- Well... I... in short, then... in general, it’s difficult to explain it in a nutshell...

That's it, the attention of potential clients is lost.

People don't buy what they don't understand

It is important to be able to explain what exactly you are doing. Briefly, clearly and so that your words are remembered.

You can believe in your business as much as you like, but the main thing is for people to see that you hold the key to solving their problem. That’s why it’s important to be able to clearly articulate the value of your proposal.

Fortunately, this is not as difficult as it seems. Everything has already been invented before us, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

It is not necessary to use originality, wit, or look for any special wording. Practice shows that people respond better to simple, short, “human” descriptions.

You just need to formulate a clear answer to the question “What do you do?”, because if you yourself cannot answer it clearly, others will even less understand whether they need your proposal, whether it will be useful, whether it is worth spending money.

About the most important thing

The key information that is important to convey to the audience is:

• who will your offer help (target audience);

• what problem does it solve (benefit);

• how it solves this problem (cases).

These 3 points must be reflected - this is not even discussed.

The simplest formula

As Einstein said, “If you can’t explain something to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” This applies to any activity - you are a designer, a business coach or a shaman.

Your dream client wants to understand how you can help. So help him. Best help– simple and clear explanation.

Start with this formula:

I [profession name] who helps/works with/serves/inspires [the target audience] for/to [the result you help your clients achieve] with the help / through / by / using, etc. [tools, methods, technologies, etc. that allow you to obtain the specified results].

It sounds simple. In fact, this is a powerful formula. And it works best if you write it simple and in clear language just like in life. Read out loud what happened, and you will understand what needs to be changed to make it sound “human.”

It’s better to write simply, but not necessarily boringly. You can also behave like a hooligan! Imagine that you have cubes - they can be moved in different ways, some can be removed, others can be turned over. In general, experiment, play until you find a clear and striking statement.

Examples

Let's say you...

Literary coach

“I am a personal coach for inexperienced but motivated authors. I help them overcome creative block and write a book. I teach them psychological techniques that help you work productively.”

Web Designer

“I'm a web designer for desperate adventurers. My graphic design skills help them increase the profitability of their business and live life to the fullest.”

Healer

“I am an energy healer for entrepreneurs suffering from psychological problems in the field of financial well-being. I help get rid of the blocks that prevent them from building profitable business.»

How do you know if the description was successful?

Use it!

For example, you communicate with a person, and he asks you: “What do you do?”

Answer with prepared wording. If the interlocutor does not react at all and starts talking about something abstract, it means that you still need to work on your answer. If he says something like “Aha! My friend is just looking for such a specialist,” which means the wording is working. It shows that you understand what you are doing, because you understand who it can be useful for and how.

Once you learn to talk about your business correctly, it will become easier for people to understand how you are different from others and why they are worth working with you, and then the right clients will flock to you.

(c) Original: alyssamartin.com

(c) Translation: Studio of business novels "Alliance PRO" (

Many people want to open their own business, but the fear of failure prevents them from realizing their dream: little money, no premises, no money to buy equipment, corruption... The stories of those who have achieved success show that even in difficult times you can make a profit. Their secret is in development interesting ideas, hard work, development orientation, cost reduction and building strong relationships with clients and partners.

 

Anna is the owner of the “My Carrot” Magic Workshop, which not only produces unique souvenirs for a small shop, but also organizes master classes for everyone.

Friends gave her the idea to turn a hobby into a business, and Alena registered an individual entrepreneur with a ready-made project, and won a grant from the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region for 300 thousand rubles, which became the starting capital for the purchase of a sewing machine, other equipment, fabrics and accessories.

What is the secret of success?

• The service is in demand - people want to escape from difficulties, and a creative atmosphere contributes to this
• In a flexible pricing policy: during the crisis, Anna lowered prices for master classes and her products
• Using the program to support entrepreneurs: winning a grant and providing premises on preferential terms in a business incubator allowed us to start a business from scratch
• In a varied selection of creative activities: in Anna’s “Workshop” you can master watercolor painting, decoupage, knitting, doll sewing, etc. The craftswoman herself studies a new direction every month and shares it with her students.
• In the absence of advertising costs: the most effective channel for promoting her business is word of mouth, a group on social networks and business cards in the store
• IN competitive advantage- visiting master classes in schools and kindergartens

In 2013, Anna Ustinova won the “Entrepreneur of the Year” competition and received a grant from the Orthodox Initiative organization. Now her plans are to develop a store and studio.

Story 5. “Adventurers’ Harbor” for children’s talents

In Nizhny Novgorod there is the Adventurers' Pier, an unusual children's development center of Anna Movshevich and Dmitry Zotikov. As part of the project, there is a unique school of carpenters, in which boys are taught how to use tools and create wood products.

The initial investment is 400 thousand rubles (mainly for renting premises and paying teachers).

Payback period - 5 months.

What is the secret of success?

• In the absence of competitors, not a single development center offers training in working professions
• The audience is interested in the areas presented in “Adventurers’ Landing”: creative workshops, intellectual quests, carpenter’s school, etc.
• To help parents: a psychologist is present in classes, observes the children, then talks with parents about how the children behave, what fears and complexes they have identified, and gives recommendations on education
• At affordable prices: at a carpentry school the cost of 1 hour of classes is 350 rubles

Now the center has approximately 60 regular students and the same number of visitors to quests and other events. The planned profitability assumes 100-200 families willing to pay for their children to attend classes. The founder of the enterprise, D. Zotikov, says that the center has great potential. There are immediate plans to create a franchise.

Story 6. Second-hand bookstore

Contrary to the belief that during a crisis people save on books, they can be used to organize a profitable business; an example is the second-hand bookstore “Khodasevich” in Nizhny Novgorod. Its owner S. Gaivoronsky considers his project very successful.

Initial investment: 190 thousand rubles (and this is a lot, as the businessman admits, it could have been done with less).

What is the secret of success?

• In a successful location of the store in the most “passable” place Nizhny Novgorod- Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, which provided access to the target audience: schoolchildren, students, connoisseurs of rare publications
• Low prices for the most popular works of school classics, books from small publishers (from 20 rubles)
• In the absence of high initial costs for the store's assortment: “Several years ago, because of the good life, the population began to throw books in the trash. I couldn’t tolerate this and collected books from trash cans” (S. Gaivoronsky)
• Selling the rarest and most valuable books through an online store
• Using booksharing (free exchange of books) to attract new potential buyers

Our immediate plans include the launch of an affiliate program with more lenient conditions than for a franchise for the opening of Khodasevich bookstores in other cities.

Conclusion

In a crisis, you can create a business from scratch, without the help of your “uncle.” All successful projects are united by the bold ideas of their creators, vision of prospects, understanding of the target audience, choice of directions that do not require significant initial investments, and focus on further development. This helps you avoid problems that become obstacles for indecisive people and become stronger than your competitors.

Today I want to tell you the stories of some of the richest people of our planet, who were able to earn more than a billion dollars thanks to their brilliant ideas, hard work and desire to get rich. What’s most interesting is that all these people did not inherit a huge fortune or win the lottery; they all started their business practically from scratch. Very interesting, read on.

Li Ka-shing – $26.5 billion

Li Ka-shing was born and lived in China until he left the country in 1940 and moved to Hong Kong. Due to the death of his father, he had to leave school at the age of 14 and go to earn money. His first job was in a company selling plastic products and he had to spend 16 hours there.
The first ten years, plus frugality, led to the opportunity to open my own business, Cheung Kong Industries. Like Ka-shing's previous place of work, it was engaged in plastics, but over time, it turned into the largest investment corporation in Hong Kong. Li Ka-shing himself is considered one of the richest Chinese.

Sheldon Adelson – $26 billion

Sheldon Adelson, the son of a taxi driver from Boston, began his entrepreneurial journey at age 12 by selling newspapers. After that, he was a court reporter, mortgage broker, investment advisor and financial consultant. There was a period when he tried to sell toiletries and charter tours.
But the organization of the computer exhibition COMDEX in 1979 was a serious success. In the next 2 decades, it was the leading exhibition in the computer field in the USA.
And in 1988, he and his partners acquired a casino and hotel in Las Vegas (Sands Hotel & Casino), after which he quickly began to get rich.

Sergey Brin – $24.9 billion

This is a new wave of billionaires who began to earn money in the age of computerization and the Internet. Sergey Brin, the 40-year-old owner of Google and a former Russian, was born in Moscow, and then moved to the USA with a family of mathematicians. He started working on search engines (that's the correct name for Google.com itself) at Stanford together with his classmate Larry Page. The system was tested at the university, and then they began to look for investors. The name Google is a mispronunciation of gugol, a word said during one of the project's presentations.
Brin and Page entered the list of billionaires in 2004, when they were 30 years old. Today, Brin is mainly involved in the development of new projects and areas, such as augmented reality glasses and an unmanned vehicle.

Larry Page – $24.9 billion

The co-founder and co-owner of Google has been leading the company itself since 2011 and is actually responsible for its strategic development. In addition to Google, he is actively involved in the development of the clean energy sector, in particular, together with Brin, he invested in Tesla Motors, which produces electric cars. high level(this is a normal machine that is powered by batteries).

Roman Abramovich – $23.5 billion

A widely known personality in narrow circles, Roman Abramovich, a billionaire, is an orphan who was raised by his grandparents. I went into business while still a student, creating a cooperative for the production of toys and various polymers. After this there were many other companies and cooperatives, both in production and trade.
But, as some sharp tongues say, Abramovich’s main talent is that he knows how to be in the right place at the right time - thus, he was able to gain control of Sibneft, which allowed him to become a billionaire.

Amancio Ortega – $20.2 billion

Until I read who it was, the name meant absolutely nothing to me - Amancio Ortega. If we say that this is the founder and owner of Zara, then a lot will fall into place.
He started sewing his first suits in his living room with the help of 25 dollars and his wife. He opened his first clothing store in 1975, and after a while became the owner of the popular clothing chain Zara. In addition to the Zara chain, he has chains of clothing stores for children, for young girls, lingerie stores, etc. In total, Ortega has more than 3 thousand stores in 64 countries.

Mark Zuckerberg – $19 billion

29-year-old Mark Zuckerberg is an icon modern world. Young, lazy, creative and rich. The creator of the largest social network Facebook, which created a system for its university - Harvard - but in the end could not finish it, because... there was no time left. Helped in the creation of Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskowitz, plus Eduardo Saverin. The first major investment came from Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal.
Now Facebook is a public company, which at first lost a lot in value, and then (in 2013) began to rise in price. Zuckerberg now has a 17% stake, making him the youngest billionaire in history.

Kirk Kerkorian – $16 billion

Now an elderly man aged 96 years old, he dropped out of school in the 8th grade for the sake of boxing. At that time, he achieved great success and even became the welterweight champion in the Pacific Non-Professional Boxing Championship. After the Second World War, he retired from the ring to the airfield and began flying airplanes, but in 1944 he ended up in Las Vegas, where he was stuck for 3 years. Having squandered a lot of money, he finally said goodbye to gambling and bought the air transportation company Trans International Airlines for 60 thousand dollars. After some time, he was able to sell it for $104 million to Transamerica.
And since 1968, he went into Hollywood - he made money at MGM, United Artists, Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox.

Elon Musk – $6.7 billion

Elon Musk is one of those new rich people who are capturing the market with their brains, hands and business acumen. My first big deal was at the age of 12 - I wrote a program that I sold for $500 (at that age I only spent my pocket money on ice cream and buns). At the age of 25, together with his brother, he created a software company for news companies, and 4 years later he was able to sell it at a price of 307 million. He invested this money in the creation of PayPal, which, in turn, sold to eBay for $1.5 billion.
Today he is studying space program Space X and has contracts from NASA. The aforementioned Tesla Motors is also involved.

Dustin Moskowitz – $5.2 billion

About this young man You could also say that he was in the right place at the right time. Dustin Moskowitz is Mark Zuckerberg's roommate and helped him create Facebook. On this moment he owns 5% of the shares and this is the basis of his fortune. Facebook is not his main project now - he is currently working on the Asana project. This is a web application for effective collaboration on projects. Among the interesting things - he rides a bicycle to work and participates in the Giving Pledge project (a philanthropic project from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett). The essence of the project is that half of the members’ wealth goes to charity.

Ken Griffin – $4.4 billion

It's not just computers that make billions. Ken Griffin is the owner of Citadel hedge funds. He had his first positive experience of playing on the stock exchange at the age of 18 and has not stopped working since then. He became one of the most famous specialists in his field. After 2008, the funds lost half their value, but are now gradually recovering.

John Arnold – $2.8 billion

Another successful stock market player, John Arnold, got his start at the now-deceased Enron. At age 27, he earned $1 billion for the company and received his $8 million bonus. It was this money that I used to invest for myself and leave the boring company.
In 2012, he surprised the whole world by announcing that he was leaving trading after 17 years of successful experience. Now he and his wife charitable foundation with a budget of $1.4 billion, and is also part of the Giving Pledge project, which we mentioned above.

Oprah Winfrey – $2.5 billion

Oprah Winfrey is a whole layer of American culture. This is the Cinderella of our days, who did not drop her shoe on the stairs, but plowed like a horse and used every opportunity. The beginning of life is harsh, you can’t say anything: a strict mother, she was first abused at the age of 9, at 14 she gave birth to a child who died in infancy. But when I was in school, I first got to work at a radio station. At the age of 19, she already hosted local news, then daytime talk shows. The next serious achievement is to promote a completely unpopular show so as to become a celebrity, and then, with experience and a name, create your own production company.
At 32, Oprah became a millionaire, and her show is a national treasure. Since 1994, it has become so popular that the check for the year exceeded 9-figure amounts. Oprah Winfrey became the first African-American woman to appear on the Forbes list.
Today, if you get on air with Oprah, you can become a celebrity in 1 day. For example, they did this to Robert Kiyosaki in 1997 (of course, we will not belittle the achievements of Robert himself).

Mikey Jagtiani – $2.5 billion

Mikey Jagtiani, a representative of the Middle East on our list of billionaires, was going to become an accountant, but his studies didn’t work out because... living in London turned out to be too expensive, plus exams were also not going smoothly. To survive, I had to work as a taxi driver and cleaner.
At the age of 21, Mikey Jagtiane ends up in Bahrain alone with 6 thousand dollars (that’s all the family had) and opens a children’s goods store with this money. And today it is a retail chain on the list of the most profitable in the Middle East.
A corporation called Landmark includes 280 stores throughout the Middle East and brings Mike Jagtiani up to 650 million in profit per year.

Michael Rubin – $2.3 billion

Another representative of modern billionaires, Michael Rubin, CEO of Kynetic. He began his journey as an entrepreneur as a child and sold seeds to neighbors. At the age of 10, he already hired 5 guys to remove snow from neighbors’ lawns for money. At the age of 14, this future billionaire had already opened his first store, persuading his father to sign a lease agreement. At 23, he was already a director in a company with sales of $50 million.
But he saw his destiny in e-commerce, which was just beginning to develop. He invested about 80 million in his online store, but, despite increasing sales, he could not make this business sustainable. However, eBay came to the rescue and bought the company from Rubin for 2.4 billion. The price is much higher than the actual cost of this project, but eBay was behind in the race with Amazon, so they shelled out the money.
Today Rubin is involved in Fanatics clothing stores and websites of various types, in which he has already invested 500 million.

Eduardo Saverin – $2.2 billion

Another person who made a fortune on Facebook. Saverin was Zuckenberg's first investor and was the commercial director of the young project. But while Saverin was in New York practicing, Zuckerberg attracted new investors and artificially lowered his stake from 34% to 0.03%. Eduardo sued and regained his share to 5%.
This 5% allowed him to get on the list of billionaires. In addition, the man turned out to be reasonable and, before Facebook filed for an IPO, renounced his US citizenship and became a citizen of Brazil, which allowed him not to pay American taxes. And although his passport is Brazilian, he lives in Singapore and invests in online projects: an application that scans the barcode of a product and offers it at the lowest price on the Internet or online payments with a credit card using a webcam.

Sean Parker – $2 billion

Another co-owner of Facebook, Sean Parker, started out as a talented programmer and hacker. Already at the age of 16, he was arrested for hacking the websites of companies that were on the Forbes list. He also had a hand in creating the Internet resource Napster, through which one could exchange music. It was a breakthrough of sorts, although closed due to “some” friction with the law. At 24, he meets Zuckerberg and is the president of Facebook. True, then he is removed, which, however, does not prevent him from retaining 3% of the shares and becoming a billionaire.
Today he is engaged in his own startups.

Richard Desmond – $2 billion

Richard Desmond's life was also not pampering at first: his parents divorced, they lived together in a small apartment, he dropped out of school at the age of 14 to play the drums and help his mother earn money.
His first real job was at Thomson Newspaper, but by the age of 21 he was the owner of two record stores. But the media experience also continued - in 1974, Desmond became the publisher of the International Musician and Recording World magazine.

In contact with

I would like to talk about how I started.

They say 90% of all startups fail within the first year. So, I was right in that 90% :) Now I understand perfectly why this happened. And perhaps my experience will help you avoid some mistakes.

I consider myself an expert in karate-do, in the ability to develop and strengthen a person’s character through martial arts

I was studying in sports section and from time to time I suggested something to someone, it was interesting to me. Then the coach noticed this and invited me to lead the group under his leadership, to which I happily agreed)))

The essence of the project is our own karate school with instructors who conduct classes with children and teenagers, where I manage the school and prepare higher-level athletes, as well as individual lessons. This is also the promotion of the school in the martial arts market in the region, and in the future the expansion of the school by scaling to other regions. Creating your own brand. As well as a combination of sports and health aspects (massage) for the improvement of the nation.

When I started, 19 years ago, there were no such goals. There was a burning desire to learn the secrets of martial arts from the best Japanese and domestic specialists, as well as a desire to try my hand at teaching.

To achieve my goals, I simply spent time in the gym and in additional training, studied all available materials (photocopies of poor quality, incomprehensible photographs, listened to what those who were more experienced said, even copied films from Hong Kong in my training

The first 2 years - nothing. I coached, there were people, but I didn’t consider it as the main source of income. Then I became more attentive to what I was doing. The highlight came in September 1995. Then I posted advertisements around the area at night so that no one would see me - I was afraid that they would recognize me. My wife supported me - they put it up together. And it bore fruit - I had 90 people in the hall))) and this was only in one group). There was a surge of interest and Karate-do came out of the basements. Then I learned to see sources of additional income in karate. Met some very successful icemen. And so and

Let's go. But there were recessions, losses and default. But this is all nonsense - you just have to move forward!!!

During the default in 98, I couldn’t recruit a group for 3 months. And during the epidemics, I sat without any money for 2 weeks. I remember the first exams of my students in karate, the first black belt (mine and my children), the first victories and defeats, slander against me, doubts in one’s abilities, disappointment in the chosen path, the desire to quit everything and start new project, as well as revitalization, the feeling that I am doing a very important thing.

My school will be 19 years old in 2009. Key points- this is a transition from blindly waving my legs to the understanding that this is how I will earn my bread. This is 4-5 years after the start.

Money is earned from attracting clients to the gyms, from subscriptions (monthly), as well as from holding competitions, seminars, trainings, and individual lessons.

The most important thing is not to stick out in front of clients. It doesn’t matter to them whether you’re a tough guy or a champion. What matters is what you teach my child. To do this you need to burn yourself.

I watch cartoons, children's films, listen to music, the kind that teenagers listen to. I communicate with them and find topics that are interesting to both of us. And with clients, I have constant contact with the parents, I call if I haven’t seen the child for more than a week, I congratulate them on their birthdays, happy holidays, and I actively ask the parents about the child’s success. I share what has changed in my child.

I made a lot of mistakes - incorrect training methods, disdain for clients (I’m already great - let them call me), and showing off in front of colleagues, and unnecessary displays, and unfulfilled promises, and a trial.

You need to be more attentive with clients. Listen to what they say. Help them solve their problems.

The main thing is not to retreat! If you have an idea, do it. You need to make a lot of mistakes, but make them and move on.

Carnegie, and Napoleon Hill, and Osho, and Nietzsche, and children's fairy tales, and stories from the world of martial arts, and conversations with colleagues, especially from related martial arts.

Where to begin?! Decide that you want to do this and go to the nearest gym, negotiate a rental (if you have been in martial arts for a couple of years)

I thank many people, but especially my enemies - they help me constantly grow above myself))

Commercial Director of the vending company "Northern Palmira" CEO New Line company (New Dine Projects LLC)

I consider myself strong, confident and enough flexible person, a person who can make a million-dollar business without starting capital. For me, money is not the most important thing in life, money is a tool that can help achieve the main goal.

The first such business was the “Useful Phones” project. We launched it together with Alya Nikandrova. The essence of the idea is to produce and issue cards, like calendars measuring 7 by 10 cm, in which one side is non-commercial and contains all the necessary and useful telephone numbers of the area, such as housing office, police department, etc., and on the other side there are advertising lines . The cards are classified according to Moscow districts and distributed among the population free of charge.

The money comes from the sale of advertising lines. The monthly turnover of the project at the very beginning was about 560 thousand rubles. Minus taxes, card production costs and operating expenses. This is what we earned. My percentage was 20% of turnover.

There were no difficulties with the implementation of the “Useful Phones” project itself. What we stumbled upon is the lack of knowledge related to running a legal business. But then we naturally filled this gap.

This project is still being implemented today, not only in Moscow, but also in other regions of Russia.

The second business that I launched without starting capital was a project for children's medical records. It was implemented in regions of Russia, cities such as Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Perm, etc. This is a very serious project, the decision on it was made at the government level. We negotiated with heads of health departments and brand advertisers.

The essence of the project is that the state today does not provide municipal clinics in Russia with children’s medical records for maintaining the medical history “History of Child Development”. There are even cases when in some medical institutions, when registering a newborn, they are asked to bring a notebook as such a card. Then they paste in the 1956 forms...

We proposed the following to the regional health departments: we produce these cards of a unified model, taking into account modern pediatric requirements and distribute them in clinics free of charge. In return, we place advertising information on the specified pages. The advertisers in this project, of course, are serious companies such as Gillette, Johnson & Johnson, Nutricia, Procter & Gamble, banks, large shopping centers and so on.

In addition to children's medical cards, they began to issue exchange and notification cards necessary for pregnant women. The scheme is the same: delivery to medical institutions is free from our side, the money comes from advertising.

According to preliminary calculations, in Moscow the profit rate should have been 70 thousand dollars, and in the regions 15-20 thousand dollars per issue. As a rule, the order is made once a year, in some regions sometimes 2 times.

Today, if we take this project together and everything that has been attached to it, we get a figure of about 30-40 thousand dollars in income per month. My royalty rate here is also 20%.

The most difficult moment in implementing this business was the lack of experience in negotiating with officials. As it turned out, they are very different from negotiations with businessmen, and this difference lies in the position taken statesmen. It can be voiced something like this: “Everyone owes me. I have 100 people like you a day, try to convince me.” Moreover, they have a pronounced position: “You are businessmen, and we are civil servants, you make millions, and we earn pennies.” Another difficulty is that officials demand large kickbacks. In Moscow, we failed the negotiations, we couldn’t convince, but it became a good experience, and when we went to other regions of Russia, we had already prepared thoroughly, wrote specific negotiation scenarios and practiced them.

Another project is rose petals in registry offices. The point is this: in every flower nursery, flower shops As a rule, there are quite a lot of unnecessary withered rose petals left. We came up with the idea of ​​selling them to newlyweds at registry offices. I went and held negotiations at the main office of the registry office in the Moscow region and at the same time in two nurseries, from where we exported rose petals for free.

The profitability of this project was from 3.5 to 4 thousand dollars per month. Deadlines

My wife was in charge of it. When she gave birth to my wonderful son, we suspended the project.

Without start-up capital, I created a project called City of Success, where we came up with and implemented business projects without start-up capital. City of Success is a company that was engaged in turning students into merchants and businessmen. People took Serezhin’s training, he left, but they needed motivation, they needed to apply the knowledge they had acquired somewhere, they needed like-minded people. The city of success was the link where they did it all, going from the simplest projects to complex ones. In addition to participating in projects, they also studied here and were trained in my personal effectiveness program.

My function from the very beginning was that I thought through the project, calculated it, wrote out all the scenarios, began to implement it, launched it and then handed it over to others, roughly speaking, I managed the projects.

After the City of Success, projects such as Anatoly Karpov’s website “Minimumprice. ru", Moscow small service household repairs“Husband for an Hour” by Sergei Zakharov, design studio for website production by Viktor Abramov, etc. In general, I work according to the scheme: I launch projects, set up a business and pass it on to people, and then I just receive my royalties.

My most important principle is honesty, the second is the usefulness and relevance of the goods and products that you deal with. I operate on the principle “If you talk about it, you should do it.” And one more principle or, rather, even an axiom: “There are no impossible negotiations.” I believe that there are no people with whom it is impossible to come to an agreement.

I have a million dollar idea. This is a recruitment company in which I train sales professionals (free of charge for them) for a month (a week - training, 3 weeks - a workshop in my own projects). In the personnel services market, the average price for employing an Actual Salesperson is from 60,000 rubles to.... Well, then do the math for yourself: monthly groups of 25 participants with average price selling each for 3,000 euros. According to my calculations, it takes a little more than 13 months to receive 1,000,000 euros.

General Director of Creative Solutions Agency LLC

I am a pain in the ass. I consider myself an active, enterprising, creative, energetic person.

The first project I implemented was a reminder for newlyweds in registry offices Leningrad region. When a couple comes to the registry office to apply for marriage registration, they are told about the rules for holding a wedding ceremony. As a rule, young people don’t remember anything, everything flies out of their heads when the registration itself begins, they confuse everything all the time, the organizers get nervous, and so on. We decided to streamline this whole matter and came up with a colorful booklet that contains the text of the rules for holding the ceremony. The registry offices received these booklets for free, and in return we placed advertisements in them for related products and services, all kinds of limousines, rings, toastmasters, shops wedding dresses etc. Based on the memo for newlyweds, we made another business project - this is a memo for newborns. The essence is the same - reminders with the necessary information and advertising are given to parents when they come to register a newborn.

From one registry office, the turnover of money was 100,000 rubles per year, of which expenses were 50 percent, and profits, accordingly, were also 50%, that is, 50 thousand rubles per year. There were about a dozen cities, and in general, for the year the working capital from this project was about a million rubles a year, and the profit was 500 thousand rubles.

The project lasted more than a year, but now I’m moving away from it, handing it over to a partner and doing other things. The reason is that this business idea is of course elegant, convenient, and if a similar project were implemented in St. Petersburg itself, then there would be a different scale, different money, but for a number of reasons I could not get it through with the registry office administration St. Petersburg. But just for the region - this is not enough.

Another implemented business idea was advertising on a network of dry toilets. Traffic there is about 600 thousand people a month, the numbers are good, but the project did not take off because many advertisers were not ready to work in this format, there is no point in advertising for small offices, and working with brands is difficult, because they are mostly all in Moscow .

We didn’t make much money, but we didn’t lose it either. The idea itself has been tested, a couple of companies are doing this in Moscow, but I didn’t bother.

There was a project - a folder for agencies. I have entered into agreements with 4 of the largest real estate agencies in St. Petersburg. We made folders for them in which they put a package of documents for their clients. Agencies received them from us for free, and in return, we placed advertisements there for housewarming-related goods and services, such as repairs, windows, doors, furniture, etc. We did this thing once, and the project was closed. Why? Because the advertising didn't work.

Advertising in folders was not effective for the advertisers themselves, and this contradicted one of my key principles - business should be environmentally friendly. It seems that the carrier is the same as in the registry offices, only here is a wedding, there is a housewarming, but only in the first case it worked, but not with real estate agencies. Although, of course, you could first place company A, in the second edition - company B, then company C, and at the same time understand that none of them would work with you later.

Now I’m pushing everything away from myself, leaving only the organization of Azimov’s trainings. It turned out that in parallel with the fact that I was implementing all sorts of projects, I was also selling Sergei’s trainings. For myself, I realized and felt that this is what I prefer to do. A fairly simple way - organizing trainings, business without start-up capital, it has its own tasks and from the point of view of self-realization and prospects, it is much more interesting than the things that I did, and there is more money there.

The main difficulty for me after Sergei Azimov’s training was that I am not a systems person. I can come up with ideas, and there were no problems with them, there were no problems with money, because they were not needed, personally, my problem is that I can come up with a lot of things, inspire, organize, but as soon as it comes to systematicity, reporting Everything is starting to fall apart for me. I needed a system partner to support the business processes I had built, but I didn’t have one; it’s very difficult with people and personnel in general today. It is very difficult to find adequate people, from a partner to an office manager.

The first principle is that what I do should be a thrill, as soon as I catch myself that it has begun to stress me, I move away from it. This is precisely why I gave up on most of the ideas. There is an idea and we need to do it consistently, but I know myself that even if the business is successful, even if it brings in money, if it gets boring, I will move out of it.

My second principle is that business should be environmentally friendly. I say these things not because I attended Asimov’s training, but because I really think so. I have already talked about the business with folders in real estate agencies.

I caught myself that I won’t work with many of the ideas that I came up with, because they have a tight connection with administrative resources at the level of kickbacks, bribes, etc., this is not for me.

Something I caught myself not too long ago: the amount of money is not a goal for me. I know that I will earn enough to live and feel comfortable, this could happen at 200 thousand dollars, at 50, at a million dollars, I don’t know, but it will happen regardless of the amount, there will just be an income at which I will be comfortable, but how much - I don’t know.

My company is called “Editorial Publishing Center”, and we specialize in outsourcing services for newspapers and magazines (we develop designs for print media and publish corporate periodicals). I created it in November 2006. Before that, I spent 13 years designing newspapers and magazines, and I always liked to come up with something new. However, when you work for a regular newspaper, you come up with a design concept once, and then you just support it. Boring. In addition, I always liked to do several different projects at the same time - I always took on some additional work as a freelancer.

I was planning to open my own business for several years, but decided overnight. Having received the next salary for last job, wrote a letter of resignation at will and began to draw up documents for the tax office... I was prompted, oddly enough, by a nonsense reason - it became very difficult to move around Moscow, I was stuck in traffic jams for four hours a day, and one day I decided that these hours would be useful to me for more enjoyable activities.

I didn’t have a penny of savings, and I basically didn’t want outside investment. There was a desire to do everything on my own and be a full-fledged owner of my business.

On the one hand, it did not require any special investments. I had an excellent working tool (computer), I was going to work at home, and I even had two regular customers (though with a small amount of work). Duty and authorized capital 10 thousand rubles - that’s all my initial investment. However, the costs of doing business appeared immediately. Firstly, I needed an office phone - I decided to buy a direct “beautiful” mobile number so that it would look like a “real office” one. Secondly, I needed a website - and I wanted to make it good right away, and besides, I had to invest in a little promotion. Thirdly, it was necessary to do accounting - I bought the 1C program (to understand this a little myself) and became a service provider at a company that provided outsourcing accounting services. After the first month of work, I already had to pay taxes and an official salary. I remember my first salary was 15 thousand rubles - and I was more happy about it than the 2 and a half thousand dollars that I was paid at my last job.

When you do something unusual, there is always a huge crowd of people who want to advise you on something. In my circle, I was the only person who started my own business, but advice poured in from all sides. Every second person told me how I should hide from taxes. And what a fool I am that I’m going to pay them all honestly - every first one. After I purchased the license software(very expensive) - some people began to look at me as if I was crazy. But it was my business, and I'm sure I did everything right. I don’t know how my life will turn out and what I want to do in 5 years - maybe I’ll want to sell the business. And it is better to sell a company that is “clean” and has a good reputation.

For quite a long time I was the only one full-time employee companies. Although, of course, I did not do all the work alone, being of the opinion that you need to trust the professionals. Let's say I'm a literate person, but a proofreader should do the proofreading. I'm good at layout, but I'd rather hire a specialist than waste my director's salary. precious time. We worked (and work) with all hired employees under official contract agreements and pay them money, taking into account all taxes.

Today there are already three of us in the state - I have personal assistant and designer. He also works part-time as an accountant. We, of course, continue to conclude contract agreements - the specificity of working on corporate publications is that they are published quite rarely (usually 4-6 times a year) and it is extremely unprofitable to employ full-time specialists for them. We have about 10 contract employees with whom we work constantly, and many more in reserve.

We still don’t have an office - all information flows to me, I “work with my hands” less and less and manage processes more and more, which I really like. As a result, it turns out funny: we both provide outsourcing services and are their customers ourselves. This is the “” business. However, the clients are the real ones. They also come through the same site that I didn’t regret visiting at the beginning. And - “along the chain” (our clients recommend us to their partners). We do not look for clients, do not advertise, and almost never participate in tenders. We do not interrupt customers from competitors - in a word, we behave non-aggressively in the market. Work finds us on its own! And the structure of our company allows us to increase the volume of work to almost any level - for new projects we hire new specialists under a contract, and that’s it. True, we have a clear idea of ​​what we can handle and never take on anything we can’t handle. For example, we would not undertake to create a monthly glossy magazine - for such work it is more profitable to hire full-time specialists, and a staff of several people means renting an office, purchasing additional equipment and other expenses. And all this, in my opinion, leads to less mobility. We like to be flexible, offer clients personalized solutions, and get involved in everything that interests us.

Of course, not everything was smooth and smooth. And now it doesn’t happen from month to month - sometimes you work around the clock, sometimes there’s a lull. There were times when I was four months in arrears with myself. But then within a month and a half we managed to pay it off. But it was always more important to me that the business was in order, and that I would not die of hunger.

In general, one of the main discoveries was that running your own business is not for the sake of getting rich, but for the sake of doing something YOURSELF. So that this YOURSELF lives, breathes, grows and develops. And the main thing that my business gave me was an incomparable feeling of freedom. I know that I can live on any amount of money, even on 5 thousand rubles a month, but a stable salary is not a reason to sell myself into office slavery. When you are responsible for yourself and those around you, managing your time and your life, doing what you love, money seems like something completely unimportant. It's like gasoline in a car, like consumables. The main thing is to do what you love in life. And I love absolutely everything about my business - the director’s papers, the creative flight of the designer, my employees, and our clients.

How many people suffer from the fact that they do not know how to clearly and clearly communicate what they do or about their business. And this is not only their problem, it is also our problem in the first place.

How often have you noticed that those, mostly who work for themselves, simply cannot tell what they do? They try in every possible way to avoid answering, dodging or simply moving the conversation to another topic.

To be honest, I often do this myself.

In general, the question: “What do you do” drives me into a stupor. Honestly... If you start telling, then in 90% of cases they simply won’t understand you.

In fact, this is a very strong problem. After all, if you cannot, or for some other reason, do not present yourself or your business project, then it is trivial that you may be left without clients, or, well, severely limit yourself in clients.

This problem often arises for those who are very immersed in their project, and it is very unique to them. Not everyone can understand what he does, but, as practice shows, the product he produces is needed by many.

The problem of presentation greatly affects the development and prosperity of a business. Entrepreneurs who are immersed in their project often cannot clearly articulate what solutions and benefits they offer their clients.

In general, entrepreneurship in our country is considered a thankless task. We have the impression in our brains that all entrepreneurs are hucksters, resellers, etc. malicious words from the times of communism.

Entrepreneurship was not held in high esteem. Entrepreneurs were bullied, disliked, and generally not considered people as such. This is what greatly influences self-presentation in business.

Today, a person who does business does not want to look different from everyone else in the eyes of other people. That's why he doesn't know how to talk about what they do without looking stupid, trivial, or just plain confused.

After all, everyone will understand the same action in their own way. Try to come to the village and tell them that you provide cleaning services! They simply won’t understand you there. And if you paraphrase this and tell us that you are engaged in cleaning premises, then everything will become clear - who you are and what kind of business you are in.

The same applies to other niches.

Therefore, right now, think about what you do, describe your business in words that will be understandable and accessible to absolutely every person, regardless of gender, age, place of residence and social status.

This should be based on several templates, such as: I help people solve their problems in the field... and I help them with help... as a result they get... and after our work they still get...

Now you have a simple formula that you can use in your Everyday life, telling everyone about yourself and your project, clearly expressing its main essence and the benefit it brings to the world.

Of course, you can improvise, but as a template, I still recommend that you use this particular formula for constructing your self-presentation. Not only will you start to look very different to people, but you will also allow your business to grow and develop at a completely different pace and find new clients.

With you,
— Igor Zuevich.

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