I admit it. I’ve made some mistakes. Oh, sure, I talk
about all of the things that went right and that I did
pretty well with my home-based business, and that’s true.
But I would be doing both of us a disservice if I were to
leave you with the impression that all is well in
“Home-based Business Land”, that I live in a carefree
fairytale world of wealth and consumption, and that my bills
are all paid and will continue to be. No, it’s not like
that at all. And it’s only just recently that I identified
the problem. It can be summed-up in a single word: denial.

My business is centered around software that is dependent on
a technology that is slowly going away. I had a nice income
stream (customers pay an annual fee), but as my customers
drifted to new technologies my base of income eroded. I
could see it happening. For years I said “This gravy train
isn’t going to last forever!” I chose to ignore it. Why?
Denial. Although I wasn’t consciously aware of it, I took
the attitude, “I’ll worry about it when it happens.”
Suddenly the revenue is alarmingly low, and now I have to
deal with it. Had I dealt with it sooner, it would have
been much easier to fix.

A friend of mine recently went to New Zealand on a speaking
tour. She agreed to pay her own airfare and the organizer
(’Peter’) would pay for hotels and for her speaking
appearances, plus she would be able to sell her books and
tapes at the seminars. It was not until after she arrived
that Peter informed her that most of the seminars had been
cancelled. After she arrived! He knew that participation
was going to be low. He knew that they might have to
cancel. He didn’t tell her, though, because he was in
complete denial.

Denial is what we do when we just can’t face the truth. It
is very real, but it does nothing to fix the problem. Did
Peter’s denial of the failure of his seminars change
anything? Did my denial of eroding revenue change anything?
YES! In both cases it made a bad situation worse.

Two things happen when you are in denial. First, you have
more anxiety because you haven’t examined the situation
enough to know how bad it really is. No matter how bad it
is, it’s easier to deal with if you know where you stand.
Second, there’s a pretty good chance that delaying the
solution will make the problem worse, maybe even completely
unsolvable. By denying the problem, you may be passing up a
golden opportunity to fix it. Easily.

Do you have a situation that is too scary to deal with?
Deal with it anyway.

Do you have a situation that is too embarrassing to face?
Face it anyway.

Deal with it. Face it. Get it over with. You can’t make
it worse; you’ll only make it better. You’ll feel better
too.

“Make More Money and Have More Fun” with your small
business! Dave will show you how with his FREE newsletter,
“Big Bucks in a Bathrobe” sent by e-mail. Visit
http://www.TheStayAtHomeCEO.com to sign-up, for information
on speaking services, or for copies of past articles and
newsletters. Comments and/or questions are always welcome
at 1-800-366-2347 or Dave@DaveBalch.com.

The newest media wave to hit the online shore is video. Individual emails abound with links to “the funniest video ever,” or blurry clips of new babies or birthday parties.

Businesses, on the other hand, have largely been left standing on the shore, scratching their heads and wondering if there’s any real value to be earned from diving into making their own live video broadcasts, video emails or video on demand infommercials. Here are just five of the many ways video adds to the bottom line of any company.

1. People remember more of your message

While people generally remember 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear. But, they’ll remember as much as 50% of what they see and hear together. Before anyone can act on your message, they need to process and remember it.

2. Increase responses by up to 30%

A call to action is much easier to follow if it is actively delivered. Sound and motion are powerful action drivers, especially when they are delivered by your sincere enthusiasm and passion for your topic. Companies who have made the switch to video email and on- demand broadcasts have reported response rates jump as much as 30% following a broadcast.

3. Build your credibility

People do business with people they know, like and trust. When you cut through the technological barriers of the Internet and put yourself online, you put “your self on the line” as far as viewers are concerned. The time it would normally take you to build a relationship with a potential customer can be dramatically shortened as a result.

4. The cost savings are obvious

Anytime you can avoid the high costs of sending someone on the road to meet with clients or attend a meeting, the bottom line savings are immediate and obvious. In addition to any costs associated with attending a meeting, you need to factor in travel costs covering airfares to taxis and tolls, hotel costs, meal expenses, and even your internal costs to process the expense paperwork.

5. Soft cost savings multiply returns

Spare yourself the productivity drain and the physical and mental tolls travel takes on your company’s road warriors and you could enjoy “soft” cost savings that dwarf your hard dollar travel costs. Want an example? Look at your own calendar for the past month and count up just the hours you spent traveling to and from meetings. Multiply that by your hourly wage, and then by the number of employees in your firm.

If reasons like these don’t help you convince the reluctant decision makers in your company to add video to your communications mix, please be patient with them. Historically they are in good company. There were many who claimed the smeary images on hard to handle rolls of paper called “faxes” could never function in place of an original document. And who, they asked, would ever want to spend more time typing an email message when they could so easily pick up a telephone and place a call?

Copyright 2005 Liz Micik

About The Author

Liz Micik turns your video learning curve into a fast and easy profit curve in her newest book, Cue the Director: 10 Simple Steps to Online Video Success. Visit www.powerpresenters.com to have free weekly video tips emailed to you.

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