Most entrepreneurs believe that sales and marketing drive their profit. In fact, I did too for many years up until I met a mysterious business strategist who was introduced to me as the “Millionaire-Maker-Mathematician” (He’s represented his country for advanced maths, he does suduku in 1/3 the time and he has a tendancy to make people very rich with his advice).

I had a 90 minute meeting with him and a year later I had tripled the value of my business. Now, many great people helped me to achieve that result but I must say this one meeting was responsible for giving me a huge mindset shift that made a big difference.

In this meeting, he explained that he had crunched statistics on hundreds of businesses and he did NOT conclude that profit was a function of sales or marketing. In fact he said something VERY NEW to me. He said:

“Income follows assets”

Here’s how the conversation flowed:

Millionaire-Maker-Mathematician – “If you have a 2 bedroom house and the market price for it is £300 per week, how much can you rent it for?”

Dan Priestley - “Of course £300 per week”

MMM – “What about if you hire an amazing sales and marketing team?”

DP – “Maybe £330 per week”

MMM – “Ok, so what about if you made it into a 4 bedroom place?”

DP – “Well I guess it would be worth, £500 – £600 per week.”

MMM – “So you can see that in property, the income follow assets and not sales and marketing. What about in your business? What are the assets in your business?”

DP – “The assets are our database, our network of affiliates, our brand, our systems and some IP we own.”

MMM – “What do you think would happen if I doubled the size of your database, the number of affiliates, the strength of your brand, the robustness of your systems and the amount of IP you own?”

DP – [I thought for a second and then smiled] “Business would go through the roof, we’d make more than double our sales and we would be worth more than twice the value we are today.”

MMM – “Would it be sustainable?”

DP – “Yeah it would”

MMM – “What if instead of doubling your assets, I double your sales team and marketing spend?”

DP – “I’m not sure. We would likely waste some of the marketing money. There wouldn’t be enough leads for twice as many sales people, we would have to do more marketing quick, some would work, some wouldn’t, I think we would either end up spending too much on lead generation or we would annoy the sales people with too few leads”.

MMM – “Would it be sustainable?”

DP – “It has never been sustainable in the past when we’ve tried that approach.”

MMM – “So now do you see that your goal is not to get better at selling and marketing, your goal is to get better at building assets in your business; because…”

DP – “Income follows assets”

After that conversation, I changed my mindset. I focused on creating more assets in the business rather than putting 100% of my focus into sales and marketing. I also viewed sales and marketing differently as well – They were tools to build assets like a database and goodwill.

Sure enough, as he predicted, business started getting much easier. Income went up, valuation went up and opportunities rolled in.

The name of the “Millionaire-Making-Mathematician” is Darren Shirlaw. He doesn’t just make other people millionaires, he’s built his own business with a 200 person team operating in 9 countries.

And … On March 26th 2011, he’ll be speaking at ‘Becoming a Key Person of Influence’ and he we completely blow you away.

You can also watch this YouTube Video of Darren Shirlaw

Would you “bet your house” on your next business idea? Not so long ago, Kanya King had an idea that she thought was worth doing just that.

She is the founder of the MOBO Awards, today it reaches an audience of 250 million people each year. Amazingly she started it from scratch just 15 years ago.

In 1996, Kanya King had a vision to create a special way to recognise Music of Black Origin (MOBO). She dreamed of a special event that could inspire people all over the world.

Kanya risked it all to start her business. She took out a loan against her house and set to work on creating the first event.

She knew that if she wanted to grow the business as big as she imagined, she would need to attract some very big name partnerships. To do that she would need to present herself in the right way…

“We spent a great deal of time developing our brand policy, which ultimately allowed us to expand into our business. It’s a huge part of our prime goal and vision and has allowed us to partner with organisations including the BBC and HSBC. Hand in hand with this is the belief that the sky is the limit – we’ve always believed in the power of thinking big, there is no such thing as being too audacious with your dreams”.

Kanya’s story proves that cementing a powerful brand can be the difference between impacting thousands of people and impacting millions (upon-millions). It can be the difference between receiving a pat-on-the-back or receiving an MBE from the Queen.

Success has not dulled Kanya’s sense of social responsibility, she regularly participates in community and industry events, encouraging youth enterprise and vision wherever she can.

She will be 1 of 10 inspiring speakers at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21, delivering her personal story in the unique style which has inspired so many to embrace their wildest and most incredible dreams.

If you believe in creative thinking, in taking risks and making sacrifices and, above all, if you want to make 2010 the year when you turn your ambition into attainment then you cannot miss this. Book your tickets here >>>

Watch and read more on Kanya King
http://www.director.co.uk/MAGAZINE/2010/1_Jan/KanyaKing_63_05.html
http://www.femalefranchise.co.uk/Features/1296

Imagine you walk into an important meeting and the first words out of their mouth is:

“I got your book on Amazon.com and I loved it, you really know your stuff and we’re excited to be working with you”

There’s no question that you are in line to do the business and you’re not going to be arguing over price.

Having a published book is just one way to enhance your personal brand and it’s not as difficult as you think.

Just ask Mindy Gibbins-Klien. She is a best selling author who has also helped over 300 people to write, publish and distribute their book.

Mindy Gibbins-Klein knows that every single person has unique experiences and these unique experiences can form the basis of a great book. The truth is, you have a great book inside you waiting to be written.

Mindy has developed a method to get it written fast and she has the contacts to get it published easily … she even knows how to get it selling quickly.

Mindy knows that whether your book is a NY Times #1 Best-seller or not, it adds a massive premium to your value. Instantly you become the recognised expert in your field and a valuable person to have around.

Mindy Gibbins-Klien is just 1 of the 10 speakers you will experience at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21. Her story won’t just be inspirational, she will be sharing exactly what you should be doing to have your book up on Amazon before September 2010.

If building your personal brand is important to you, don’t miss out on tickets to this event:
ttp://www.triumphantevents.co.uk/?unlock=1348-f4vnzqd3gzuw85qh3dc9tpm8

Watch Mindy Gibbins-Klein on YouTube

Wouldn’t a nice long holiday be great? Especially if it turned out to be worth a whopping £20Million!

For Deirdre Bounds that is exactly what happened. After taking time out to do a gap year holiday she arrived back to England without a penny in the middle of winter.

Stuck in Leads, sharing a tiny bed-sit apartment, Deirdre couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful it was to be free in the big wide world, and how terrible it was to be stuck freezing Midlands.

So she started i-to-i Travel, a business she hoped would encourage a few teenager to travel abroad on the best gap year holiday ever.

Deirdre was starting with nothing, but she imagined her brand would one day be the market leader in “ethical travel”.

Ten years later, Deirdre’s company had offices on 4 continents and was the biggest Gap Year Travel Business in the world… And her share was valued at £20Million!

i-to-i was sending tens of thousands of teenagers around the world teaching english, building schools, working in wildlife parks and supporting charities.

In just 10 years, Deirdre Bounds had started with nothing more than an idea and ended up setting thousands of teenagers free in the world.

Creating a powerful brand doesn’t just make you rich, it can also make the world richer and for that reason alone it’s worth getting right.

Dierdre Bounds is just 1 of the 10 speakers you will experience at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21. You won’t need to travel to Africa, it’s happening right here in London and tickets are half price through this link (note: only 8 tickets are left at £59 and they are due to increase tomorrow):
http://www.triumphantevents.co.uk/?unlock=1348-f4vnzqd3gzuw85qh3dc9tpm8

Deirdre Bound’s story isn’t just inspirational, she will be slowing it down and giving the exact things she did in the early days that enabled her to expand so rapidly. You simply won’t want to miss her presentation. Register today >>>

Find out more … Watch Deirdre Bounds on YouTube

Today’s sunny weather in London reminds me that no winter lasts forever. It’s always followed by the new blossoms of Spring.

No recession lasts forever either. Tough times are always followed by periods of growth where small businesses have big opportunities.

Take a look at Dan Wagner (see Wiki article), he founded his first company in 1984 when unemployment had hit 11.9%. The country had felt the effects of 4 years of a terrible economy.

In 1984, Dan’s company was little more than a good idea but by 1994 he had floated it on the London Stock Exchange for £120m (he was just 30 years old!).

Dan went on to do business with some of the biggest brands in the world – Microsoft, BT and IBM to name a few.

He also got a listing on The Times Rich List and recognised by the Prime Minister as one of the UK’s most innovative entrepreneurs.

Through all the fast growth Dan was known for his dynamic personal brand and his ability to attract the biggest companies in the world to do business with him.

Today he has ecommerce solutions provider, Venda Ltd, which is helping to expand some of the biggest businesses in the UK on the web (Tesco, De Beers, Jimmy Choo, JVC and more). Best of all, Dan is secretly more passionate about helping small businesses to expand their brands and his talk will share the very best strategies he’s developed.

Dan Wagner will share with you his very best experiences on doing business with big businesses and how to make your small business blossom this Spring.

Dan is just 1 of the 10 speakers you will experience at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21. Limited tickets available for £59 … book now before tickets increase:
http://www.triumphantevents.co.uk/?unlock=1348-f4vnzqd3gzuw85qh3dc9tpm8

Read more on Dan Wagner >>>

• Ecademy Profile
• Management Today
• Real Business
• Wiki Article
• Times Rich List

In 1998, Mike Harris had an idea for an “Internet Only Bank”. He figured that the internet could be a great place to do your banking without having to go into a branch and see a teller.

But it wasn’t received well, not even by his closest advisor. Mike’s wife Sue joined the opposition “The internet will never work for banking, it’s slow, unreliable and impersonal.” she said.

Rather than getting discouraged, Mike used her feedback to help construct the “Egg Brand Promise”.

Mike realised that Egg had to be known as fast, reliable, friendly and personal if it was going to make sense for customers.

It was the critics who actually helped Mike to build the worlds first internet bank and get it right. Egg grew from nothing to a valuation of £1.3Billion in just 3 years.

Mike Harris has built 3 multi-billion pound businesses in his career and each time he says that it was vital to get the brand right before the growth and success could occur.

When he takes the stage at “Expand Your Brand” he will be sharing the three key ideas that has led to billions of pounds in value that started as nothing more than an idea.

Mike is one of 10 speakers at “Expand Your Brand” who has achieved staggering success and who wants to share the key things he learned along the way.

At this event you will also be hearing from a man who has created over 150 “brand enhancing” products, a woman who’s brand goes out to 250M people a year now, a 19 year old who’s sold 50,000+ books and a woman who built a £20M business starting with nothing more than her frustrations. Click here to find out more >>>

Creators

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_disney

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JK_Rawling

Stars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_smith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Beckham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elle_mcphereson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_%22Diddy%22_Combs

Supporters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Katzenberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Eisner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer

Deal Makers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Katzenberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Geffen

Traders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_soros

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lynch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Arnold

Accumulators

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_allen

Lords

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Albrecht

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshmi_Mittal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad

Mechanics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_kroc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton

They say that no news is good news, but that was back in the days when just a few powerful people held the strings to the entire global media. That was then, this is now… today we live in a world where over 200Million people control the media that gets published daily – An army of Bloggers, Vlogger (Video Log), Twitter Posters and the like get to have more say these days than Rupert Murdoch.

So why does it need to be negative anymore. Social Media doesn’t require you to be sensationalist in order to sell papers or airtime. You can be truthful, authentic and if that means you share the good news as well as the bad then lets bring it on.

IN my recent video I decided to cover the stories of four business owners I know of who are doing things that inspire me. You can tell from my face that I was having a stressful day (which was compounded when I heard about another negative news story). When I made the video, I felt more balanced and was pleased to have focused my attention onto the people who really do deserve our attention … small scale entrepreneurs all over the world who ARE doing amazing things.

If you feel like sharing the stories of people who inspire you, I strongly recommend it.

Many small businesses have attempted to run an online campaign for their business with mixed results.
 
In all my life I have never seen a more flawless online campaign than that of David Plouffe leading up to the presidential elections.

David Plouffe is the campaign manager for Barack Obama and frankly he has harnessed the power of the internet better than any business or organisation I have witnessed.

Beginning with Barack’s home page where you will find a box on the bottom right hand corner called “Obama Everywhere”.

Here you will find ways that you can link to the Senator on 16 major web sites.

You can join his club on Facebook, you can watch his video’s on Youtube, You can Digg him, Flicker him, Twitter with him and connect with him on the social network that matters most to you.

Never before have people had so many ways to feel completely connected to a politician in a real and relevant way.

Sure enough, he is a charismatic man however don’t miss the powerful ways he has demonstrated to use the internet to develop and maintain connection to the marketplace.

So…
Are you on facebook and myspace?
Do you have a video on YouTube?
Do you blog on relevant sites?

If not, you might just be missing out on being elected as the president of your industry.

PS: Just so you can see how well run this campaign has been here are the stats….

USA Alexa Ranking
McCain      594
Obama      174

Youtube Stats
Videos Uploaded: 1442
Subscribers: 94,727
Channel Views: 16,733,657

Videos uploaded: 300
Subscribers: 23,115
Channel Views: 1,634,271

Facebook
Barack Obama 1,997,276 supporters
John McCain 555,715 supporters

Chances are you were an adult. You didn’t Twitter at school, email friends links to YouTube videos or write on their FaceBook walls to arrange a weekend get together.

If you did grow up doing all of those things and you stumble upon entrepreneurship you are going to be a very different breed of business owner.

For these people, ecommerce is more natural than walking into a store … finding a freelance web designer in India is easy … and scaling your business to 10,000 customers a month is probably not being ambitious enough.

Apple, Microsoft, Virgin and Dell are just four examples of student businesses that hit the big-time and led the trends over the past three decades. If you want to know what is coming in the next 30 years, keep your eyes on the businesses forming around your local campus.