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Cover Story
December 2011 Issue --> Cover Story Article
Go From Nowhere To Millionaire
By: Tammy Lawman and Wendy Robbins
Wendy Robbins is the founder of Nowhere to Millionaire, LLC and the groups One Million Fulfilled and Financially Free Women Making a Difference. From being homeless and thousands of dollars in debt, she turned her life around and made millions by co-inventing and marketing the popular Tingler head massager.
She has costarred with Kelly Ripa on a TV series for The Learning Channel on how to manufacture, distribute, and pitch your invention to the Home Shopping Network. She is also the author of the bestselling book Why Marry a Millionaire? Just Be One: And While You're at It, Change the World.
Wendy is truly an expert at mastering the millionaire mindset, able to manufacture and market great ideas to millions of people.
Tammy Lawman: I just want to take some time to pick your brain. You're an expert on what you call going from nowhere to millionaire. What are some of the best time-saving tips you can give to our internet marketers and business owners?
Wendy Robbins: Especially if you're on the internet, there's a tendency not to stand up. You stand up if you have to pee, and that's about it. What I've found is the brain works best in 45-minute bits of time. Work for 45 minutes and really focus on what you want to be doing and then get up, stop, and stretch. For me, I have to actually have a timer, or I won't get up.
I'll just keep doing what I need to do. Then get your mind on something else, enjoy, meditate, or check in on your dogs. In my case, I check on my chickens. What I also do is I have a tendency to want to get on email nonstop and see what's going on. What I do now is I just check my emails in the morning or midday and at the end of the day. People who know me know that if they really need to get through to me, they can text me.
For the most part, they know that I'll only check emails twice a day. Even if you're struggling, I would still hire an assistant, somebody you can delegate what you don't do well or just to be able to delegate the little things like checking your email. They're things that are time-consuming, and you don't really need to focus your time on that. The last thing is do what makes you the money and brings you joy first.
A lot of people say to do the hardest thing first. I don't like to do that. I like to do things that get me into a joyful state so I enjoy doing it. At the same time, if you're doing it for business, make sure that it makes you some money.
Tammy Lawman: Awesome tips. How can our entrepreneurs run their businesses more efficiently? Are there specific things they can be doing to be more efficient?
Wendy Robbins: The biggest and most important thing is to create a system. I'm surprised by how many people don't have a system. The one thing about McDonald's-and I do not visit or eat their foods personally-that I admire is they have a system. If I go to Paris, it's the exact same burger as it is in Mexico. They're identical, and that's because they have a system.
You want to put together a daily office operations system. A lot of my business is really about running a physical business, although I did a lot online. We did really well online. I was doing about $3,500 a day just online. A lot of it was creating a product development system. You need to do that first. Have a product development system so you know exactly what you do, what's efficient, and what's not.
Keep notes on what works and what doesn't. Literally write it down step by step so that you could give those notes to somebody else and they'd be able to run it and even test it. The next thing if you're in a physical business as I was is manufacturing and inventory systems. Make sure to have something you do each and every day that you can just look at. It's like a checklist that you know you do to be successful.
Also make sure to have an order processing system. You know the orders come online. Then what happens? How do they get fulfilled? Do people do phone orders? Do they do it the old-fashioned way by fax? Even worse, do they mail it in? Do they do it online? How do they order, and how are you going to take care of that? How will the customer service process work? You want to test it yourself.
If you're depending on a third party, you want to call or order a product from your own system and see if it comes fast and says what it needs to. Really double-check and make sure that it's efficient. You want to arrange for specials, discounts, or different goodies. I typically like to do something every four weeks to really treat my customers and clients well so they want to continue to do business with me.
That's something to consider. You want to make sure that you have a good billing and accounts receivable system. Again, if you're off, just look at that and say, "How am I dealing with that? How do I deal with my bookkeeper? How do I deal with my accountant? Does everything work well? Does it not?" Do you look at your credit card bills?
You want to make sure that you have a great customer service system in place as well as an accounts payable system and a marketing system. You want to create an overall marketing plan. I'm surprised by how many people I talk to who don't have a marketing plan, and they wonder why they're not successful. You want to have that, step by step. If you're big enough, you want to have a human resources system so that you know how you're hiring people and, even better, how you're firing people.
You're making sure to let go of people. Especially nowadays, if it's not working, it's not necessarily going to get better. We feel bad for people now, and we don't want to let them go, but the truth is if they're not getting better after you've worked with them, then you really need to be good about letting them go. Then have a general accounting system. You want to make sure that you have that together.
I kind of suck at this. That's why I hire good people. You have to keep track of your own business. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to just recently who have gotten ripped off by their bookkeeper or accountant. They're embezzling. You have to take responsibility, and you also need to have general corporate systems. How do you do everything?
How are you dealing with contracts, contractors, intellectual property, labor laws, securities, debt instruments, and your shareholder issues if that's important to you? It depends on where you are in your business. Keep your insurance up to date and all that. There's a lot. Those are the systems. I just want to lay them all out so as you're looking at that, you can literally say, "Do I have a system, or do I have no system?"
If you're just starting in business, these are just things to look at and start investigating. If you're new in business, you definitely want to have a marketing plan to know, "How am I going to find my exact demographic? How am I going to be able to sell and get myself known to them so they trust me and buy from me over and over?"
Tammy Lawman: Let's talk a little bit about the top two or three places our readers should start so that they don't get overwhelmed. And we should note they don't necessarily need to have all this put in place before they start running their business.
This article is just a small portion of an hour-long interview, and is only one of several interviews conducted for Internet Marketing TNT. If you'd like to see the full call, as well as other interviews in this series, simply visit Internet Marketing - Very Important Profit Systems.
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