It’s Thanksgiving, so this post will be a little different. I’m going to tell you all about what I’ve been up to with my business. If you’re curious about how I do things behind the scenes, this is for you 🙂
How my business works
My income comes from two primary sources: Salary Negotiation Coaching and product sales (Fearless Salary Negotiation books and courses). The coaching business is doing well—I’m happy with both the volume and quality of clients I get to work with.
The product business has been doing alright, but I would like to grow that side of the business.
Obviously, selling more products means more revenue. That’s important since this is how I make my living.
But selling more products also means providing a valuable solution to an expensive problem ("How do I negotiate my salary without leaving anything on the table?" or "How do I get more job offers?") at the right time. I like helping people, and it’s frustrating that lots of people get some of the help I have to offer while never knowing about other ways I can help from 1-on-1 coaching to a full-on step-by-step DIY guide to negotiating a job offer.
Slow and steady progress
My newsletter will cross 10,000 subscribers by the end of the week. I can hardly believe I just wrote that number. It seems crazy to me, especially considering my newsletter had only about 2,400 subscribers at the beginning of 2017.
The business-y way to describe that is, "My marketing efforts have been effective." I mostly focus on content marketing—writing long, detailed articles designed to teach people how to do difficult things by following a process. Most of my newsletter subscribers found me through an article I wrote.
That’s the thing I’m best at, so that’s where I focus.
Where I need to get better is at articulating the value of salary negotiation and giving folks the the opportunity to buy products and services to help them negotiate higher salaries and get more job offers.
The business-y way to describe that is, "I need to get better at Sales." On one hand, I feel a little uncomfortable saying that. On the other hand, "Sales" is a key part of any business.
The timing problem
My primary Sales challenge is that most of the people who find me are looking for a specific tool to negotiate their salary and they are on a very tight timeline to respond to a job offer.
I call this "The timing problem" because there’s such a small window between "job offer in hand" and "compensation package finalized". For a long time, the challenge was simply enabling those people to find me when they need help. Over the past year or so, I’ve gotten pretty good at that part as I write better articles on salary negotiation and related topics (this is how I know my Marketing efforts are paying off).
The issue is that the folks who find my articles and other tools are in such a hurry to respond to their job offer that most of my advice gets to them after they’ve already finished negotiating. They may not even know that they could have purchased products or services to help with all other aspects of their negotiation and done even better (this is how I know I need to work on Sales).
My current focus
So once a new person finds Fearless Salary Negotiation by searching for help on a specific topic, I need to find a way to make it crystal clear that there’s a lot more help available, and I have to convey that message very quickly (in 24-48 hours or less).
I haven’t worked out the details, but I need to move faster and communicate more when new people find me. This is tough for me because I don’t want to bother people—I want to help them. I realize this sounds cheesy, but it’s true: If I were just trying to make money, I never would’ve quit my day job two years ago.
Instead of saying, "Here is a free thing to help a little bit, good luck!" and then waiting a day and saying, "Here’s a tip to help negotiate your salary" and then another day and "Here’s another tip!", I need to do something more like:
Here is a free tool to help negotiate your salary – we’re going to move quickly because you probably have an offer in hand and there’s a lot I need to share with you. If you want help right now, here’s where to get it and here’s the monetary value of that help.
These are the key things to consider when negotiating your salary. I’m going to share insight into each of those things over the next few days. We’re going to move fast, so buckle up!
If I can figure this out, I’ll be able to help a lot more people get paid what they’re worth and my business will grow. This is the kind of challenge I love, and it’s why I do what I do.
So that’s where I’m at with my business. Now I’m off to bake a couple of pecan pies for Thanksgiving 🙂
UPDATE: My first attempt at solving this problem is The Salary Negotiation Crash Course. It’s a focused course to help folks respond to a job offer in less than 90 minutes. My intuition is that this could be exactly what people are looking for and it could be a turning point for my business. Only time will tell.