Category Archives: Business

by Matthias Miller

Multiply Your Strengths is a qualified solution provider for AppHosting.zone. While we’ve described solutions that we’ve built using the AppHosting.zone platform, we’ve also been deeply involved in helping them develop their marketing strategy.

At the time, the AppHosting.zone platform had already been used for years by Fortune 500 clients. However, the platform was going to market for small- to medium-sized businesses for the first time. The challenge was simple: make it easier to close contracts by demonstrating the established credibility within this space.

Our consulting relationship started with a Marketing & Strategy Deep Dive (multiplier.link/deep-dive). This process began with an in-depth interview to understand details such as the competitive landscape, business strategy, marketing objectives, and the unique challenges that they face.

While this initial interview was very extensive and in-depth, it played a critical role in clarifying the current needs and direction not only for us, but also for our client.

Once we completed the initial interview, we organized the details from the interview and took it into our “think tank”. We attacked this from every angle we could think of. We dug into the competitive advantage, positioning, branding, marketing opportunities, and additional business growth opportunities. We identified potential points of confusion within the business structure, as well as specific ways to clarify them. We covered not only high-level strategy, but also dug into more specific tactical items, including specific marketing verbiage they could use.

Once we emerged from the “think tank”, we organized and published our ideas into a 17-page personalized report. This report included very specific instructions: “Don’t use the entire report. Find the 1 or 2 best insights that you can use now, and leverage them to grow your business. As you grow, keep reviewing this report for new ideas and opportunities to grow.”

This 17-page document guided our 45-minute follow-up interview, where we explored each of these ideas more thoroughly, reviewed them with our client, found additional details or opportunities to include in the report, and answered specific questions.

With the client’s final feedback in our hands, we completed a final revision of the report and sent off their completed copy.

Since then, the insights from the Marketing & Strategy Deep Dive report have allowed AppHosting.zone to land bigger contracts. This also laid the foundation for the AppHosting.zone website.

To learn more about AppHosting.zone, you can visit their website at www.apphosting.zone.

Matthias Miller is the business growth consultant and founder of Multiply Your Strengths. He’s passionate about seeing people excel in their strengths. His intentional pursuit of professional growth has given him extensive experience in software development, project management, leadership, and marketing. He lives in Canon City, Colorado, with his wife Bonita and their family. https://www.multiplyyourstrengths.com/

by Matthias Miller

Jared (name changed) reaches over a half million people every week on social media. Energetic, motivated, and visionary, he’s clearly capable of figuring things out and making things happen.

However, because he’s got so many things demanding his attention, he doesn’t have time to do it all. His vision goes far beyond what he’s focused on now.

In the past, he’s hired assistants to help him with some of these operations. However, they left his projects in chaos and some even ran away with the cash bag. Despite his optimism, he eventually gave up on getting an assistant and started doing more of the work himself.

Jared made the same mistake many entrepreneurs make: he hired someone exactly like himself. And by the way, how many entrepreneurs do you know who would make great assistants?

Jared approached me about one of the projects he needed to complete. As we talked, I realized the technical part of the project was only half the problem. The other half was finding the right person to help get it done.

That’s when we started looking for an assistant.

Whenever we look for team members, we evaluate four characteristics.

1. Integrity. Can you trust this individual will never steal from you…ever? Will they tell you the truth, even if it costs them? Since you must have deep trust in your team members, you’d better be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt they’re trustworthy!

2. Personality. Does the role fit their personality? For example, don’t try to turn an introvert into a gregarious party host (and please don’t sit the chatterbox at the bookkeeper’s computer in the back corner!).

3. Conation. Does the role fit their instincts? The Kolbe assessment is the only scientifically validated index that measures conation, which is how individuals take action when they’re trying to get things done. We rely heavily on this index to ensure individuals naturally fit their role.

It’s worth asking, “Will this individual naturally behave in a way that fits the role?”

4. Skill. Does this person have the required skills? If not, will they be able to quickly learn the skills required?

In Jared’s specific situation, we prioritized integrity and behavioral instinct as the most critical factors. While we could have posted job listings in specific venues, we instead targeted recruiting within our network.

The result? We managed the project for Jared and he was delighted by the outcome. In fact, we were so happy with the assistant we found, we ended up taking her from an independent contractor and hiring her as a member of our MYS team.

That’s a win-win!

Matthias Miller is the business growth consultant and founder of Multiply Your Strengths. He’s passionate about seeing people excel in their strengths. His intentional pursuit of professional growth has given him extensive experience in software development, project management, leadership, and marketing. He lives in Canon City, Colorado, with his wife Bonita and their family. https://www.multiplyyourstrengths.com/

by Matthias Miller

Amy (name changed) is passionate about her coworking space business. Recently, we were able to chat about possibilities to fulfill her goal of providing a quiet, collaborative workspace for creative individuals.

Amy faces several significant challenges. First, freelancers, part of her bread-and-butter, are being hired back into big corporations and are working in corporate offices. Second, she is in a young industry, requiring her to educate her prospects. Most people are unaware of coworking options and instead are searching for commercial office space. Third, her major competitors have marketing budgets much larger than she can afford.

The upside, however, is that Amy is committed, and this kind of business has great potential for collaborating with other businesses. She will benefit nearby restaurants and other businesses as she fills her building, and she shares a client base with other businesses that she may be able to collaborate with later.

As we talked, we developed a few ideas to market her space on an affordable budget.

First of all, Amy’s prospects often work from coffee shops. We discussed various ways of collaborating with a local coffee shop, including a possible loyalty program with discounted memberships or coffee. Meanwhile, the coffee shops could retain their customers without filling tables for extended periods of time. Incidentally, Amy actually knew the manager of a popular coffee shop in the city and thought it possible to collaborate with him to make this idea a reality.

Second of all, we discussed hosting and collaborating with meetup groups. While Amy had little room for large groups, she already hosted a meetup group in her space. I suggested she promote her co-working space to meetup groups such as authors, graphic designers, developers, and similar kinds of people who work from home.

The third idea came a month later as I watched a kickstarter video for the Purpose Hotel, a hotel which includes a coworking space. The idea was obvious: collaborate with hotels to make marketing materials available to their guests. This was an easy way to begin tapping into tourism.

If we could have spent more time together, we would have worked together to develop a more specific plan. However, Amy got some new ideas to revitalize her plan for building out her office space and filling up the empty offices. And she realized it didn’t need to cost her thousands of dollars to be effective.

Matthias Miller is the business growth consultant and founder of Multiply Your Strengths. He’s passionate about seeing people excel in their strengths. His intentional pursuit of professional growth has given him extensive experience in software development, project management, leadership, and marketing. He lives in Canon City, Colorado, with his wife Bonita and their family.  https://www.multiplyyourstrengths.com/