Episode 226: #AskAdam – Your Questions about Business Answered!
Questions are essential, especially in growing the business. We ask questions in order to learn more information and use it to build our business. In today’s episode of AskAdam, Adam Stott answers the burning questions from social media asked by business owners and people who want to start a business.
Adam is very generous in sharing his knowledge about building and growing a business. He covers everything from business ideas to marketing strategies that build client relationships and emphasizes the importance of giving value to people.
Show Highlights:
- What kind of marketing generates more conversation about a business
- Identify your strengths and weaknesses as a business owner
- Learn the best way to come up with business ideas
- Find out how to establish your marketplace; and
- How to speak your message and build a business relationship
Links Mentioned:
Join the Ultimate Three Day Business Event and learn more Business Growth Secrets
Be part of our Facebook Group Big Business Events Members Network
Connect with me on Instagram @adamstottcoach
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott:
Hey everybody, and welcome back to Business Growth Secrets, I got something really, really cool. This week, we have recorded a 24 minute long, totally content full business q&a. So like different questions coming in from Tik Tok. We have different questions coming in from Instagram. Got questions coming in from all over, from different clients and business owners that wanted a bit of help and it’s really cool stuff covered from marketing to business and so much more.
So what I want to do, it’s on YouTube, but I decided to take the audio and share that with you because I think it’d be massive content full for you. So hopefully you really enjoy listening to this quick q&a. That’s going to be going on for this week’s podcast I’m sure it’s going to add a ton of value to you. And of course, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, make sure you give us a five-star review. So thanks everyone, I hope you enjoy today. I’m sure you’re gonna love it.
Now, if you don’t know me, my name is Adam start I’ve helped over 15,000 business owners to grow. In addition to creating my own businesses, I’ve done over 40 million in revenue per year for my own businesses personally. As well as creating multiple different businesses in multiple different industries, in multiple different sectors. So I know a thing or two and it’s not my first rodeo.
So I’m hoping to add some value to you with your business questions. If you ask a question, we’ll answer it, we’ll answer on YouTube. Very recently, I was on channel 5’s Rich House, Poor House. And when we posted these videos on Tik Tok and Instagram. I got hundreds of business questions, and we’re getting round to now answering those. So if you’re following me on YouTube, or if you’re not following me yet, go and subscribe. Because we’re going to be answering questions on everything to do with business. And literally, there’s gonna be so much value here added that you’re definitely going to want to subscribe and check these out. So make sure you do.
I’m going to jump into answering the questions now from Instagram from Tik Tok. And if you want to ask a question on YouTube, put it in the comments. Go below, comment now and I’ll answer any question that you’ve got a week by week when we’re doing this q&a it’s just to add value to you. If you’re a business owner over the last couple of years, it’s been a bit difficult, right? You know, things have changed, there’s an old way of doing business, and there’s a new way of doing business. And if you’re going to be more successful, we need to embrace the new way.
At this point, you’re like Adam, what is the new way? Well, that’s what we’re gonna be talking about. The new way is about getting your message to the market. Understanding who your client is utilising the social media platforms and the ad platforms to spread your message further and build relationships. And this channel, and this q&a is going to be all about how do you do that? How do you go and grow a business in today’s market? So subscribe to get tons of value and enjoy the ride.
So the first question we’ve got is from Instagram, it’s from Best Life Botanicals. And it’s saying, what’s a good starting point with videos? Should we keep them short? And should we keep them only a product? Well, this is what I’d say to you about video marketing. In today’s world, where most people are kind of accessing social media, they’re going through things very, very, very quickly. You’ve got a very, very short time to get somebody’s attention and hold their attention. That’s why you as a business owner should be using video to communicate. Because a video is going to stop people in their tracks and give you the opportunity to have a longer conversation.
One of the things I’ve taught my clients for a long, long time, is if you want to grow your business, there’s only really one thing you got to do. You got to have more conversations. And You need to speak to more people. You need to get more people aware of who you are. What you do, what your business is, what your products are. And the best way to do that is with video marketing today as well. I mean look where we are now, we’re doing a video right? Why are we doing a video we’re doing a video so we can speak to more people we can help more people. If you want to grow your business in today’s world because now we’re coming into 2022 now, we simply need to understand that this is the way now.
The way now is that your media is your social media, the important word is ‘media’. You have this media channel where you can go and say what you want. Do what you want, present what you want. Talk about what you want, and the best way to do it is through video. So your social media, I want to see your face. I want to see your videos about you explaining the benefits of your products and services. I want to hear a bit of your story. Remember people buy from people and if you’ve got a bit of your story down. You’re telling people about who you are and what you do. That’s going to really increase the amount of value somebody can see in you and in your products or services.
So you should be using video, what’s the best way to get started. The very best way to get started is to take a camera phone, put it on video. Literally, get started, go and start recording, very simply. Every single person can do it, all you need is a smartphone. We can get that video done, we can have a conversation very quickly like that, and start spreading the word.
Now, this is a thing to remember, if you want to get started in two years time, you’re going to be terrible in two years time. If you want to get started right now, today, you’re going to be terrible today. So the reality is gonna be terrible at some point. So we might as well get started right now rather than two years time. And I think that that is the same in any aspect of business, you got to get started, you got to throw yourself in. You got to jump in, you’ve got to go and have conversations, knowing that ain’t going to be great to start. But you are going to get there, you are going to produce some good results.
And by the time, you know, three, four or five months, you started to use video a bit more. You’re showing your face a bit more, you’ll start to get much, much better results. Now, I let you in the first videos I ever did. I used to get comments like who the hell is Adam Stott and stuff like that. That’s natural in the beginning, that’s a natural thing because people don’t know. But as people get to know you, they get to know who you are and get to know what you got to say. And they get to know how what you’re talking about can help them. That’s where they’re going to see the value. And that’s when they’re going to want to do business with you. So when’s the best place to start? When’s the best time to start? Now be a good time?
So got another one here. This one’s from Sean Bartel, who’s one of our clients, actually great guy. And he’s asked who has been my best inspiration, or mentor? So a really good question. This is the way I think about mentoring inspiration. I think whenever you want to grow in a certain area, like a business owner. In order for a business owner, or in order for someone to be successful in business, you’ve got to have a multitude of different skills.
So the things that I really teach people is there are five things that you need to know to be great at business and to get things right. Number one, you need to be good at marketing. Number two, you need to be great at branding. Three, you need to be good at sales. Number four, you need to be good at business strategy. Number five, you really need to know your numbers. And there’s something that sits across those five. And that’s your mindset, your mindset needs to be right. So we get those six things, right, including the mindset, we’ll get great results.
Now what I’ve chosen to do is look for the best people in branding. The best people to help me in that area and to get me really good at branding. The best people in marketing. So I understand how to market my business, market my message, get my message out to market. I’ve looked for the best people in sales, I look for the best people on numbers and I’ve looked for the best people on business strategy. So there’s not really been one single mentor, one single person that’s helped me. It’s been a multitude of people across the way that have helped me become a well-rounded business owner, and helped me to get the knowledge that I needed on business.
Now, along the way, some of the best business mentors and business coaches that I’ve had have been people to actually brought into my business. So you look at the numbers part, I had a very high-level finance director that came in to my business, paid him a lot of money. And one of the things that were really great about him does not only do he want to come and execute the skill, whilst he’s working, maybe a finance director, the business. He wanted me to learn and understand the finances. And, you know, we spent a lot, lot of time really understanding numbers.
And what that allowed me to do is it allowed me to help me to be able to read profit and losses very quickly. Allowing me to read balance sheets very quickly allow me to understand gearing ratios, raising money, and so much more. And that guy made a big difference to me. His name was Richard. But I think along the way, the people I’ve learned from marketing from people I’ve learned branding, from strategy from numbers from having all been massive, massive value adds to me. And why does that matter to you?
So if you’re watching this video, what do you need to do? What you need to do is figure out if you want to grow a business. If you want to grow a business to a million-pound plus. Wherever it is you want to be, you need to figure out where are you strong, where you’re weak? Are you strong at the brand in a strong market? Are you strong at sales are your strongest strategy? Or are you strong at the numbers? If you’re not strong, all those five things, there’s going to be a weakness there. And if so, say you’re not great at sales, then you’re going to really need to make sure because you be the best market in the world get loads of opportunities, you can’t convert them, that’s not going to help you write.
So we need to sharpen up on where we’re weak in order to become strong overall in order to get you the result that you want. So hopefully that answers your question, Shawn. And gives a bit of value to the audience as well and a bit of direction on the skill sets that you need to be shaping. So I’ve put this out on TikTok as well. We’ve got like hundreds and hundreds of questions on tick-tock, a bit shorter, but this one from S1cooper says I want some business ideas. Can you help me out?
So in terms of business ideas, I think the best thing I would say to somebody who wants a business idea is once the matter start doesn’t matter start. What are you really good at and what are you passionate about? Why does this matter? Because if you’re passionate about it, you’re going to keep going through the challenges sometimes when you start a business. If you’re not passionate about it, you haven’t got that burning fire for it. It’s easy to switch off from it when times are tough.
If you’re passionate about it, you want to keep going you want to keep pushing forward. You are more committed and commitment is a big thing when it comes to growing your business and making it happen. So the first thing is you want answers like, what are you really good at? What is it that you enjoy doing? And secondly, what are you passionate about?
Now, once we’ve got the answers to those questions, it’s very easy for us to go and say, right, okay, well, in order for us to make money in business, typically we need to either buy or sell something, right? So we need to go and buy some stock, and we need to go and sell it. Unless it’s a service, which means we need to create a service, then we need to go and offer it into the marketplace, right? So you need to look at if it’s a service that you want to offer that you want to sell what’s missing from the services that are out there right now.
If that service already exists, and people are already using it, how can you create something that makes it better. So you can improve it, or you can go and offer it to the marketplace. Because if you improve it, people are going to want the improved version of what’s already there. That’s obviously one idea that you can have, if it’s that you’re going to buy, and you’re going to sell something, you want to look at what products in you’re passionate about in that area, would you absolutely love to buy, but you can’t find anywhere. And then you can look at how can I go and create something that I would love to ‘sbuy that not in the marketplace? Then you go and find people similar to you, you can create that product, you can go and sell it.
So a couple of things for you there. What is it you’re good at, what is it you’re passionate about? What services can be improved currently there in the market? Or what product? Can you not get you really want? And then you’re going to cultivate some ideas from there. So this one’s from… is how do I market my business? Which is a good question, I think.
Now, the way that I market my business is I, first of all, the first thing I do is I say, who are the clients that we want, who are the type of people we want to work with? Who are the type of people we can really help to grow and help to get great results? And I establish first of all, who do I want to deal with and who that I’m really going for, because that’s the key, a lot of people don’t do that. They’re just trying to spread their message and spread their message everywhere. They’re actually thinking about who you want to serve, and who are the best people.
So that’s the first thing I do once I’ve got an idea of who it is I want for a product or service, I go and sort of say like, the people that are already buying a product or service like this. Or the people that want this product or service. What kind of challenges and what kind of issues have they got? What kind of pain are they and what the issues around a product or service we’re going to offer? And what do they actually want to gain? What are the things that they really want to gain out of what we do, right?
So for most of the people, most people when they come to us, they’re looking to grow a business. What do we do? We help business owners to grow. We help business owners to do business the new way, rather than the old way. Which is actually embracing media, getting your message out to the market and allowing you to go and gain more clients.
So once I’ve done that, I figured out who I want, I figure out what their problems are and what they want to gain, I’m now got the ability to start to craft a message. Once I’ve got the ability to craft the message that I think it’s going to resonate with them. That’s the first stage. After that, I’m then going to look at the different ad platforms and say, “Well, you know, people like this, are they hanging out in YouTube?” Are they spending more time on Facebook? Are they spending more time in Instagram? You know, are people like this not spending time online, but we need to market to them in a different way.
So figure out where they are, once I figured out where they are. I’m then going to put my message in front of them, which is going to resonate with them because that’s exactly what they want. And then we’re going to create a connection from that connection. We’re then going to allow somebody to make an inquiry to us whether that means we’re going to give something away for free. Whether it means we’re going to hold a presentation, maybe like a webinar. Whether we’re going to hold an event, whatever it is. I’m going to put that message in front of them. I’m going to add some value to them first so they can see that we’re the logical person to help them.
And from there, we’re going to then progress the relationship with an offering the product or service that they want. That’s going to change their results. That’s probably not what you wanted to hear me say like, oh, we use YouTube ads, or we use Facebook ads, or we use Instagram ads. Yes, we do all that. But what I do first is the more psychological bit of actually working out who I want. Who I’m trying to reach. What the message is. How I can place that message in front of them, which I think is a better answer. Hopefully, that helps you there. Okay, so this one’s from K Pierce, it says what’s the best way to start a clothing business? I’ve had a few sales, but I’m stuck now.
Now if you’ve had a few sales, so this is the thing when you’re going to start a business, getting sales is what I call proof of concept. That is what actually proves the concept that what you have to offer the marketplace people actually want. And you always want to go and get that proof of concept first. Now that doesn’t have to be massive. It doesn’t have to be a huge scale. But what it does tell you is that somebody out there wants your product or service. And if you’ve already got a few sales K, it kind of assessed to me that actually the product or service that you got people to want. Now if you’re stuck now, it’s because you’re not having enough conversations with the right people.
So you need to look at the people that bought the product or service and say how can I find more people like them? Right? That’s really what you got to do. So you got to establish who that marketplace is that motivated them to buy go and find more. That might be that at this stage, you invest in advertising, so you can actually get your message out further. Alternatively, you go back to the clients who have already bought your product or service and you get to know them a little bit better and see if there’s another product service that they want. You know, that will be another way that you could go and actually get some more sales from the people that you’ve already got because they obviously like your product or service.
Now, one of the things that really come to here is whoever’s watching, what you need to understand which is really important is if you want to grow a business. The amount of offers that you put into the marketplace is going to correlate with the number of sales you get back. And what happens a lot of the time is people stopped putting offers into the marketplace, because one or two of them bought. It probably means that you’ve got to go and put more offers out and you gotta have more conversations about those offers. Don’t be discouraged, you’ve got some sales, which means you’ve got proof of concept. You’ve got an idea that probably is going to work, but we need to now start speaking about it more. We need to find those right clients and got there and push it more. Hopefully that helps you Kay.
Okay, so this one is from notlikearegulardaughter. This comes from Tito, he says, How do I avoid homework? Well, you’re talking to the king of this, I was terrible in school. You know, I literally failed school at 15 I got no GCSE. I’ve got no success there at all. Why? Because it was subjects and things that didn’t interest me. So the first thing I’d say to you is answer it differently. How to avoid homework really easy, just don’t do it. Right? I’m not suggesting that everybody doesn’t go and do it. What I would suggest is if you want to be more successful. Which is probably why you’ve asked the question, you need to start finding some things that are going to interest you.
So what are the things that interest you? When do you get passionate about something? You won’t be trying to avoid it. You’ll be really engaging in it, you’ll be focused on it, you’ll want to do it. So my advice would be gone, find the stuff you’re interested in, double down on that. Work on the things that you’re strong at, in order to get your interest up. Get your discipline up, get your focus up. Then we can work on the other stuff later.
BettyBoo6719 on TikTok has asked how do I get a great following on social media? Now, the way to get a great following on social media is two ways really, number one, go and add a hell of a lot of value. Right, put loads of value into the marketplace, help more people engage with more people, and put the time and effort into helping people and building relationships. Look, help that’s what we’re doing right now. But the other way that you can grow a great following on social media is by using ads, right? You invest in the advertising to go and grow your audience grow your following, and then still, you’re still gonna have to add value to them in order for them to stick around.
So I guess the answer to the question is to add more value. How do you add more value? You look at who your target market is the people that you want to reach you find out what their problems are, and you’re going to help them. Alright, very, very simple. The more value you add, the more you’re going to receive back. And if you get that in your mindset, and you start looking at it like that, and you put the time and the effort into helping people, it’s going to come back to you massively. So go help more people go add more value, figure out what people want, go and serve.
Kathryn_media, as said, what could you recommend me to open a business other than franchise opportunities. So she doesn’t want franchise opportunities. And fair enough? You know, I can understand that I mean, a franchise going and buying a franchise for business means you’ve got a business model, you’ve got things set up. But one of the hardest things about growing a business is finding clients and usually, in a franchise opportunity, they don’t actually give you the flow of clients that you need to go and grow. They’ll give you a business model. But you still got to go and get those clients anyway.
So I like the fact that you’re asking how do you do it without a franchise? The way you do it is I kind of mentioned on this q&a already, you’ve got to figure out who are the people that you make a difference to, who are the people that you want to serve? Who are the people that you can help? And you’ve got to kind of categorize that and say this is the marketplace I’m going to serve, figure out what their problems are, and start to come up with a product or service that’s going to serve them. But what I would do is I would get super zoned in on a marketplace, find out what’s missing in the marketplace, and create it.
Because if you can create something that’s missing in a marketplace, that can serve a group of people, your product or service instantaneously is going to be wanted. So my time attention and effort. If I were you, I would be focusing on a marketplace. There’s a group of people now it could be you know, what do you know, all the school mums want? Right? So for example, that could be a marketplace? Or what do the bankers in the city want? Or it could be what do professional mums want? People that are working? You know that isn’t in the marketplace? Do you focus on a group of people?
And you say how can I go and serve those people? Because when you take a message to those people that understand how they feel where they’re at, and you provide them with a solution, wherever that is people gonna go for it and be like, ah, that’s exactly what I need. And you came up with it because you thought about the Marketplace first before you create the product or service. Hopefully, that helps.
So Thomas_Crystal1320 says, I’d like to expand my business forever on social media. It seems like I can’t get it anyway. And I can’t sit can’t get anywhere and I can’t get out there. How do I progress further? Well, Thomas, it comes down to I haven’t seen exactly what you’ve been doing. But the thing about social media, it gives you the ability to speak your message. And I think that everybody that wants to grow a business on social media should be out there speaking their message. They should be making connections.
One of the reasons that we’re doing q&a, is I’m actually Going out there and having conversations and helping people, it helps to build relationships. Now, in the old way of doing business, you might have gone out to a networking event and built some relationships in that way where you went one to one, and you went around your help people and after building a relationship with them, they probably wanted to do business with you.
Now, with everything that’s going on over the last two years, you can’t really do that anymore. Again, you can’t go out to those kinds of events, those events don’t exist. But what you can do is you can engage with people online, build a relationship online, go and help somebody and then see how you can take that to the next level. And that’s exactly what I do. I just say, How can I serve someone? How can I help someone who our target market? They’re business owners, business owners want to grow.
What’s the best way to get the attention of business owners, well help them out their current predicament. So you need to figure out who your target market is figuring out how you can go and help them. And what I would say to you is, and I haven’t seen what you’re doing so I haven’t actually looked at what you’re doing just yet. To answer the question, I’ve only just become aware of it, is I would say to you that you’ve got to go out and speak your message. You got to look at what your business does, and how it helps people. And if it doesn’t, if the answer to that question is, well, my business doesn’t help people, it just helps me to make money, what happens, you know, I’ve added enough value, which means you need to do something different, right?
So in today’s world, I think the more that you can help someone, the more that you add value, the more clients you’re going to get. And you got to speak your message, you’ve got to go and tell people because people can’t figure it out, people looking at a static picture. Imagine that you’d come on this video. And on this video, I just held a picture up. And we stood there with a picture out the whole time, I didn’tsay anything. How long are you going to you stick around, not very long are you, right? And that’s why people posting pictures and not using their voice and actually speaking their message and getting a lot less than the people going out there speaking their message.
So go and speak your message, go and speak your message more. The right people will find it. spread that message as far as you possibly can build relationships so the people do engage with you. This is the thing, a lot of people think you need 100,000 followers on social media to make any money, you don’t.
If you’ve got 10 people that buy products off you on social media for 1000 pounds, you made 10,000. If you get 100 People that buy a product from you, that’s 1000 pounds on social media, you made 100,000 pounds, right? You get 1000 people buy products off you for 1000 pounds, you made a million pounds. Well, the fact that there’s 7 billion people that are on social media, do you think you get 100 of them to buy a product from you for 1000 Pound? The answer that probably is yes. Right? You can. So go and speak your message, go and get out there, add more value, you’ll get more results.
Okay, this one’s from tick-tock as well as from DW276. And he says I was drug addict back in the day, how can I start a business when I can’t even get a job? So really interesting question there. So the first thing I’d say to you there, is we’ve got a persona, or we’ve got something there that we’re kind of holding on to as you mentioned in the question, right? You said you was a drug addict back in the day.
Now what I will say to everybody that’s watching, whatever’s happened in the past, we’ve all had things in the past that have been difficult. We’ve all had experiences in the past that have been really, really difficult. If we’ve moved past those experiences, what we need to now talk about is the future. When we talk about success, we’re gonna attract success. If we talk about negative things, we’re gonna attract negativity.
So what we need to do now is take a different mindset, you need to take on a different persona. And that persona is if you want to get a job, I’m a super hard worker, I work really hard, I want to go and add value to different businesses, I’m going to do wherever it can, wherever I can to get a job where I add lots of value, right?
So that’d be the new persona when we go for the job. When you put forward that new persona, you’re going to get a new reaction, right. And that new reaction is, well, I’m an employer, I want people that are really hard-working, I don’t really care what’s happened in the past, I care what’s happening, the present, I care what’s happening right now. And I want that hard work I want that person who wants to come and add value. So that’d be the first stage.
The second stage is you want to go and run a business, right? So if you want to go and run a business, what we need to simply say to ourself is again, I’ve said this a few times. I don’t want to sound samey, but I have principles, and I have frameworks that are worked to and those principles and frameworks you should take on because they’re going to help you to get different results. And one of the principles and frameworks I have is what are you good at, right? What are you passionate about? Because they’re the things that are going to carry you through.
If you’re really, really good at something, then we can go monetize that if you’re really passionate about something, we can go and monetize that. And it’s a lot easier to monetize something we’re good at. And we’re passionate about, because we’re going to keep going, we’re going to keep pushing forward, you know?
So I would say answer those two questions, because that might spark some ideas, start to be a critical thinker. You know, maybe you take 30 minutes a day, instead of watching some TV program or doing something else, it’s not going to add value to you. You get a notepad and pen out and say, right, what am I really good at what I really enjoy? What am I really good at? What is it I’m good at here? You know, what am I really passionate about? How do those things connect?
You start to be a critical thinker, and you start to connect those dots together because what that will do is that will start to come up with ideas. And it’s great to watch YouTube videos, you’re on YouTube now, right? Get advice from people that want to help you 100%, but then you got to take that advice, you’ve got to sit down, you’ve got to nail it for yourself, and you’ve got to find your own breakout. I think if you do that, you’ll come up with some good answers and hopefully that helps you and well done to you.
Because you said you we’re a drug addict back in the day, you’ve obviously overcome that you’ve overcome something really difficult, really hard. Now it’s a new chapter in your life. Now it’s time for a new journey. Let’s go and crush it now. Now we’ll put the past behind us, start operating in the present so we can create a great future.