Enter Facebook advertising.

There are other online advertising platforms available. You likely have a passing familiarity with Google AdWords, or the comparable alternatives on Bing and Yahoo. And other social networks, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, also offer ways for businesses to purchase and display ads. But no platform is quite as powerful as Facebook’s, and below, you’ll learn what makes Facebook such a necessity for advertising your business and how it can make marketing a whole lot easier.

Facebook Has Enormous Reach

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, but that fact alone does not do it justice. Absorb this statistic: Facebook is the online home of over 2.2 billion users. That is nearly 30% of the world’s population. No other advertising medium comes close to an audience of that scale, including TV, radio, or print.

Put things into perspective. Think about how much companies pay to advertise during the Super Bowl. An average spot can run somewhere around $2 million. The Super Bowl brings in somewhere north of 100 million viewers, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be looking at the TV when a commercial runs. Facebook gives you the means to access

over a quarter of the world’s population, specifically advertise to those who fit your target audience best, and do so at a significantly lower cost.

Not including Facebook in your advertising budget is an exercise in foolishness. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

It Lets You Target Your Perfect Audience

The amount of information users share with Facebook is staggering. Visit any number of profiles on the social network and you’ll see users who like artists, movies, and brands they’re fans of. They join groups to talk with people who have common interests. They list their marital status, their birthday, their gender — just about every bit of information a good marketer needs to reach exactly the right kind of person.

And if you already have an email marketing list built up outside of Facebook, you can upload those email addresses to Facebook’s ad platform and create a “lookalike” audience full of people similar to your current subscribers. If you have a good idea about who your target audience is, you can drill down and ensure your ads reach them on Facebook. And if you need some assistance figuring it out, the platform can help there, too.

Facebook Ads Are Easy to Use

Unlike Google AdWords, which can sometimes feel like it’s built for rocket scientists, Facebook’s ad platform is fairly straightforward to use. Users can log in, select the type of ad they’re interested in running, and go through a step-by- step process to enter ad information and select audience demographics. Small business owners without a whole lot of tech or marketing experience have been successful in launching and managing their own campaigns, and if you want to do some fancier things on the platform, the extendability is there to allow for it.

Cost Effectiveness

AdWords experts regularly suggest that a company start with a monthly budget of between $800 and $1000. That can be a pretty substantial chunk of change for the entrepreneur just starting out. Fortunately, this is another area where Facebook advertising shines. Smaller budgets can find a home on the platform without issue, and the daily, weekly, and monthly spend of ad campaigns can be easily tracked. And, unlike AdWords, ad statistics, including impressions, clicks, and spend, update in real time.

Another benefit to advertising on Facebook? Impressions and clicks are far less expensive than on other platforms. A smaller budget can do far more on Facebook than it can on Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Twitter ads, or LinkedIn ads.

It Encourages Engagement With Your Brand

Users come to Facebook to check out what friends are doing and share the things they enjoy with others. This is good news, because it means they come to the platform ready to engage, and Facebook’s ad platform offers many ways for your advertisements to take on forms that are familiar to Facebook users. You can upload videos, display ads that look like Facebook posts, and run campaigns where you only have to pay for each “Like” your business page receives.

And engagement on Facebook has the side effect of causing a chain reaction. When others interact with your sponsored posts or social ads, that activity shows up in the feeds of other users, which means you can technically further your reach on the platform without spending extra money. Good advertising content is rewarded, so if you choose to advertising on Facebook, bring your best stuff.

The post Why Facebook Advertising is a Must for Your Business appeared first on Douglas James.

The App Academy example is what we’d call a high ticket item. It’s a pricier item that isn’t designed to sell in large volumes. It’s focused on a very specific group of people: those who want to change careers quickly, want to develop apps for a living, and require the knowledge necessary to make the switch. Those who sign up for App Academy view it as an investment in themselves, which is why they’re willing to pay a significant sum to join the program.

If you’re selling a high ticket item of your own, there’s a lot you can learn from App Academy and others like it. Put these tactics to work and you’ll put yourself on the path toward high ticket sales success.

Dive Deep and Understand Your Target Market

The most important step you can take when selling a high ticket item is knowing who your target market is. Know their demographics. Know their income level. Put yourself in their shoes, imagine how they might be feeling, and try to understand what would interest them in your product.

Why is this important? Because your efforts will go largely unrewarded if you try to target your offering far and wide. Income, for example, is one of the fastest ways to narrow down who you can sell to. If someone doesn’t make all that much and, as a

result, can’t afford your product in the first place, you’re burning resources trying to market your product to that person.

Knowing your audience well also enables you to create a deeper, more meaningful bond with them once you have their attention. You’re able to relate to them. You understand the position they’re in and can better articulate what your product can do to help. This is a bond you can’t create at scale.

Know Your Niche Better Than Anyone

Chances are, you’re not going to be the only party in town in terms what your business has to offer. You’ll need to set yourself apart from those you’re competing with. You can do this through marketing, certainly. But you can also do it by becoming the expert in what you do.

Read about your industry every day. Write about your industry every day. Do research. Commission reports. Create infographics. Make yourself available to the press. Establish yourself as a fountain of knowledge and impart that knowledge into those you’re selling to. You’ll quickly find that you’re able to build trust at a more rapid pace when you’re perceived to be the authority of your given niche.

Focus on the Essentials

It can be tempting to try and offer as much as you can to cover as wide an audience as possible. But you’re selling high ticket items, which differ vastly from, say, items on the Dollar Menu at McDonald’s. The more you try to do, the more you’ll spread yourself too thin, and the less you’ll be able to offer the quality your customer deserves for the price they’re paying.

Eliminate the unnecessary. Do a few things very well instead of being mediocre at many. By narrowing your focus, you’ll be able to concentrate on delivering the most

value to your customer. And the more value you’re able to deliver, the more you can potentially charge as time goes on.

Sell to Your Takers

When you offer, for example, a free webinar or regular insights and advice via an email newsletter, you start to build an even more receptive audience. These are people who have bought into your initial sell — that you’re an expert and you have important knowledge to share.

These are the people you want to focus on the most.

There’s a reason Amazon ads follow you around the Web once you visit a product page. The tactic is called “remarketing” — delivering ads to those who’ve already expressed interest in a product or service. Every time Amazon reaches out to a visitor again through an email or an ad, the likelihood of converting that visitor into a customer goes up.

The same holds true for your webinar attendees or email subscribers. They’ve already marked themselves down as “interested” — they may just need a little more coaxing to take the plunge and make the purchase. In situations like these, offers of a free mini coaching session or a quick phone consultation could sell them the rest of the way and cement their decision to buy.

The post Tips for Growing Your High Ticket Sales appeared first on Douglas James.

Entrepreneurship is a journey through valleys both high and low. Anyone who chooses to forge their own path in business does so for their own reasons. And not everyone succeeds. But success most often finds those who adopt the entrepreneur mindset right out of the gate. Those who are willing to put it all on the line, focus hard on achieving their goals, and never let up.

What goes into the entrepreneur mindset, you ask? These qualities.

The Courage to Take Risks

When you make the decision to strike out on your own and make your living outside the confines of Corporate America, you’ve already taken a risk.

It’s not the easier path. Easy would be taking a desk job in an office for a company that isn’t yours. Easy is trading your time for a salary that may or may not go up no matter how valuable you are.

But your risk-taking can’t end there. Being an entrepreneur means making bold decisions when opportunities present themselves. If you play it safe all the time, more

courageous competitors will pass you by. Instead, you want to play to win, which means gunning for the lead and never letting off the gas once you have it.

The Desire to Sell

It can’t be said enough: you need to believe in what you’re doing. Having a steadfast faith in what you have to offer makes it easier to sell your product or service to your audience. And you will need to sell. A lot.

You can draw this faith from a number of different sources. Sell on the belief that your product is the best on the market. Sell because you’re out to change the world and make people’s lives better. You aren’t in business without the first sale, and you don’t stay in business without more sales after that. Selling is an integral part of being an entrepreneur, so if you aren’t good at it, start practicing.

The Ability to Adapt

Nothing is a slam dunk in this world. There are no guarantees. The route you take to the grocery store — is it always the same route? It likely is. You know it’s the fastest way to get there. You’re comfortable with it. You can practically drive it with your eyes closed (this isn’t recommended).

But what if one of the roads are closed along the way? You need to take a new path. A few extra turns to get to where you need to go. Being an entrepreneur means you need to be ready for anything. You need to stay on your toes. If a supplier goes out of business, you need to find a new supplier. If a competitor enters your market, you need to be ready to adjust your offering.

In biology, adaptation can take millions of years. In business, you may need to do it in minutes.

The Patience to Manage

Entrepreneurship may appeal to you because it seems like a way to escape “management.” And, in a sense, it is. You are no longer managed. You call the shots. You control your own destiny.

But your venture will need to be managed, and at the start, you’ll be the one doing it.

You will need to keep all of your ducks in a row. Organize your projects. Keep track of your finances. Interface with all the processes of your business. And, when the time comes, you’ll need to manage employees who will start to take over these tasks for you.

Not everyone is born a gifted manager. But patience is necessary not only in attending to what’s required on the management front, but in learning how to become a better manager over time.

The Hunger to Grow

Many a startup fire has been extinguished by complacency. Some don’t long to be the best, or to be the most well known. Some are content with simply getting by.

Doing so is a path to certain disappointment.

The entrepreneur mindset is encompassed most in those who shoot for the moon. The Steve Jobs’ and Elon Musks of the world who dare to be great. Those who want to bring their vision to as many people as possible.

Every mega-corporation, every Apple and Tesla, starts with an entrepreneur. Your business? It starts with you. And how far it goes? That’s up to you, too. If you have the hunger for it.

The post Do You Have the Entrepreneur Mindset? appeared first on Douglas James.

But the truth, as with many things, is hidden somewhere in between. An independent streak is never a bad thing in business. Self reliance is not a bad quality to have when starting a company. But there is no harm in learning from others who have walked the walk and talked the talk, who have braved the unknown, gotten some bruises along the way, and now wish to share their experiences with others.

Today, you’ll learn why you need to hire a mentor.

Accountability

There’s a reason we’re more successful in groups. Why we often perform our best when running against others in a race, or why we’re more likely to stick to a diet if we’re doing it with a friend: there’s a source of some kind holding you accountable. You may not want to look weak or unable. You may not want to have to explain why you didn’t do what you said you’d do. Whatever the reason, accountability is one heck of a motivator.

As an entrepreneur, it’s tempting to let laziness get the better of you. You’ve worked all day — no one will notice if you don’t publish a blog post tomorrow, right? Hiring a mentor can push you to keep your business on track. A simple check-in call once a day can do

wonders for your productivity and motivate you to do what needs to be done. Because most of us, truth be told, don’t want to disappoint others. Also, we enjoy positive reinforcement. Being able to tell your mentor you knocked out all your tasks and hearing a “great job” is worth every penny.

Advice

When new NFL rookies come into the league, they often attend seminars where retired players speak about the joys and struggles they experienced throughout their careers. The veterans tell these new professionals what will be expected of them by their coaches and teammates. They teach them how to properly manage their finances. And they offer advice to those willing to ask.

Your business mentor is a veteran of their craft. They may not have spent years catching touchdowns, but they’ve spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of what it takes to grow and manage a successful company. The importance of having someone like this who is ready to guide you through your own journey cannot be understated.

An Outside Perspective

There is nothing wrong with knowing everything there is to know about your business. And, likewise, attending industry conferences where you meet others who do the same thing can be beneficial. But insulating yourself with your own beliefs about your business, or surrounding yourself with others who feel similarly, can sometimes be dangerous. The phrases “groupthink” and “echo chamber” come to mind.

Your mentor can play an extremely important role as an outsider. If they can both approach your situation as someone well versed in business success, but also play the part of the customer who isn’t familiar with the intricacies of your industry, they can help you improve. There’s a reason companies hire focus groups when testing new ideas.

Your mentor can not only serve as a one-person focus group, they can also suggest solutions. That’s a powerful combination.

Networking Opportunities

If your mentor has a long track record of success in business, chances are, they have a large rolodex of contacts they can turn to if they feel you need some assistance outside their expertise, or if they spot a potential opportunity.

Imagine you’re launching a new coaching program for those who want to get in shape and compete in Tough Mudder competitions. Now imagine your mentor is a former founder of three successful tech startups, and this mentor just happens to know another startup looking to offer on-site fitness training to its employees. You suddenly have a brand new business opportunity, simply because you knew someone with the right connections and enough sway to get the wheels turning.

A mentor can open up brand new doors for your business. If you’re willing to go through them, something fantastic could be waiting on the other side.

As you can see, there’s a lot to be gained from hiring a mentor — someone who can offer insight based on years and years of experience in business. If you could use a nudge, or advice, or someone who help you make the right connections, it’s one of the best calls you can make as an entrepreneur.

The post Are You a New Entrepreneur? You Need to Hire a Mentor appeared first on Douglas James.