And then the second P is purpose. Really, you've gotta have your vision and then you've gotta have your mission and when you mix those together, that is your purpose. So why did you start this business? And more than that, why should you still be running this business? And that's what people had to ask themselves after the pandemic, like what's going on? Has your market moved? Do you still have a valid service in the marketplace? Do people need you? You've gotta really have an honest conversation with yourself about that. And then the third P is people. You can only grow your business as far as your two hands can reach. So it's really important for you to get you some more hands, get you some help, but it's gotta be the right help. I don't believe in hiring your brother, your cousin, your spouse, your best friend. Give those people a check. Don't give them a job. I want you to really write a good detailed job description. Do a search, interview several people and then pick the one that is gonna be the best fit for your business and the culture of your business. Cause it's not just about skill set. Culture eats strategy for business every, for breakfast every day. So it's gonna be really important that you carefully interview people and make sure they're not just good at interviewing, but they're actually good at working for you. And then the fourth P is profit. It is amazing to me how often people will, let's say you're gonna sell this tube of lipstick. This tube of lipstick is, let's just say the raw wholesale cost of this tube of lipstick is $4.20. Okay, well, when you're figuring out how much you should charge for it, you've gotta put your profit margin in this cost. So if we know we wanna make 30% profit on this lipstick, that's adding another $1.26 to the price. Now, wait, wait, you still gotta figure out, is there more we need to add on to this price? So then you gotta think about a percentage of your overhead and general and administrative costs. And these are costs that you can't directly build to anyone, but you have to put a piece of them in everything you sell. Otherwise, you're gonna be making sales and not making any money. So in your general administrative costs are things like marketing, like your administrative, legal, all of those things that you can't, even your time. A lot of times entrepreneurs don't put their own time on the bill. So let's say we're gonna add $3.36 for overhead and GNA to this cost. Okay, now you're up to $8.86 for this tube lipstick. But wait, there's more. Are you gonna sell it on Amazon? Oh, well, let's add 15 more percent to this cost because you gotta pay Amazon for them to promote your stuff to their huge amount of traffic they get every day, right? Oh, but wait, are you gonna buy ads on Amazon? Well, you gotta add three to four more percent for the ad buys that you're gonna know on Amazon. Now, how much do you gotta charge for the lipstick? Right, get a, you know, but if you don't figure out that profit margin, that 30%, 20%, whatever you need to make before you start adding these other costs, you could be losing money with every sale. And that is what happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. 60%, a Harvard study said that 60% of all small business owners in America are not profitable by any measure you could possibly use. And that is because people's fear of math is the reason why they don't know what's going on in their business. And so it's really important for you to be clear about the profit, because it's not about what you make, it's about what you keep. And always remember that. And when it comes to buying products, you make your money when you buy your products, not when you sell them. But you've gotta make sure that you're really getting the best deal wholesale for your products if you are a product-based business. Now, step five in the 12 Ps of running a successful business is processes. Listen, if how your business runs is only in your head, that's the wrong place for it to be. You gotta write down your processes, systems, software that you use. And the reason why you gotta write it down is because you'll never be able to train any employees that you wanna bring on to your business if you don't got something written down for how you do things, how you like things done. How does the tissue go in the box with your lipstick when you ship it to people? You gotta write it down, you gotta tell people. So you have to document your processes and systems. But the other thing you gotta do, and this is the next P, you gotta look at your productivity. What is it that you could be using software for? What can you automate in your business to save you some time? So once you document your processes, then you gotta look at all the jobs you're doing. And I tell people, there's a difference between queen bee work and worker bee work. And so you can use some technology sometimes to get some of that worker bee work done, right? Or delegated to some worker bees. But it's really important that as a small business owner, you leverage productivity tools because there's so many of them, but they're really gonna save you time and money if you take the time to learn how to use them. A lot of what I see people doing is they just buy software and they don't use 10% of the capacity of the software. So if you're going to invest in software, invest in the training, go to the people's website, a lot of people have tutorials on how to use their software. There's certainly all kinds of tutorials out here on YouTube universities. So you need to make sure that you're learning how to use the software if you're gonna use it. The next thing I want you to think about though is performance. And that when I say performance, I mean, what are you measuring in your business? Okay, let me ask another question, Sharon. Are you measuring anything in your business? Are you looking at your Google analytics? Are you looking at your email open rates? Do you know what your cost per lead is? Do you know what your cost per sale is? Yeah, I can keep going and I can hurt your feelings with these questions. So what I need people to make sure they understand is how much it really costs them to do business. How long is their sales cycle, right? You've got to know how you're gonna generate leads, how you're gonna close leads, how you're gonna follow up after leads. All of those things are performance. And then by the way, if you're doing marketing that you don't measure, the next time you drive down the street, you just open the window and throw some money out because that's the same as you doing marketing that you don't measure. So it is really important that you start looking at your Google analytics, seeing what social media activity is actually sending traffic to your website. That way you'll know which one or two social media sites to focus on because you'll be clear because you actually look at your Google analytics, right? So these are things that you've got to do. And then the next P, and this is the eighth P is product. And that's really taken a hard look at your product or service. Because let me tell you something. If there is not something that is not duplicatable by your competition, then you will be taken out of business by price. And so you really wanna make sure that you are providing a product or service that is still relevant. That's gonna be relevant three to five years from now or that you're still gonna wanna do five years from now, right? So if you're just going to Marshall's and then you're buying purses and then you're reselling those purses on Amazon like anybody can do that. And so you wanna be really clear about how you are differentiating yourself in the market and how you can create customer experience because your existing customers are 60 to 70% more likely to do business with you again. But if you don't communicate with them, if you don't thank them for their business, if you don't nurture them somehow, if you don't communicate with them, send them a follow up coupon or something, you could lose them forever. And they are your most valuable asset in your business and they already love you because they were willing to plunk their credit card down and do business. So make sure that you know who your customer is and that you've studied your customer, that you talk to your customer, that you make sure you know what they need so you can position your business for their future needs, not just their current one. So that is really important. I want you to look at your industry trend and figure out are you in an industry that's growing or are you in an industry that's shrinking, right? All of that stuff is very, very, very important. So you wanna make sure that you are clear when you think about the future of your business. Now, the ninth P is presence. And what am I talking about? Your social media presence of course. So obviously that starts with your website because guys look, if your website sucks you don't need to be out doing social media because the whole point of doing social media is to drive that traffic back to your website. So the first thing you wanna do is make sure your website's great. Make sure your welcome mat is out to welcome people to your brand. Then the next thing you wanna do is you really do want to figure out the one or two social media sites where your best target customers hang out online. You do not need to be out here doing five to seven social media sites. That is not anything that you need to do. You need to focus on one or two. I built a million dollar brand from Twitter alone. And so I wanna tell you that it only takes one platform. You just gotta figure out which platform is gonna resonate the most with your target customer. So that's really the advice I wanna leave you with as it relates to social media. You gotta do it. It's not an option. It is the number one sales channel but you've gotta be strategic with how you're spending time online. And then number 10 is about prospect. And that's all about your sales process. Do you have a documented sales process in your business? Do you know how you generate leads? Do you generate leads on a regular basis? Okay, and then what's your follow-up system? Once somebody gives you their contact information or contacts you on your website that they're interested, what do you do then? What's your process? Can you automate any of that? Right, do you have live chat on your website so you can answer their question and get that sale? What is it that you have that's gonna follow up with somebody who says they're interested? And then if even if you go through all of that and they don't buy just then, do you have email sales funnels? Do you have nurture sequences, right? Do you have thank you pages and landing pages that explain your offers that show your testimonials of happy customers that already love you? What are you doing to build that trust, to build that relationship so that they will buy from you? And then you've gotta think about what's the plan, Stan? What planning is the 11th P? Because I know many of you probably wrote a business plan back in the day when you started or the last time you had to submit for a loan, you probably updated your business plan then. But many of you are probably using your business plan like a historical document, right? So I'm not gonna take you through developing a whole brand new business plan. But what I do want you to do is develop a strategic plan, develop a one year marketing plan for your business. Who are you chasing? What kind of resources and marketing campaigns are you gonna use to engage with them? What is gonna be your marketing strategy over the months, over 12 months? What are you gonna promote? What new content are you gonna develop? What is gonna be your outreach strategy? What trade shows are you gonna go to? Whatever it is, however you're gonna do it, you're gonna buy ads on Amazon, you're gonna buy ads on Facebook, you're gonna buy Google paper, click ads. What are you doing? You gotta figure it out, you gotta lay it out. Because once you've committed to paper, guys, you're far more likely to do it. You are. And so that brings me to the 12th P. 12th P? Perseverance, right? Everybody has plans, and sometimes your plans do not come to fruition in the time that you think they should, but you gotta stay on the journey. You gotta play to win. You gotta understand that every kick is a boost. It don't feel like that at the time. Sometimes it just hurts. But I promise you, if you stay with it, if you study your customer, if you say never let a customer down, if you measure your marketing, if you know how much profit margin is in every deal, you can turn things around in your business. I guarantee it. And so I lay out a plan for you to do it in my book, Fix Your Business. And it's available anywhere books are sold, Amazon, you wanna autograph copy, you can go on my website as succeed isyourownboss.com. But I just want you to know that I have been in business for 23 years. So I am not telling you something. I think I am telling you something I know and I have researched it. I have helped hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs over the last 13 years since I became the small business lady. So I want to help you too. And this is a small investment for you to make, for you to have a blueprint to save your business. So Sharon, I just wanna throw it back to you. I know that I hope this information has illuminated some stuff for people because that is what it's about. I want you to think about the 12 Ps. And I'll say this too, all 12 is not going wrong in your business. It's usually at least two or three though. So think about the two or three of the things that I mentioned that you really need to get on top of. And that is how you're going to change things in your business, I promise. You know, sister power listeners, if you're just tuning in, I'm here with Melinda Emerson, fix your business. Each piece, every word that you have given to us is valuable, it's very valuable. And thank you. So let's talk about your online university. Yeah. Let's drive the people to your university because I'm signing up. So tell us about that. Yeah. So I created small business lady university during the pandemic. And I did it because I realized that so many small business owners were getting taken down, were getting wiped out because they didn't know how to sell online. And I said, okay, this is crazy. I'm a small business lady. I can do something about this. So the first thing we did was we updated my book Become Your Own Boss in 12 months. And we added all the marketing stuff because marketing has gotten really complicated. You have to know about SEO. You got to have a website. You got to be a good website. You got to understand landing pages and how to build an email list. You got to understand how to buy ads. There's no longer an option. You have to buy ads. They have made the internet a pay to play situation. So you don't have an option not to buy ads. And so, but you have to know what you're doing because you can lose your shirt buying ads too. So I really, I wanted to help people learn the stuff that they didn't know about selling online. The other thing I realized is that a lot of people, I think when the first business that most people are starting these days is an e-commerce business, right? So I wanted to give people the tools to either get started with e-commerce or to finally start making money with e-commerce. So I created three courses specifically for online marketing. The first course is how to sell and market online. And it is just that. It's like how to really get started in business, how to figure out where to sell. You're gonna sell on your website, you're gonna sell on a marketplace like Amazon, Etsy or eBay. Then the second course we developed is social media selling. And I break down all seven of the top social media platforms for you to know how to buy ads. So we break down Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, all of these platforms I walk you through how to use and how to buy ads on all of these platforms and depending on your target audience, what might make sense for your business. And then the third class is Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing. And email is really important because social media is great, but you don't know if somebody saw your social media posts, but you know if somebody opens your email because you can check the open rates on your emails. So email is actually more effective than social media, but you need social media to sort of drive people to get on your list. And then what you get them on your list, you gotta use email to follow up and nurture them and build trust so you can make a sale. So all of these courses that I have described are six-week courses. They are six weeks, you log in and you get started with the course and I will tell you, I also have a private Facebook group for my students. So all of these courses are recorded online. You have a lecture, you have a detailed e-book and workbook and you have a quiz at the end of every module. It's not crazy, it's five questions, but every Monday you're gonna get another email from me with the agenda and your login credentials. And the other thing I do for you as well is I have my private Facebook group and I pop in there on Thursdays and answer people's questions live. So it's not just all online where you don't have any access to me. You have access to me and my other instructors through my private Facebook group which are automatically will join once you'll be invited to join once you join our class. And the other great bonus about this class is that if you sign up for the six weeks, I don't just let this course be available to you for six weeks, it's available to you for one year. You can go in and out of that course, you can take it again, you can look at it again. You wanna re-watch a lecture or something? Go ahead, I don't care. I wanna make it convenient to you so that you have the ability to take this course at your own pace because you run a business, you're already busy or maybe you work a full-time job. So you can work on this stuff in the evening so you can turn that side hustle into a full-time business. We built these courses so that you would have the ability to go at your own pace. So you can take one course or you can take all three and get this online marketing certificate but I'm just so excited that I had the idea to build these courses. They are not these little snackable webinar courses that you see out here. These are college level courses. I mean, they're pretty serious. So make sure that you have two, two and a half hours a week to set aside to work on this stuff. You gotta do your reading, you gotta do watch your lecture and do your homework but I promise you, if you do it, you are going to build skills that will allow you to generate revenue for a lifetime. So what would it be worth to you to do that? So all of my classes are $9.97 and I'll even give you guys a bonus. I have a coupon out right now for you to get $100 off. So if you put in SBL 10, you can get $100 off the course. So your course is gonna cost $8.97 and not $9.97. So we have payment plans as well. So I wanna make this work for you. This is not about me, trying to make one's money. This is about me trying to give you the skills that you need to finally start making the money you deserve online. So I'm just excited to have the opportunity to share it. This is so valuable. Mahalo, Nui, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you. And wow, in closing Melinda, what's one question you wish that I asked you? You know, earlier today, I had the opportunity to run a mastermind group for some young entrepreneurs. And one of them asked me what was the best piece of business advice I could give? And I thought, you know, I don't have just one piece of advice to give you. I'm gonna give you three and here we go. So the first thing I'm gonna tell you is never hire somebody you can't fire. I am not a fan of best friends, husband and wives, lovers, cousins working together because you could lose the relationship and it could potentially destroy your business. So unless you start the business together, I'm not a fan of bringing family members in after the fact, give them a check, don't give them a job. Second thing is your business bank and your personal bank should be two separate banks. All of that stuff should not be in one bank. You don't wanna even run the risk of co-mingling funds. So don't do it. And the third thing I would say is stay update with technology state, like make sure you understand online marketing because it's the future of business. And we all saw how fast everyone adopted to buying things online and having things delivered and using Instagram and all this stuff. Online selling is not going anywhere. In fact, it's gonna become more and more pervasive because some people are over going to the store. So just make sure that you know how to sell online no matter what you sell. You sell retail, wholesale, B2B, I don't care. Make sure you know how to sell online. Melinda, on behalf of Think Tech, Hawaii and Sister Power, thank you for your expertise. Thank you for your wisdom. I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.