Selling The Dream

Today I write this post off the back of a long night of thinking. Sometimes you have to just write when there are things on your mind, and it so happens that what’s on my mind is relevant to people who have online businesses, or want to start an online business, OR bring their business online.

Bizzebee is not where my efforts and attentions are focused 100% of the time, I want them to be, but reality right now is that Bizzebee is relatively new and still VERY much in a start up mode – that doesn’t cover the people behind it, we are all VERY experienced across the board- just our coming together as a unit is still relatively new.

I know I usually write about all things related to Social Media, but please just go with me on this post – because I think it’s relevant.

We are working on a complete set up for you:

Free content – the blog, an absolute powerhouse of content that is designed to help and take “some” of the hard work out of running an online business for you – we’ve researched, made the mistakes, learned from them and found solutions, to save you time.

We’ve made ourselves readily available and transparent – we know we need to forge relationships (how do you think we all came together in the first place?) with you all – because without that you won’t believe us, let along buy into what we want to make happen. How are we available – in SO many ways, our Google group (yes you can contact us at ANY time) Facebook, Twitter, G+ community, LinkedIn group – at any ONE time, one of us is available – and we are more than happy to answer your questions without wanting anything from you.

For those of you who want to go that bit farther and take your business to the next level, we are creating a membership / subscription based part to the Bizzebee community that for a small fee you can access the complete package. What does the complete package contain? A more in depth and detailed look at all of the things you need to do to bring your business into the modern day web based world.

We aren’t selling you the dream – None of us are driving rented fast cars taking you to an office that doesn’t exist and walking you around a house that we don’t own (one day, if any of the above are true, then we will happily show you it for real!) There are SO many people out there who do that, and they charge you a small fortune to sell you the secrets of making money online.

REALITY CHECK !!!!

There are no “secrets” to making money online – Here I’m about to dispel the biggest myth out there!!  – YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT!  People who claim to sell the secrets as to how they made $7000 in 30 days are fake / scammers / not real – yes I’m tarring them all with the same brush, because it fits. By giving up $100 (actually $97, and there’s a reason for that too – it’s the myth your getting it cheaper than the round figure – which you are but who’s going to argue over 3 bucks?)

I could name and shame a SERIOUS amount of people, schemes and business owners who do nothing more than take your money and give you a load of less than valuable “videos” that leave you nothing more than baffled, whilst they are 100 bucks up – ok well $97 up – as an example.

It’s the dream, you are seeing their “lifestyle” and you think well if they are doing this, then I can have the same if I do that too, so you part with the money.

In order to do that, you need to sell the dream ….. 

You aren’t giving people the tools or the skills to bring their ideas to life or move their existing business forwards.

Off the top of my head there are membership blogging sites that charge you per month to have a blog – around the $25 mark, which you can actually build and host yourself for less than $10 a month – with up sells too that can go up to around $1500 a month – which if you researched well you could access for free or for a fee of around $40 a month at a credible site.

Then there are mentoring courses where you pay out like $67 to gain access and apply to be mentored by someone, again with up sells that can cost you easily a few hundred dollars a month.

Seriously you need to ask yourself this – if you REALLY are offering mentoring courses to people and you are a market leader in your field, surely your time is worth more than that, and how can you mass mentor people? The deal with a mentor is that it’s specialised and detailed, so how on earth can you mass mentor? You can’t – well not if you want to do it well!

Question it, question EVERYTHING – do your homework, make a point of getting to know the people who are selling their ideas and experience to you. What gives me the authority to comment / advise on this – I’ve had my fingers burnt in the past, and I also know the respected people who are doing it right. 

On the flip side of it, I feel I need to give you some more “inside” information – this is the stuff the experts don’t tell you when they are driving their cars they don’t own!

Developing a membership site takes time, putting something together than can potentially change people’s lives is hard work.

We’ve anticipated the HIVE to be ready way before it actually is going to be.

In a team people have different skill sets – its actually a good thing, some people will work tirelessly in the start up part of a project like we are setting up because their skills are the web design or video training, and then there are others in a team who have the site management role – well until the site is built and ready there’s not a great deal to manage, and then there’s the sales team. Lets not pretend Bizzebee is anything other than a business, because it is – but it’s a business with a difference. Our goal is not to take lots of money from you, if that was believe me we would have launched the Hive weeks ago and charged you a small fortune for it too! Nope, we’re being pedantic about it, and we’re going to deliver something that is going to HELP you if you want to put in the hard work for a reasonable monthly / one time fee.

Have we sat there as a team and wondered ‘is this worth it’ of course we have – so many times and motivation levels between the team have their highs and lows – that’s human nature. It’s not always sunshine and lollipops; if it were well we’d all be laughing with our iPads on our Hammocks in Costa Rica sunning ourselves.

I personally believe that in putting together this community for you that has many layers is actually making Sam, Andi, John, Matt, Miz & I better business people – and if you ever get to speak to any of us (which I hope you do) All of us will tell you that lots of late nights, a few frustrations and long debates later we don’t want to sell the dream, we want to help you build the dream, and that is what makes us different.

Clair 🙂