The $18,000,000 Lemonade Stand

Just released a new book called Never Leave Money on the Table - How to Grow Any Business and Get Really Rich with 10 Simple Marketing Strategies. This isn't a book about music, it's a book about business.  More specifically, it's a book about how you can grow your business and make more money with it.  Same business, more money.

The book focuses on 10 principles and how you can use them to get more customers, generate more money, and do more of what you love.  If you're already doing these things, this book will show you to to do them better and more efficiently.

Scared of business?  Many musicians are...and those musicians are broke.

Don't worry!  I've got you covered.  I've broken everything down into something even a child could understand.  Ever run a lemonade stand?  If so, you're good...

Enterprise is alive and well in places you'd least expect and for most people, the "lemonade stand" is where it starts.  You can read a million and one books on small-business principles or how to start your own company, but these 10 basic concepts of running a successful business all trace back to the processes involved in setting up a child's lemonade stand.

It may sound simple, but it's a fact. People of all ages launch new enterprises each year and most fail, but some individuals succeed in the most extraordinary ways by executing basic business concepts well.

Take the case of 4-year-old cancer patient Alexandra Scott. While the average child may make anywhere from $5 to $50 selling lemonade on a hot day, Alexandra, or "Alex" to her friends and family, announced she was going to start a lemonade stand to help her doctors find a cure for cancer. She proceeded to raise more than $1 million for childhood cancer research. Her family, including her older brother, set up the first lemonade stand on their front lawn in July 2000.

Alex died in 2004 at the age of 8, but her lemonade stand didn't end with her death. Her family and supporters created Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation™, a registered 501(c)(3) charity, which has since raised more than $18 million.

There are countless other successful small-business owners who know that when the world hands you lemons, you can still make lemonade—or orange juice, in the case of John M. Fox. Even after the military cancelled a contract for 500,000 pounds of powdered orange juice in 1945, John put the power of marketing basics to work for him by going door-to-door with a cooler full of ice and orange juice concentrate, serving free product samples to housewives. Thanks to his efforts, today we can enjoy fresh juices from frozen concentrate because of it, and without them there wouldn't be a Minute Maid® brand today.

So what are these basic concepts that can lead to extraordinary success? It all comes down to 10 simple practices:

1. Give the People What They Want With a Great Marketing Strategy. Decide which product or service to sell, show it to them, convince them to buy it, and charge them for it.
   
   
2. Leverage Your Investments With Other Investments. Use what you have to get more of what you want or need to run your business.
   
   
3. Dominate the Herd. Nature is no fool. While there are plenty of followers, there are few leaders to avoid disrupting the direction of the herd. Leaders determine the direction the herd. Learn what it means to take the lead and succeed.
   
   
4. Farm Your Cash Cows. When one part of your business brings in more profits than any other part of your business, you have what is referred to as a "cash cow." The problem with cash cows is that you have to know when to feed them, when to milk them, and when to kill them in order to keep your business profitable.
   
   
5. Nix Perfection. Perfection leaves little room for innovation. The fact is, believing something is perfect kills innovation. Learn to love failure and embrace the opportunity for greater potential that imperfection brings.
   
   
6. Focus on Your Customers. No matter how good your lemonade, hot chocolate sells better than cold drinks in winter. Learn to listen to your customers so you can understand what they truly want from you, and not what you want to sell to them.
   
   
7. Plan Ahead. The only thing constant in life is change, so be prepared for it. Planning doesn't necessarily mean ordering supplies. It can also mean embracing the unexpected.
   
   
8. Instill a Sense of Ownership. Good managers and successful entrepreneurs know that people are more likely to support projects, decisions and businesses that they have a hand or a say-so in creating. It's that simple.
   
   
9. Duplicate Yourself. When a concept, business, product or service works, duplicate it. Hire additional people, automate, license or franchise—or you're still working just for wages.
   
   
10. Fuel Anticipation. Prime the market by building tension and participation in your markets. Anything yearned for has a higher value when it's finally obtained.

These 10 basic "Lemonade Principles" go beyond simple lemons, water, sugar, a table, some paper cups and a sign that reads: "Lemonade – 50 cents a glass." Yet, for many small businesses, especially musicians and songwriters, that's exactly how they see themselves—a product, a price and a place to hang their sign. But it's not that easy. To be successful at selling lemonade, or anything else for that matter, you've got to know, understand and follow these 10 basic principles.

Want more? Get the book at Amazon.com for under $10.

Comments

[Jayself]

in the book, do you make suggestions or apply principles directly to the D.I.Y. musician?

[David Hooper]

The examples within this book, and there are plenty, are companies who are using these strategies to dominate. It is not a book specifically for musicians, although everything here will apply to your music business.

[Evan]

Great! I'm psyched to read the book already!

[Tom Jones]

What a great article! I just got done reading a book called Music 3.0. It parallels what's being said here. How do you feel about free stuff? P.S. David, I'm currently working on Moving Your Music Forward. Great, great stuff!

[Brandon]

Very good article! Enough said =)

[Rachel]

Some-times it's how much you want it. I know some one who wanted to be a cook in a very fancy resterant in Vancouver. She asked the famous Chef there if she could apply for a job. He said "No" there aren't any . She said she would work for free, to learn how to cook. He said "okay" and she worked for 2 weeks for free, he then hired her, and she is working there full time, payed, and doing what she loves to do!!
Inventive!

Rachel