Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Building a great team

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One of the common traits among every successful business owner I have ever met, is their ability to build a great team of people around them.  These people may be; consultants, marketing professionals, accountants, lawyers, IT professionals, media contacts or people with influence within their industry.

Building a great team

You should always be on the look out for great people, in all the key areas where your business needs expertise.  Most small business owners take the opposite approach.  They build THEIR team with far less forward planning or discernment.  They will elect to use an accountant simply because they are members of the same networking group or because that accountant quotes the lowest fee.  Those are not good reasons to add someone to a key role within your team!

Equally, many small business owners wonder why they get so few good quality business leads from their contacts, when their contacts lack the kind of influence required to generate good quality leads from key decision makers.

Here’s a suggestion: Take some time out, to review the people around you – Your team!

  • Do you have the best people you can get in each of the key areas for your business?
  • If cost is an issue, are you absolutely sure you have the best people, within your budget?
  • Do you trust all your team members?  This is a key issue, for without trust, their value to you is extremely limited.

And finally…

Are there areas of your business, where you are operating without expert help, instead choosing to look for free advice on forums or via Google?  If there are, I strongly recommend you immediately change your approach.  This is the most competitive marketplace in living memory, and those who try and compete on the cheap, almost always go broke!

Are you sure you do it often enough?

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I have 2 quick questions for you today, which can help you massively increase your sales:

  • What is the single most powerful form of marketing that you use?
  • Why don’t you use it more often?

2 million in extra sales, with 1 simple idea!

Back in 1997, I spoke with the owner of a building supplies company.  Their biggest source of new business was a highly profitable catalogue, which they sent out every 6 months.  These 2 catalogues were responsible for the vast majority of their sales.  I asked him why he only sent out 2 a year and not 4; 1 per quarter.  He told me that he assumed 2 catalogues a year was the right balance.

I explained that he shouldn’t assume anything, until he had tested and measured the results.  At my suggestion, he gave it a try and saw an immediate, huge increase in business.  He later told me that our 10 minute conversation earned him almost £2 million over the next 18 months, for which he was extremely grateful.

Whilst it’s very important to ensure that you are using the correct forms of marketing (use this marketing check list), and using them in the correct way; it’s just as important to use them regularly enough.

Of course, with marketing there is always a balancing act.  If, for example, the business owner I mentioned a moment ago had sent a new catalogue out every week, the cost of production and distribution would have massively increased.  It’s likely he would get too few additional sales, to justify the massive additional cost.  However, by slowly increasing the regularity of your marketing, you can find the sweet-spot; the point where your marketing is being used with ideal regularity.  Not too frequently and not too infrequently.

Why not take a moment to review the most effective forms of marketing you currently use and see if there’s a possibility, that you are not using it frequently enough?

Marketing messages: It’s all about THEM!

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All too often, small business owners market their services based on what is most appealing to them.  They make offers that they think are great.  They focus on benefits that they think are important.

Here’s the challenge with that approach: It’s very ineffective!

Your prospective clients buy for their reasons, not yours.  If you want them to become clients, you need to be able to see things from their perspective and adapt your marketing messages accordingly.  You need to write in terms that are native to them, not you.  You need to inspire them to call you, email you, visit your store etc, and they will only do that if you give them a good reason to.  This means using their language, to demonstrate the benefits of what you do, based on their most pressing needs.  It’s all about THEM.

I saw someone recently trying to encourage small business owners, to attend a free talk he was giving, about how to use foursquare.  Here’s what his primary marketing message was:

“Learn how to geosocialize with your local commercial spectrum!”

Now, for 99% of the small business population, that phrase will be more likely to turn them off, than convince them to check out the service.  He was talking in HIS language, not his intended audience’s.  He failed to explain in clear business terms, what the benefits of attending his talk would be.  He failed to explain why a busy business owner should take time out from running their business, to go and listen to him.

One of the fastest ways you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing copy writing, is to review your material and ask yourself:

  • Is this written in the language I use, or the language of my prospective clients / customers?
  • Does this message clearly explain, in as few words as possible, compelling reasons why they need my product or service?

If you find your copy is failing on either front, rewrite it.  This time, place all the emphasis on them and their needs.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

How would you cope, if this happened to YOU?

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How well do your business resources match your marketing goals or sales targets?

You may want “more business” right now, but if it came, if your marketing was so effective and compelling that all the extra business you want actually arrived, how well could you service it?

Many people say that this is a “great problem to have” but they are totally missing the point!  If you are unable to benefit fully from all that potential when it comes along, you are likely to miss out on what might be a business-changing or life-changing opportunity.

Internet

Many businesses, for example, have their websites on servers that are poorly equipped to cope with a sudden surge in traffic.  You need to know how your site would hold up, if a major Internet influencer, like Robert Scoble, decided to share your amazing product page or a blog post you wrote, with his huge social network.  Equally, if your site or blog gets linked to by a popular website for whatever reason, traffic can go through the roof.

I’ve seen sites drop after a few minutes, when they have been linked to by an influential person or website – The EXACT opposite of what they want, if they want to benefit from all that free exposure!  If you are serious about your website / blog as part of your business, get serious about your hosting too.

What about the phones?

Can your phone system cope with more than 1 call at a time?  If you were taking a call right now and I called you, what would happen to my call? Would I get a busy / engaged tone?  If you state your phone number in your marketing material and you plan doing some endorsed relationship marketing, for example, you would need as many simultaneous calls to be taken as possible.  Otherwise, you will lose sales AND stacks of highly valuable leads too.

Talk to your phone provider or one of the many call handling services to see what your best options are.  Some offer ad hoc services, which you can use during the busy times only.  These can be ideal for small businesses.

Logistics?

If you have to ship a physical product as part of your business, do you have a strategy in place to cope with a surge in orders?  When I first launched my Motivation Master Class audio program, it was only available as a CD box set.  I did an appearance on The BBC and had a massive surge in orders – Which resulted in me needing to find 5 people immediately, to help me deal with the packaging and despatching of orders.  Luckily, I knew some people and we got everything out in time.  Luck, however, is not a great fall-back plan!

It’s a lot easier today – you can simply click here and be listening to me in minutes!

Proposals and tenders

You just designed a wonderful website and it gets featured on a TV show that’s watched my millions.  Over the next 3 days, you get more tender requests than you did over the past 3 years!  Do you have a system in place to reply to every single request you get?  Do you have a way to efficiently sift through the requests generated, so that you spend your major time talking to serious people?  If not, now is a great time to get yourself prepared.

Those are just a few of the areas that are better to research and plan for BEFORE you need them.

If you have others you would like to add, ideas that will help people deal with a surge in business, please share them!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

5 ways to get more from what you already have!

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In the 2nd post I published yesterday, I stated that we are all capable of incredible things, so long as we put everything we have, into everything we’ve got.  In today’s post, I’m giving you 5 practical ways to get the most from your current assets.

First, I would like to something with you that was really useful to me when I started my business.  It’s a simple question and answer from Jim Rohn.  Jim asked:

“How high will a tree grow?”

His answer:

“As high as it possibly can!  It will dig it’s roots deep down into the soil to grab every drop of water and nourishment possible.  It will stretch it’s branches out as wide as it can to catch every possible ray of sunlight. Only human beings settle for being less than we can be!”

Maximising your assets

Here are 5 things you can start today, which will help you get the very most from what you already have:

  1. If you have a number of happy clients or former clients, proactively encourage them to recommend your services to their friends and contacts.
  2. If your business has an interesting back story, let the press know and generate some useful, profile raising PR.  If you can’t afford to hire a PR professional, at least study how to write an effective press release and get it out to every media outlet you can think of.
  3. If you have a website, is it optimized for attracting targeted visitors from search engines?  If not, study the art of SEO (search engine optimization) and start making it easy for new, prospective clients to find you.
  4. If your site gets regular visitors but it generates very few sales or sales leads, review and replace any written copy, which is not compelling people to get in touch with you.  If you don’t know how, either learn or hire a proven expert.
  5. If you have a contact with a similar profile of client to yours, yet in a non-conflicting industry, ask them about an endorsed relationship opportunity.  This is one of the best ways to generate a huge amount of high quality sales, very quickly!

Put everything you HAVE into everything you’ve GOT!

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No matter where you are right now, how little you have in the bank or how many past experiences you wish had never happened, you are capable of achieving the most amazing things!

It’s not what we have that counts, but what we do with what we have.  For example, there are just 3 primary colours, yet these can be used to produce a massive spectrum of colours. The world’s most successful people are seldom the world’s most intelligent or naturally gifted people.  In fact, time and time again we hear about people, who start off with nothing yet go on to achieve amazing success.

In my personal experience, even with very limited resources, we can achieve the incredible; so long as we put everything we have into everything we’ve got.

Have a GREAT week!

Avoiding the no-win scenario

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I once asked someone if they were a “glass half empty or glass half full” kind of person.

She relied; “I’m neither Jim!”

This got my attention, as I had always heard people giving one of those two possible answers. She went on:

“My glass is actually 100% full – Half with water and half with air!”

Avoid thinking from the no-win scenario perspective

One of the reasons people often make bad decisions, is that they put themselves into no-win scenarios.  This is especially the case when they are worried about something.  They fail to examine all the options that are open to them, often focusing on the so-called “best, worst options” because these tend to come into our minds with least effort.

Now, I’m not suggesting we look for every possible option to every decision we make.  But for the important decisions, the decisions that matter to you, it’s always worth taking some extra time to fully review your options, before you proceed.

Business blogging experts?

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Over the past 24 hours, I have seen 2 people advertising their services as business blogging experts.  In both cases, I decided to check THEIR blogs out.  As a marketing guy, I was curious as to what kind of blogs these expert business bloggers had. I’m really glad I did, because it motivated me to write this “buyer beware” post and hopefully, will stop people from wasting their time and money.

Business blogging experts?

One of them has a blog, which has not been updated since last year!  This blog expert wants you to pay him, to coach you on the benefits of business blogging, yet his primary business blog looks like he has just given up on it.

The other blogging expert was even worse!  Her blog is not even configured correctly.  I was on her blog for 5 minutes, and was unable to find anything, other than the most recent blog post, because the navigation was so poor.  Equally, the blog was almost unreadable, (even on my 24 inch monitor), because it’s written in a tiny font. It looks a total mess and lacked even basic social bookmarking options.  I have seen many new bloggers, with far more professional looking blogs.  Unbelievably, she is currently offering a free talk on successful business blogging, via a local networking group.  Clearly, no one bothered to check her out before allowing her to talk.

Researching a business blogging expert: The basics

Both of these self proclaimed business blogging experts, have thousands of followers on Twitter.  This is not an indicator of how good they are at what they do, yet many use the size of someone’s social network as a short-cut to their decision making process.  If you want a better indicator as to how good a blogging expert REALLY is, check out their blog!

Here are a few of the basics to look for, before you decide to take any advice from them:

  • Check that their blog looks professional.  If it isn’t, do you really want to take blogging advice from them?
  • Check that their blog has an active community.  A quick look at the number of comments their posts attract, will give you an idea as to how well they are engaging THEIR readers.  Look at the last 10 or so posts, as some posts get a lot fewer comments than others.  Bottom line: if their blog doesn’t have an active community (which is the heart of a great business blog) they are hardly going to be able to show you how to build a great community on YOUR blog!
  • Check that their content is valued by others.  When people find something on a blog or website interesting, they will often link to it.  For example, there are around 20,000 links pointing to this blog right now.  You can check how many links point to any site, using Yahoo Site Explorer.

Even if someone is offering you free advice via a local networking group or webinar, ALWAYS check them out, before you waste your time and money following what they say.  Just because their advice is free, does not mean it will not cost you a great deal, if you use what they say and it’s based on bullshit.  Sometimes, free advice can be very expensive!

A business lesson from a fox!

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One of the great things about where I live, is that I get to meet with some really diverse and interesting people.  Yesterday, I was listening to a local gamekeeper.  He said that someone had told him that they left the door to their rabbit hutch open JUST ONCE and that a fox got in and attacked the rabbits.  Apparently the man whose rabbits were attacked was cursing his luck.

“What bad luck – The one time I leave the hutch open and it’s the same night a fox turns up!”

The gamekeeper explained to the guy, that there was no luck involved.  Apparently, the fox would have been checking on that rabbit hutch every night, just waiting for its chance to come.  When the opportunity came, the fox was ready to take full advantage.

The lesson here?

Someone once told me that luck is what happens, when preparedness meets opportunity.  One of the reasons that so many people end up cursing their luck, is that they are simply not prepared or ready to take advantage, when opportunity comes their way.  For example, they want that BIG sale, yet they never studied how to negotiate; so when the BIG prospective client comes along, they blow it.  They want a TV or radio station to feature them as an expert, when a news story breaks in their industry; yet because they never took any media training, they would waste 90% of the opportunity, if it came along.

So, if a great opportunity came YOUR way right now, how well prepared would you be?

  • What time resources would you have, to invest in the opportunity?
  • What financial resources would you have, to invest in the opportunity?
  • What human resources (contacts) would you have, to invest in the opportunity?
  • What relevant expertise would you have, to invest in the opportunity?

Make no mistake, there are some genuinely superb opportunities out there.  However, just sitting and waiting for them to arrive is not a great strategy.  Develop your resources right now, so you have the; time, finances, contacts and expertise required to get the most from future opportunities.

How dependent is your business on Twitter, Facebook etc?

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If your Facebook or Twitter account got suspend or deleted, what impact would it have on your business?

I ask this question, because I’m seeing more and more people invest huge amounts of their valuable time building social networks on 3rd party sites, which they have very little real control over.  Conversely, I see remarkably few people invest anywhere like enough time on the development of their own social media platform – namely, a commercial, self-hosted blog (like this one.)  I’m sure you’ve seen it too; people who only manage to put new content on their own blogs a couple of times a month, yet they update Twitter or Facebook on and off all day long.  Their blogs are being neglected, yet their Facebook stream is packed with interesting posts, great ideas and useful links.

In other words, they are building their primary social networking hub on something they have little real control over – Something that can be suspended or deleted without their consent, at any time.

Twitter account suspensions

I was prompted to write this after receiving an email this morning from a reader, who has just had his Twitter account reinstated AFTER Twitter suspended it, without warning or reason, for 8 days!  Although I no longer follow him, I do read his stream occasionally and it is a very typical Twitter account, which doesn’t spam or abuse anyone.  By the time his account was restored, 2 new prospective clients had unfollowed him.  Apparently, they saw the “account suspended” sign and assumed he was a scammer!

In fact, of the 30 or so people I know of, who have had their Twitter accounts suspended, I can’t think of any that were actually doing anything wrong.  By the way, one of those I helped get their account back, via a conversation on Friendfeed, was non-other than Chris Anderson; Editor of Wired Magazine and creator of what we now know as the freemium marketing model.  Again, a completely random suspension.

Free blogs get suspended too

Just over a week ago, 70,000 people, (yes seventy thousand) had their Blogs shut down without notice, when the blogetery blogging platform they were using was closed down.  Some of these people will have invested months of their time, developing content for that platform, only to see it erased without warning.  Had that same time been invested in developing on their own self-hosted blog, it would still be there.

Even WordPress.com, which I consider the best free blogging platform by far, can suspend or remove your blog if, for example, one of their moderators believes you have Search Engine Optimized it, so that it’s too Google friendly and does not read well enough for people.  In a list of blogs that are not allowed on WordPress.com, they list their now famous SEO clause:

Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines into ranking them or the sites they link to highly. WordPress.com is not meant for this type of activity.

The challenge here, is that many people would consider that “type of activity” to be nothing more than SEO!  It’s a very grey area.  What you or I consider a legitimately optimised blog post, one particular moderator at WordPress may consider to be too SEO friendly.  If so, and someone reports it, you are at best suspended or at worst, the blog is deleted.  I have to say here, that typically, the moderators at WordPress are very good these days and only want to block scammy blogs.

Your marketing on your platform

However, why give someone who knows nothing about you or your business, the power to suspend or delete your business blog, when you can build a self-hosted WordPress blog, like this one, which you control and direct 100%?  In my opinion, this alone is a great reason for business bloggers to consider owning their own platform.

My point is that whilst social networking sites are a brilliant idea and a great opportunity for you to reach new people, you should also consider investing in a central Internet space or hub, which YOU control and can develop with total freedom.  No 3rd party should have the power over you or your business, to be able to pull the plug on your primary online platform.

But I put at least 95% of my social media time into producing content for this blog and connecting with the reader community here.

Because of this, if any of my social media / social networking accounts were suspended, I would still have a thriving community of readers, commenters and people who regularly email me via this blog.  I would still be able to reach new prospective clients every hour of each day.