Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Dead trees and a powerful copy writing lesson!

By |

Writing marketing copy or sales copy that really works can be a challenge, especially for people with little or no experience.  One of the best ways to learn how to write great copy, is to read great copy and then study what you have read. Why did that particular message compel you to click a link?  What was it about the specific offer you just read, that made you follow-up on it?

Copy writing and Dead Trees

One of the best pieces of copy writing I have seen over the past few years, is just a simple, short phrase.  It’s often used when online publications refer to paper-based; newspapers, magazines and trade publications etc.  The term is dead tree media.  For example, when referring to a headline on the front page of the traditional paper version of The Times, a blogger will often refer to it as the front page of the dead tree edition of The Times.

The reason this is such a clever phrase, is that those 2 words, dead tree, are extremely emotive:

  • The phrase dead tree immediately focuses our mind on the fact that in order for paper to be made, trees not only need to be cut down; they have to be killed!  Even recycled paper was once a tree.
  • By calling the traditional version of a newspaper, magazine or whatever the dead tree edition, we start to think of it as out-dated.  When we see the term applied regularly enough, it can be a very powerful way to reinforce the belief that paper-based media is either dying or dead.
  • When there are 2 options available to the reader; either a dead tree edition of a magazine or an online version, the online version is automatically made to sound more attractive, simply because it isn’t being referred to negatively.

A quick copy writing tip

If you are serious about the success of your marketing, you need to get serious about copy writing too.  Here’s a tip.  Collect all the; emails, marketing letters, articles or blog posts that motivate you to take action and study them.  Study what it was that compelled you to click their link, visit their store, call them or email them.

For example, look at the box below this post, with a call to action.  Every hour of every day, people click the link in that box to find out how they can work with me.  Look at the message and think about how you can apply something similar to YOUR site; something that will provide you with sales leads all day every day.

The bottom line: Your site should (and could) be a relentless, lead-generating machine for your business.  If it isn’t, you could well be missing out on more sales and higher profits than you currently believe is even possible.

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

How long should your blog posts be?

By |

Some of the best blog posts are also the shortest.  Blog posts that offer information rich copy, with all the unnecessary fluff stripped out, get to the point quicker and save the reader valuable time.  This post about social media experts is one of the most read on my blog and it’s just 112 words long!

Why do many commercial bloggers write mainly longer format posts?

From what people tell me, there seems to be 2 reasons. The first reason, is that it’s believed by many that unless a post is more than 300 words long, it will not rank well on search engines.  I have seen enough evidence of this to believe there’s truth in it.  However, if you are in the UK right now and you ask Google: “What is a social media expert?”, you will see that 112 word post I mentioned earlier on page 1 – Out of over 42Million results.

The second reason, which I am going to focus on in this post, is the belief that the longer a post is, the more valuable it will be, and the more people will want to read and share it. My experience over the past 24 years in Marketing, is that the quicker you can make a valid point, without all the fluff that typically weakens a message, the more impact your message has.  Because of this, I think it’s worth adding some shorter blog posts to your commercial blog.

Seth Godin understands the value of brevity

One of the reasons Seth Godin’s blog is so popular, is that his posts are never any longer than they need to be.  Seth’s blog posts are focused, information rich, but never too long.  That’s because Seth understands the power of brevity.  This means some of his posts are just 1 or 2 paragraphs in length.  With Seth’s blog, you get all the juice, without having to wade through acres of bloated content.

Interestingly, I noticed a post on Seth’s blog recently, which is apparently his longest post of the year.  If you look at the number of times people have ReTweeted that post, you will see that it was actually less popular (from a sharing perspective) than many of his very short posts.  BTW: It still achieved over 900 ReTweets, which is amazing!

I’m not suggesting you ONLY write short blog posts

There are good reasons for writing longer format posts, (including SEO.)  I wrote earlier this week about how to write more great blog posts, and it’s almost a thousand words long.

Here’s what I’m suggesting: The next time you have an interesting point you want to make, but you think it may be too short for a blog post, try publishing it anyway!  You may be pleasantly surprised with the feedback you get.  Don’t waste all your short, insightful ideas and opinions on Facebook or Twitter – Write them on your blog and then share them across your social networks.

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

Not all spam is created equal!

By |

I was just thinking how the term spam is being used right now, for a lot more than unwanted, unsolicited emails.

For example:

  • If someone sends you an unwanted sales message via a social networking site, we call them social media spammers.
  • When they leave comments on your blog, purely to build links or sell us something (rather than contribute), we call them comment spammers.
  • When they fill forums with cut and paste marketing messages, we call them forum spammers.
  • When they send you unsolicited text messages, we call them SMS spammers.
  • When they subscribe you to their newsletters without asking, we call them newsletter spammers.

Not all spam is created equal!

What you may not have known, is that some of the people who use the kind of techniques outlined above have NO IDEA that we regard them as spammers!

In many cases, they are often acting out of ignorance.  They see others using one of those techniques, so they think it’s OK.  They assume that it must work, to some degree.  They forget that even if a small number of people visit their site after they did any of the above, they may have just ruined their reputation with thousands or tens of thousands of other people in order to get those few clicks.

Whilst it may be popular to assume that everyone who you consider a spammer runs a suspect business, I have found that in many cases the businesses are legit.  The businesses look dubious, simply because they are being marketed using dubious techniques. I’m not talking about those who send automated spam emails to millions off people every day.  I’m talking about poorly informed business owners, who send you messages you never asked for, newsletters you never subscribed to and Tweets that read like a sales pitch.

The bottom line is that anyone, even legitimate people with a great service, can be written off as spammers if they pester or pursue people with their online marketing.  No one needs that kind of reputation, if they are serious about developing a long term, successful business.

Small Businesses: I love you!

By |

I’m a huge fan of small businesses and the amazing people who make them work.  That’s why I love it, when I see a small business using the strengths to successfully compete against national and multi-national companies.

This morning for example, I visited a Costa Coffee shop in North Lincolnshire.  I love the coffee they serve at Costa and their lemon tea too, however, I couldn’t help noticing that there were just 8 other customers (excluding me) in the place, during the 25 minutes I was there.  A little further along, I visited an independent coffee shop and it was a lot busier, with 23 customers.

The independent coffee shop did a few things differently to their nationally respected competitor, and I wonder how much of an impact this had on what I saw.

For example:

The independent coffee shop offered table service

So, people with babies and toddlers did not have to stand in a queue waiting whilst everyone in front of them had their orders taken and then prepared, as they did in Costa.  They were able to walk in, sit down and relax as their order was taken at their table and then delivered to their table.  Table service also meant that people like myself didn’t need to pack away their laptops, every time they wanted to order another drink; or risk leaving it unattended whilst they queued downstairs to get served.

The independent coffee shop offered free, secure wifi

Costa did not.  In fact, the lack of an Internet connection is what prompted me to leave Costa!   The guy that served me there, said this was “patchy” and that some branches of Costa do offer wifi, but this branch didn’t.  When I asked why they didn’t offer wifi, he said he had no idea and that people requested it all the time.  Little surprise that I saw so many laptops being used in the independent coffee shop and none in Costa.

The independent coffee shop’s prices were higher than Costa Coffee

…and I think Costa provided slightly better coffee too (their coffee is extremely good!)  However, in my opinion, when it came to the overall customer experience there was no competition.  The independent coffee shop did many of the most important things extremely well, and as a result, I was happy to pay a small premium for a premium level of service.

It has to be stated that my experience was just a snap-shot, based on 1 visit to each coffee shop, however, I would be very surprised if the little guy in this story wasn’t punching WELL above it’s weight.

The little guy may not be able to compete on price.

The little guy can’t even hope to compete when it comes to marketing budgets.

But when it comes to customer experience, by listening to the marketplace and working hard to deliver what the market wants, they CAN succeed against the odds and build a very profitable business, even against really good quality competition.

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

 

Twitter follower numbers have little to do with influence!

By |

Twitter follower numbers mean a great deal to a lot of people. However, it seems that as Twitter matures as a service, the number of followers someone has, has very little to do with their influence. For those of you like myself, who use Twitter as part of your marketing mix, this is worth knowing; as you can waste a LOT of time chasing follower numbers, when it’s the quality of your Twitter network that really matters.

Twitter follower numbers and influence

I’ve noticed a significant change over the past year, where many of the people with tens of thousands of followers, who ReTweet my posts, generate little if any traffic to the blog.  Yet, many people with relatively small Twitter followings seem to have far more influence, when it comes to getting their followers to take some kind of measurable action.

It seems that I am not alone in this observation.

A recent paper by Meeyoung Cha from the Max Planck Institute, was covered in The Harvard Business Review.  With Twitter’s full permission, Cha’s team monitored 54 million ACTIVE Twitter users and was able to measure a number of metrics, including things like ReTweets and the number of times a user / brand was mentioned by their followers.  They came to the conclusion that Twitter follower numbers do not equal influence. Cha said:

“Our claim is that follower count is not sufficient to capture the influence of a user (i.e., the ability of an user to sway the opinions of her followers). It only shows how popular the user is (i.e., the size of her audience). But, as we showed in our paper, retweets and mentions, which measure the audience responsiveness to a user’s tweets, do not correlate strongly with number of followers.” (There’s an excellent, short summery of the paper in this post on ReadWriteWeb)

Tens of thousands of Twitter followers & near zero influence

I am seeing examples of this every day.  Only last week, a guy ReTweeted a link to this blog, to his 40,000 followers.  As he works in marketing and claims to be a highly influential Twitter user, I was curious what the click through rate would be – So, I monitored it!

In the 60 minutes following his ReTweet, just 5 (yes, FIVE) people in total visited that particular post.  I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and say all 5 clicks came from his 40,000 followers.

An hour later, I asked a friend of mine with under 1000 followers, to share that same link and using her tracking software, monitor how many people clicked the link.  26 people clicked through in the next 60 minutes, using her unique RT link, all of whom showed up on my own analytics software.

What are your thoughts, regarding influence on Twitter?  Please take a moment to share your feedback!

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

So, you want to write more, great blog posts?

By |

I regularly get email from people, asking how I manage to write blog posts most days and still keep the ideas and content flowing.  It’s easy to see why, when you consider that a regularly updated blog with useful content is more commercially valuable, than one with fewer, valuable blog posts.

So, here are a few of my tips.  Enjoy!

Don’t SEO every post you write

Most of the posts I write here, are not written with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind.  Yesterday’s post is a prime example.  It breaks just about every SEO rule. It’s too short, doesn’t target keywords or use a title tag or have any headings etc.  However, it was a fun post that made a good point very quickly.  Interestingly, most of the bloggers I know, who publish on a very regular basis, do not optimise everything they write either, such as; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Danny Brown and Louis Gray.

SEO is important.  Really important.  I optimise a great deal of the content here and as a direct result, I get hundreds of new, targeted readers every day from Google and Co.  However, I can achieve all my SEO goals without the need to fully optimise everything I write.  So, don’t feel you have to optimise everything. You don’t.

Make time for writing blog posts

One of the reasons people find it hard to publish blog posts on a regular basis, is that they just don’t have the time.  It takes time to come up with an idea for a blog post and then to write it in as interesting a way as possible.  So, if you are a poor time manager, it’s going to be tough finding the time required to write regular, good quality blog posts.

Here’s a quick tip, which has given me several hours each day, or over 130 EXTRA DAYS a year, of extra time.

I don’t watch TV!  Yes, as a fan of boxing and football I will watch the big fights / games, but there are no TV shows I must watch.  My mindset regarding TV changed, when an elderly man once told me; “son, when you reach my age you won’t look back on your life and wish you had wasted more time watching TV shows!”  Interestingly, I recently discovered that Seth Godin feels the same way as me about TV.  He put it like this: “I don’t watch TV. At all. There are so many other things I’d rather do in that moment.”

Play with your kids.  Go to the gym.  Take the class.  Spend time relaxing with your friends.  If you want some more time each day, reducing your TV time is one of the less important things to cut out from your schedule.

Give yourself permission to get it wrong

One of the biggest hurdles facing many bloggers, is that they fear publishing a post that isn’t perfect.  In their search for the perfect blog post, they find that it takes them several hours to write a post; instead of 30 minutes or so.  Give yourself permission to write the best posts you can at the time.  Remember that blog posts can be edited and updated, if you later find you missed something important.

Capture your ideas

We all have ideas flow into our mind, but most people fail to capture them.  As a blogger, if I see an interesting article that gives me an idea for a blog post, I save it.  If I get an idea when I’m out walking, I capture it using an audio recorder.  Make it easy to capture the ideas you have and then put some time aside to get these ideas written down.  Flesh them out a bit.  You will be able to tell very quickly if the idea is good enough to turn into a post for your blog.

Learn to deal with critics

Often, when you make a point on your blog about something that is a matter of opinion, your own opinion will be criticised (and rightly so.)  Fear of criticism stops a lot of people from writing about certain subjects that are relevant to their industry / readers or expressing their opinions.  Both of these will limit the volume and (in my opinion) the value of what you publish.

For example, I wrote a post last month about my positive experience with Dell customer service.  I knew at the time that it would attract comments from people, who either strongly agreed or strongly disagreed with me.  If you check out the comments, you will see a number of really pissed-off Dell customers, telling me how wrong I was!  Those comments add balance to the post and allow people to see a far wider range of experiences.

People disagreeing with you or being critical of your view point, are a key part of blogging; however, many people really struggle with it.  This is why I wrote the following post on how to deal with blog critics and criticism.

Publish your best content on your blog, not on Facebook etc

Many people who have blogs that they seldom update, have Facebook accounts that they regularly update with insights, ideas and useful links.  There are many reasons why this is a really bad strategy for a commercial blogger.  One of which, is that it sees you investing your content development time building content on someone else’s platform, whilst yours is being neglected.

Use Facebook, but not at the expense of your own commercial blog.  Some of the info you post on Facebook could be slightly expanded upon and turned into a great little post, which you can THEN share on Facebook!

So, what would you add to that list?

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

Small can be beautiful!

By |

Small can be beautiful.  In commerce, for example, some of the finest businesses are small businesses.  It’s easy to see why, when you consider some of the advantages small businesses have over large businesses and corporations:

  • Smaller businesses can adapt to new opportunities far quicker than big companies.
  • Just as importantly, they can act on decisions quickly too.
  • Small businesses can develop deeper, more inter-personal relationships with their clients and customers than corporations can.  You can spend $100,000 a year with Apple and I promise you, Steve Jobs still won’t take you out for lunch!
  • Small businesses have the ability to offer a truly unique customer experience.
  • Small businesses also have the freedom to react to customer complaints with common sense – Rather than a cookie-cutter complaints procedure from head office.

So, whilst you are building your business into the next multi-national conglomerate, take some time to enjoy the many and varied advantages of being small.

Keeping you in the picture

By |

Over the past few months, I have used flickr for all the post images here on the marketing blog.  There are millions of great pictures available and it’s extremely easy to use.

However, I have recently noticed a growing problem, which is changing how I use images from flickr and other image sites.  I want to share this with you, along with some brief information on the kind of images and photographs you can use on your blog / website.

Out of the picture

Until now, I have gone to flickr, picked the image I want to use and simply linked to it – So although you see a photograph here on the blog, the image itself lives on flickr’s servers.  The benefit to me of this approach, is that I don’t need to upload images or compress them before I use them.  I just enter the URL of the image into WordPress, and I can then place it wherever I want. Equally, when my blog was hosted on a slower server, the pages tended to load quicker when the images were hosted on flickr.

The downside of linking to images, rather than hosting them on your own server, is that the images you link to can be, and are, removed without warning.  As a result, I often see posts I wrote a while ago, with images missing.  So, I have decided to go back to hosting images on my own server and I am now recommending people to do the same; unless they have a good reason not to.

Regarding the use of images on blog posts, there’s something else a lot of people ask me about, which I would like to mention.

Image licenses: A quick reminder

Posts often look better with a nice image, so it’s often a good idea (especially if you write long posts) to break your posts up with appropriate pictures.  However, before you use an image, always check if you have permission, first.  Many people seem to think that they can just copy any image and use it, when this is totally incorrect!  For example, the images you see on news sites are often the property of agencies like, The Associated Press or Getty Images and are not available for free use.  Others images are available under a version of Creative Commons and can be used for free, but only under certain conditions.

The images I use from flickr, for example, are licensed under a version of creative commons, called; Creative Commons Attribution.  This means the images can be used without cost, however, you must give attribution to the photographer.  It’s only right that you give the photographers, whose images you use, full credit for their work.  Giving attribution also allows your readers to discover the photographer’s work.

Building a great team

By |

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?

By |

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!

By |

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?

By |

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!

By |

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!

By |

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

By |

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?

By |

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!

By |

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?

By |

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.

It’s only useful, if you use it!

By |

It’s a fact: The best marketing ideas in the world will not work, unless you use them.

Over the years, I have discovered that small business owners can be divided into 2 groups, when it comes to marketing.

Group 1: Those who find marketing interesting, but just dabble and seldom work with the ideas they find.

These people love reading about marketing and they enjoy the social elements of marketing such as networking, social media etc, but they seldom actually take time to develop a marketing plan and work the plan.  In many cases, they have businesses that are struggling financially and they knowledge to turn it around – If only they put some of their marketing ideas to work.

Ideas are GREAT, but they need to act on them if you want to achieve anything.

Group 2: Those who understand that marketing is an essential part of their business, so they put the best marketing ideas they find into action.

These business owners see things very differently from the previous, much larger group.  They have discovered that if they find a marketing idea interesting, then use it, amazing things can happen.  They are not afraid to fail, because they know that marketing is all about testing and measuring.  If they try something and it doesn’t work the way they want, they will review the feedback and try again with a new refinement.  They will then measure the feedback and make further adjustments, until they get the results they want.

Ultimately, our commercial success will be determined by our level of intelligent activity; not by how much useful knowledge we have acquired.  Why not take the best marketing idea you have right now, and use it!

Marketing: Your past does not equal your future.

By |

I spoke with someone earlier, who told me that she was “no good at marketing.”  She went on to say that she would never be any good when it came to marketing.  This lady is bright and she has lots to say, that’s worth listening to.  However, she has failed to learn one of the most basic lessons in life:

“Our past results do not equal our future results.”

Just because we used an approach last week, last month or last year that didn’t work, does not mean we have to repeat that same error.  We can learn from that lesson and move forward.  As soon as we use a better strategy, we get better results.

How do you improve?

You have 2 main options if you want better marketing results:

  1. You can spend time studying marketing and start to develop increasingly effective marketing strategies.  This can be very time consuming, but if you are starting to see some progress with your marketing efforts, it may be worth investing some more of your time.  This is likely to be most appropriate for those who already have a good marketing foundation, and those who are not looking for fast results.  There are lots of free marketing resources on this blog that will help you if you want to go it alone.  Take a look at this post as a way to get started – It’s my top 10 marketing tips. Then, I strongly recommend you read my FREE 5 step Marketing Make-Over! You can also use the search box on the right, to find marketing posts on many different subjects – There are hundreds of posts there covering thousands of marketing answers and ideas – just waiting for you and all are 100% free!
  2. You can hire someone who already knows exactly what you need to do.

The bottom line is that you need to improve your marketing strategy and actions, if you want to improve your sales results.  There’s absolutely no need to settle for under-performing marketing, so long as you are willing to take ownership of the challenge ahead of you and do something productive about it.

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

Good luck!