The Mark Butler Show

Businesses have inertia. That means they're hard to get moving, but it also means it's hard to stop them once they're rolling.

I've had multiple conversations with new business owners whose spouses are worried (and occasionally antagonistic) about the time and money they're investing in the new venture. This episode is a note just for that concerned spouse.

I stole that line from Seth Godin's new book, "This is Marketing." That one phrase -- "I made this for you. Do you want it?" -- captures so much about what it takes for new (and established) business owners to get out of their heads and into the real work of marketing. Episode 61 talks through the vulnerability and confidence it takes to stop fretting at your desk and start talking to the people you hope to serve.

I've been teaching some class to new (and new-ish) life coaches. In this episode of the show I pulled a 15-minute segment out of one of the classes where I talked about how new coaches should think about spending time versus spending money versus hiring coaches as they get their business off the ground.

Let's talk about the psychology offering discounts, bonuses, or neither in our sales process.

How to use goals whose outcome you can control completely to achieve goals you can only influence with your effort.

This is your reminder to ignore anyone (including yourself) who might say "It's too late. The market is saturated. There's too much competition. Everyone who is going to succeed already succeeded."

Some of your long term income and savings goals may be false financial finish lines. Episode 56 talks about making sure you're on the right track for the right reasons.

I've hired three new team members and they're doing a great job. This is great news, so why am I so anxious?

If you show ten different business owners the same set of financials, you'll get ten different opinions about what the numbers mean. This is proof that the numbers are neutral -- they only get their meaning from us. Episode 54 explains why this is such a crucial insight.

I went to a six-day life coach training this week. The content was amazing, the connections and conversations were even better. There's nothing like getting into the same physical space as your ideal clients, spending quality time, and building relationships.

This week I had the pleasure of a double root canal. During the procedure -- under the influence of all the drugs -- my mind naturally turned to marketing.

Last week I told you to set rules and guidelines for how you deliver your service. This week's message is to keep your mind open and change those rules when you realize they're built on faulty assumptions.

I have a few rules (maybe more like best practices) I use in my service to ensure high quality and limit mistakes. On occasion I've broken those rules with the idea that I'm helping the client out. The reality is when you break the rules that protect the quality of your work, it's the client that suffers.

If you're a coach or consultant you need to have a high-four or low-five figure offering for your clients to buy. If you don't, you'll struggle to create sustainable cash flow. Episode 49 explains why.

This week I've been listening to a book called 'Work the Process' that reminded me that our lives and businesses are a system of systems. In this episode I share the system I've used to delegate some of the most complicated tasks in my business without any loss of quality or consistency.

This is the story of two sprinkler repair guys named Carl and Tyler. Each takes a very different approach to selling, and they get drastically different results.

This week I met a film maker who described is career to me as "roughly 800 projects I wasn't very excited about and three dream feature films." That's approximately 274 projects he wasn't excited about for the chance to work on three he loved. Would you be willing to work that kind of ratio in your business?

This week I found out I'm not a Visionary, and that's okay.

It's way too easy to lose sight of (or just plain forget) the few strategies, tactics, and activities that have created disproportionate results in our business. Episode 44 helps us remember and re-focus on what really matters.

Sometimes clients tell me they've heard something "isn't working anymore." "People are tired of courses." "Email marketing doesn't work." Episode 43 explains why you need to maintain healthy skepticism when anyone is telling you something does or doesn't work.

A friend of mine has been under-pricing his coaching. Instead of just repeating the easiest business advice there is ("Raise your rates!"), we talked through the psychology of under-pricing and the way to right-price his services. Episode 42 recaps that conversation.

Your goal (and mine) should be to steadily and profitably increase the amount we spend on marketing. But there's no simple calculation that will tell you exactly what you can afford to spend. Episode 41 talks about how you can use quantitative and qualitative analysis to set your marketing budget with confidence.

Usually marketing and business coaches are the ones talking about niche selection, but today it's the CFO who has a few things to say about why pursuing the right niche is so important.

Your bank balances give you some important information about your business finances, but they're just a small part of the true picture.

Revenue and profit goals set the vision for our businesses, but the key to achieving that vision is identifying and executing your most important daily and weekly inputs. Episode 38 explains how.

We're all looking to pay the right person the amount that gets the work done without draining the business's cash. Most of us (me included) overpay our first significant hire. Episode 37 explains why we do this and how to avoid it.

Hint: The question is not "who did the amazing photography on your website?"

Episode 35 walks you through all the different financial service providers that can help you in your business, how they want to help you, and when it's the right time to work with each of them. In this episode I also explain exactly how I benefit my clients and when it might be the right time to hire me.

Does the government consider your virtual assistant an employee or a contractor? Why does it matter? And what's the deal with 1099 forms, anyway? Episode 34 has the answers.

People usually want to talk about whether bookkeeping software has good invoicing or pretty reports, but those aren't the features that will make or break your bookkeeping habit. After thousands of hours of bookkeeping, here are the criteria I use for evaluating financial software.

Your balance sheet showcases financial strength and exposes financial cracks in your business. Episode 32 walks you through how your balance sheet works and how it helps you.

The Profit & Loss statement (aka P&L, aka Income Statement) is the first of two key financial reports that help you stay in touch with the financial health of your business.

Daily bookkeeping will a) keep your financials perfectly accurate and current, b) help you develop fluency in the language of business quickly, and c) maintain your financial stress at an all-time low. And it only take 5-10 minutes per day.

When I borrow money to fund my business, how do I track the money into my business? How do I track the payments to the loan? Are the payments a business expense? Let's clear all that up for you.

Not all the money that flows into your business is 'revenue,' and not all the money that flows back out is an 'expense.' In this episode I explain the different types of inflows and outflows. Oh, and we also need to cover what happens in your books when money moves around inside the business.

This is the first in a multi-part series where I'll teach the fundamentals of bookkeeping with the goal of persuading you that you can (and want to be) your own bookkeeper. In this episode I start with the basic unit of all bookkeeping: a single transaction.

Your business is a creative outlet, a passion project...maybe even your life's work. That's why it has to be profitable, and profit is a choice.

I've watched my friend Phil grow a company that carried him across the financial finish line. Turns out being 'finished' isn't all it's cracked up to be. Episode 25 talks about crossing the 'freedom line' instead of the 'finish line.'

It's too easy to forget how important and value one-on-one connections are in online business. Here are three stories of how I became friends with "powerful online influencers." (Spoiler: everyone is a powerful online influencer.)

I thought my target customer for Let's Do the Books was already hyper-specific, but this week I decided to take it even narrower. Makes me a little nervous, but episode 23 explains why I think it'll work out.

We all want the big dollars and the big, engaged email lists. We can have them...if let early, important signs of life help us through the lonely, quiet slog of the first few months/years of a project.

Have all the products been created? All the newsletters written? All the clients sold? Is there just too much competition?

It's possible to effectively outsource certain aspects of your marketing...under the right circumstances.

I had two conversations about my new software product this week. One prospect was a "probably" and the other was a "no." This episode explains why I'm so grateful for the "no."

Sticking with one market/set of problems for the long haul allows you to build assets that will pay you over and over for years to come.

A few thoughts on how increasing the risk in a project could be its only real chance of success.

I've successfully launched my product, but if I want to reach my revenue goals I'll have to shift my focus.

I used to freeze up when people asked me what I really wanted to do in my life and business. Then I used this exercise to help me come up with an answer I trust.

I don't borrow for consumption, but I'm not anti-debt. There's too much debt around dogma; borrowing isn't inherently right or wrong. Sometimes NOT borrowing is the least rational thing you can do. Episode 14 explains why.

When we talk scale what we're really talking about is getting disproportionate results from our inputs. The obvious way to scale is to hire, but many of us want to maintain a very small team or no team at all. This is our path to scale.