hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to
another edition of ask Evan this is a
special edition brought to you by Telus
they have launched a campaign where
they’re giving a hundred thousand
dollars away to a Canadian entrepreneur
I’ll talk a little bit about it at the
end of the video so stay tuned for the
end in this episode I’m going to answer
question from one of our Telus talks
business readers who wrote in asking
about how to increase sales so the
question was thanks for the advice I’m
also running a company but struggling to
increase my sales cash flow and I’m
failing to pay my suppliers and my bank
loans in time I need more of your good
advice because I want to make a
breakthrough so thank you for the
question really tough situation and a
lot of entrepreneurs do get themselves
in a huge cash crunch by spending more
than they’re making and that that is
often a recipe for failure and I want to
you know really feel fear and I hope
that you can get out of this I’m going
to give you some tips to to help you go
through that the first thing is really
stop spending money and anybody can
spend money this is what we saw a lot
with my venture capital days anybody can
spend money it’s not hard to spend money
they gave me a million box you can go
out and spend a million bucks if you you
get the hundred thousand awesome tell us
if so you can go and find a hundred
thousand ways to use it but not
everybody can make money and so the
important thing to do as an entrepreneur
is try to make money before you’re
spending money I hate spending money
until I’m making money and i’ll invest
my time and energy in new projects and
trying to get them to go wait before
i’ll spend my money and that should be
the approaches i think you should take
and a lot of entrepreneurship take look
for ways to spend your time and energy
to go out and earn money but don’t spend
your money to do it once you see that
you can make the work on a small scale
then it’s okay to spend money to expand
you know it’s working but at the
beginning don’t spend money a quick
example even with these youtube videos
that you guys are watching go back to my
earlier videos and they were really bad
right a lot of it was because I didn’t
want to spend money to invest in the
equipment to create the videos until I
knew that I was going to commit
and there was a potential revenue model
down the down the line for me so the
first videos are really bad it’s on a
really old camera the lighting is
terrible the audio was terrible the
content was so pretty good but the you
know the money that would be spent on
video editing and having a nice camera
and happy to do microphone and have a
good lighting that is much better in the
videos now I started to spend money of
that once it started making money from
the videos and it was as simple as that
so I used the momentum from the early
days to get it going don’t spend a lot
of money and then as I started making
money was able to invest back into the
business and was able to build it up and
it’s not that I couldn’t have spent
money to buy camera and lighting it’s
just it’s easy to go and spend money on
new projects that never take off so I
always try to make sure that i’m finding
a way to make money on these projects
i’ll guess my time into it and energy
but i won’t spend money until I find a
way to make some of that money back so
that’s kind of step one that can be kind
of general advice and oh how do i
implement that the next thing is go
after companies and build around them so
try to build your product your service
around customers so i don’t know what
you’re selling didn’t mention in your
comment but go out and try to find guys
and talk to them potential customers
will pay you to solve their problem the
more you can build your product or
service around somebody who has a
problem in willing to pay you for it the
better cash flow is going to be right so
we made this mistake in my first offer
company we spent all this time building
this one feature that as it turns out
nobody really wanted and I was an
awesome feature but we thought it was
awesome but our customers didn’t really
care and so what was the point of that
if we had spoken to our customers
earlier in front of what they wanted and
build around their pain points and the
problems we would have had no more money
coming in we have been a more successful
company earlier on now luckily we had
enough good features in our software
that people still want to buy from us
but the the one thing we spent so much
time working on nobody cared I think a
lot of entrepreneurs have that same
thing where they spend a lot of time and
energy on something that people don’t
really care that much about you’re not
really solving a problem so you
to talk to your customers build around
what their problems are and you’ll have
a study no cash flow coming in it’s
great if you can talk to companies
instead of individuals because if you
can have a lasting impact with the
company they’re going to hire you back
it’s going to be bigger dollars it’s
going to be ongoing commitment and
they’re likely to tell their you know
other companies about you as well so
it’s great to have those relationships
we’re selling to consumers can be really
tough where they may love it but they’ll
buy much smaller quantities won’t have
as much need for you so it’s a lot
harder to do consumer oriented business
then business and the last tip would be
to start with a service and I don’t know
if you’re selling a service or if you
selling a product but I definitely
geared towards a service especially
inner cash crunch the service doesn’t
cost you a lot of money it’s your time
which eventually you want to you know
try to break free of but at the
beginning you got to get to survival
where you got to get the point where
you’re able to make you know enough
money to pay your bills you pay your
bank pay your suppliers and you’re
making you know a comfortable living so
you gotta get to that survival point and
a lot of entrepreneurs never hit that
and that’s why they have to shut down so
a great way to do this sort of service
talk to companies again solve their
problems do it with the service do it
with investing a lot of time into it and
as you get closer to your companies and
close to your customers you really
understand their needs and the needs of
the market then you’re able to introduce
a product that can help them even more
and you can expand pod companies are
typically more expensive take longer to
get going have a higher failure rate
then if you can start with the service
really you’ll get a cash flow stream
coming in and be able to build on that
then you’re bigger vision may be to have
products on the line but I’d start with
a service especially if you in a cash
crunch and in the last point is just if
you’re your income is going to depend on
how much value you provide to your
customers so the more value provide to
your customers and more money going to
be able to make if you need more money
faster provide more value faster it’s
really as simple as that entrepreneurs
will make as much money as they’re able
to the charge more because they’re
offering a lot more value if you’re not
able to get the prices that you want
because you’re not giving your customers
enough value so look for ways to add in
overwhelming value to ideally business
customers and it’s a service and
hopefully I’ll get you you’ll get your
company up to that next level and get
you out of this cash crunch that you’re
facing hopefully that was really helpful
again this video is sponsored by tell us
they have a challenge going on where
they are giving away a hundred thousand
dollars of Canadian entrepreneur you can
enter at the global mail /a challenge
and I’m going to be one of the judges
we’re looking at the end of mate we will
give away this money so check it out I’d
love to see you guys there if you did
like this video please give it a thumbs
up below and love seeing those come in
it always makes my day when when you do
that so thank you and if you have any
questions about this video or other
questions to your business feel free to
leave it in the comments below I always
check those out and I’d be happy to
answer for you as well so thank you and
we’ll see you on the next episode
you
another edition of ask Evan this is a
special edition brought to you by Telus
they have launched a campaign where
they’re giving a hundred thousand
dollars away to a Canadian entrepreneur
I’ll talk a little bit about it at the
end of the video so stay tuned for the
end in this episode I’m going to answer
question from one of our Telus talks
business readers who wrote in asking
about how to increase sales so the
question was thanks for the advice I’m
also running a company but struggling to
increase my sales cash flow and I’m
failing to pay my suppliers and my bank
loans in time I need more of your good
advice because I want to make a
breakthrough so thank you for the
question really tough situation and a
lot of entrepreneurs do get themselves
in a huge cash crunch by spending more
than they’re making and that that is
often a recipe for failure and I want to
you know really feel fear and I hope
that you can get out of this I’m going
to give you some tips to to help you go
through that the first thing is really
stop spending money and anybody can
spend money this is what we saw a lot
with my venture capital days anybody can
spend money it’s not hard to spend money
they gave me a million box you can go
out and spend a million bucks if you you
get the hundred thousand awesome tell us
if so you can go and find a hundred
thousand ways to use it but not
everybody can make money and so the
important thing to do as an entrepreneur
is try to make money before you’re
spending money I hate spending money
until I’m making money and i’ll invest
my time and energy in new projects and
trying to get them to go wait before
i’ll spend my money and that should be
the approaches i think you should take
and a lot of entrepreneurship take look
for ways to spend your time and energy
to go out and earn money but don’t spend
your money to do it once you see that
you can make the work on a small scale
then it’s okay to spend money to expand
you know it’s working but at the
beginning don’t spend money a quick
example even with these youtube videos
that you guys are watching go back to my
earlier videos and they were really bad
right a lot of it was because I didn’t
want to spend money to invest in the
equipment to create the videos until I
knew that I was going to commit
and there was a potential revenue model
down the down the line for me so the
first videos are really bad it’s on a
really old camera the lighting is
terrible the audio was terrible the
content was so pretty good but the you
know the money that would be spent on
video editing and having a nice camera
and happy to do microphone and have a
good lighting that is much better in the
videos now I started to spend money of
that once it started making money from
the videos and it was as simple as that
so I used the momentum from the early
days to get it going don’t spend a lot
of money and then as I started making
money was able to invest back into the
business and was able to build it up and
it’s not that I couldn’t have spent
money to buy camera and lighting it’s
just it’s easy to go and spend money on
new projects that never take off so I
always try to make sure that i’m finding
a way to make money on these projects
i’ll guess my time into it and energy
but i won’t spend money until I find a
way to make some of that money back so
that’s kind of step one that can be kind
of general advice and oh how do i
implement that the next thing is go
after companies and build around them so
try to build your product your service
around customers so i don’t know what
you’re selling didn’t mention in your
comment but go out and try to find guys
and talk to them potential customers
will pay you to solve their problem the
more you can build your product or
service around somebody who has a
problem in willing to pay you for it the
better cash flow is going to be right so
we made this mistake in my first offer
company we spent all this time building
this one feature that as it turns out
nobody really wanted and I was an
awesome feature but we thought it was
awesome but our customers didn’t really
care and so what was the point of that
if we had spoken to our customers
earlier in front of what they wanted and
build around their pain points and the
problems we would have had no more money
coming in we have been a more successful
company earlier on now luckily we had
enough good features in our software
that people still want to buy from us
but the the one thing we spent so much
time working on nobody cared I think a
lot of entrepreneurs have that same
thing where they spend a lot of time and
energy on something that people don’t
really care that much about you’re not
really solving a problem so you
to talk to your customers build around
what their problems are and you’ll have
a study no cash flow coming in it’s
great if you can talk to companies
instead of individuals because if you
can have a lasting impact with the
company they’re going to hire you back
it’s going to be bigger dollars it’s
going to be ongoing commitment and
they’re likely to tell their you know
other companies about you as well so
it’s great to have those relationships
we’re selling to consumers can be really
tough where they may love it but they’ll
buy much smaller quantities won’t have
as much need for you so it’s a lot
harder to do consumer oriented business
then business and the last tip would be
to start with a service and I don’t know
if you’re selling a service or if you
selling a product but I definitely
geared towards a service especially
inner cash crunch the service doesn’t
cost you a lot of money it’s your time
which eventually you want to you know
try to break free of but at the
beginning you got to get to survival
where you got to get the point where
you’re able to make you know enough
money to pay your bills you pay your
bank pay your suppliers and you’re
making you know a comfortable living so
you gotta get to that survival point and
a lot of entrepreneurs never hit that
and that’s why they have to shut down so
a great way to do this sort of service
talk to companies again solve their
problems do it with the service do it
with investing a lot of time into it and
as you get closer to your companies and
close to your customers you really
understand their needs and the needs of
the market then you’re able to introduce
a product that can help them even more
and you can expand pod companies are
typically more expensive take longer to
get going have a higher failure rate
then if you can start with the service
really you’ll get a cash flow stream
coming in and be able to build on that
then you’re bigger vision may be to have
products on the line but I’d start with
a service especially if you in a cash
crunch and in the last point is just if
you’re your income is going to depend on
how much value you provide to your
customers so the more value provide to
your customers and more money going to
be able to make if you need more money
faster provide more value faster it’s
really as simple as that entrepreneurs
will make as much money as they’re able
to the charge more because they’re
offering a lot more value if you’re not
able to get the prices that you want
because you’re not giving your customers
enough value so look for ways to add in
overwhelming value to ideally business
customers and it’s a service and
hopefully I’ll get you you’ll get your
company up to that next level and get
you out of this cash crunch that you’re
facing hopefully that was really helpful
again this video is sponsored by tell us
they have a challenge going on where
they are giving away a hundred thousand
dollars of Canadian entrepreneur you can
enter at the global mail /a challenge
and I’m going to be one of the judges
we’re looking at the end of mate we will
give away this money so check it out I’d
love to see you guys there if you did
like this video please give it a thumbs
up below and love seeing those come in
it always makes my day when when you do
that so thank you and if you have any
questions about this video or other
questions to your business feel free to
leave it in the comments below I always
check those out and I’d be happy to
answer for you as well so thank you and
we’ll see you on the next episode
you
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