Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Rapid, massive business growth: With MBRs

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marketing tip, MBR, Mutually beneficial relationships

This is massive.

I’d like to introduce you to one of the most powerful ideas in marketing. It’s an absolute marketing essential, known as mutually beneficial relationships or MBRs.

Here’s how it works, starting with a simple question.

Who already serves your prospective clients or customers, with a service or product that doesn’t conflict with your own?

This is why that question is worth so much to you. Those non-conflicting providers already have the attention and trust of your prospects. An introduction to your prospects, from one of those providers, someone they already trust, can make you a fortune.

Here’s how

MBRs are a cornerstone of success. The effectiveness of the strategy is behind the explosive growth of many of the world’s fastest growing businesses. In my own experience, many of my biggest commercial successes have come from MBRs. And some of these relationships have been producing high-profit income for well over a decade.

That’s because once you’ve built the relationships, they carry on working for you.

With one very important warning.

Mutually means mutually!

Mutually beneficial relationships need to be exactly that.. mutually beneficial. Failing to understand this and get the balance right is the only thing that can stop you. The relationship must benefit the other person in a rewarding way. Just like any relationship, for it to work both parties need to be valued. 

So, determine what you can offer these non-conflicting providers, which will motivate them to help you.

How do you get the motivation right?

You need to fully understand the risk you’re asking a potential partner to take. That person or company will be concerned that they risk damaging their relationship with their clients, if you fail to deliver. Remember, they don’t know you yet.

However, as long as the relationship you propose is beneficial enough for them, and you can convince them of your reputation, you’ll massively lower their perceived risk and increase the odds that they’ll want to proceed.

The potential for you and your business is huge.

How huge?

This huge!

  • When I help my clients build MBRs, I can usually find a couple of dozen industries that are non-conflicting with theirs, yet serve the same people or companies.
  • And each of these industries can have dozens, hundreds or thousands of potential, mutually beneficial partners.
  • And each of these partners can have dozens, hundreds or thousands of customers.

That’s thousands, times thousands of potential new customers, who are already feeling positive about buying from you. Just think about that for a moment. And let it sink in. Then, why not decide to build an MBR.

Decades of experience assures me that you’ll be very, very glad you did.

Grab. Focus. Urgency: How to vastly increase your sales

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marketing motivation, deadlines, sales

When it comes to making sales or getting clients, deadlines are extremely effective. That’s because deadlines tap into one of the strongest motivators in business. The principle of scarcity.

Here’s what makes deadlines such a powerful marketing tool.

  • They grab attention.
  • They focus the mind.
  • They create urgency.

Attention grabbing

It’s no wonder deadlines grab our attention. People hate to miss out. The fear of missing out, or FOMO, is activated the moment we see a deadline attached to something we have an interest in. FOMO grabs a prospect’s attention in a way that isn’t possible, when you don’t attach a deadline to your offer.

Focused

Our mind is then immediately focused on the actual date or time of the deadline. We start to work out the amount of time between now, and the cut-off point. Within reason, the shorter the deadline, the greater the motivation. However, too short a deadline will actually result in fewer sales/enquiries. There’s a balance required. For example, when marketing an event, 1 month is usually too short. But for a flash sale, 48 hours is often too long.

Urgent

The deadline presents us with a limited amount of time to make our decision. This sense of urgency will immediately inspire some people to take rapid action. Others will find the urgency grow and grow as the deadline approaches. Either way, the deadline creates a level of urgency that just isn’t there, when the prospect thinks they have all the time in the world.

So, look for opportunities to add a deadline date or time to your marketing. Then see how all that increased attention, focus and urgency improves your response rates.

Photo by Justin Veenema

Time wasters and your business!

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It seems that some things in business just never change. Like those people we affectionately call time wasters.

I was prompted to write this, after being emailed today by a reader, who had wasted a lot of time dealing with a time waster.  This guy claimed to be interested in using her as a freelance designer for a large project.  She later found out, after meeting his colleague at a networking event, that the person she had been dealing with, was simply pumping her for free advice, for a project he was going to do in-house, for his boss! The reader explained that she has only been in business for 6 months, and “feels like a fool” to use her own words, for falling for this trick.

As businesspeople, it’s important for us to learn how to spot the time wasters as soon as we can, BUT without missing the people who are genuinely interested in our products or services.

I wrote a post about time wasters, that gives a few tips.

In my experience, I find that the longer you are in business, the better you become at spotting time wasters.  Do you find that too?  I’d like to know.

Sometimes, it’s possible to spot patterns of behaviour, that immediately alert you to time wasters.  In my own business, for instance, I’ve discovered that whenever someone tells me via a social network, that they are going to get in touch to find out about working with me, they never do.  After all, if someone’s interested in speaking with me, it’s easier for them just to call or email me.  Interestingly, 100% of my clients simply got in touch with me, without any public pre-announcements.

Here’s where I would really appreciate your help!

It would be extremely useful if you would share any of YOUR tips for spotting or dealing with time wasters.  If you have anything you would like to share, please leave a comment and maybe help someone avoid the kind of frustration, that lady in the email experienced.

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

A simple way to stay on your reader’s radar!

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As you may know, I’ve been on holiday for the past 8 days.  Because blogging is such a valuable part of my communications strategy, it was important for me to be able to maintain my blogging pattern, whilst I wasn’t here.

This post is all about how wordpress’ scheduled posts feature allowed me to have a fresh post here for you each day – even though I was holidaying with my family, and why scheduling posts can be so valuable for business bloggers.

WordPress’ Scheduled Posts feature

Scheduled postsLike many people who blog regularly, I often write several blog posts at once and then use wordpress’ scheduled post feature, to publish my posts over the coming days.

This is always a really useful feature, but when you are away from work and, as in my case, away from an Internet connection too, it’s pure gold dust!

Why bother posting when I’m not here?

There are a number of reasons, why it makes sense for business bloggers to maintain the regularity, with which they post.  I mention most of them here, in “why some bloggers post every day.”

However, on a very basic level, I have found that just as people get used to visiting a blog regularly, they can also get used to NOT visiting that blog just as easily.  This simple, long established feature of wordpress means that so long as you have the content written up, a blogger never needs to have those 7 or 14 day gaps, where they drop from their reader’s radar.

Do you use scheduled posts?

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

Lucky me?

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I live in a small village, in an area known for its natural beauty.  We occasionally have people walk past our home, who are on their holidays.  They see the open fields, the winding canal and the streams that snake their way through the village, and occasionally tell me;
“You’re very lucky to live in such a beautiful place.”

Lucky?

As with most things in life, luck had nothing to do with where I live.  In order to move from London, where many of my friends were and where 100% of my clients were based, required a huge amount of planning, financial investment and hard work.  I had to totally redesign my business model and leave the city, where I grew up and had lived almost all of my life.

Planning and action

As a marketing professional, I see people every day, who are hoping that they will get lucky one day and suddenly attract the income and lifestyle from their business that they have always wanted.  Their marketing is ineffective, their sales are disappointing and yet they decide to carry on by themselves, so nothing changes.  Sure, they work really hard, but hard work is not the secret of success; if it were our grandparents would all have been millionaires!  We have to be smarter than that.

If you know someone, who is working hard but not getting the results they want from their business, tell them not to wait for things to “just get better.”  In my experience, the world doesn’t work like that.  Every successful business and person I have ever studied, achieved their success through careful planning and taking action to make those plans real.

When we do the right things correctly, it’s amazing how our luck changes!

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

Leo Laporte: 3 lessons from an Internet success story!

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This post contains 3 lessons, which have helped Leo Laporte become one of the Internet’s biggest success stories of recent years.

Who is Leo Laporte & what can we learn?

Leo is the massively popular guy behind a network of mainly tech-based programs, which can be watched online or downloaded.  Leo started his online broadcasting network after his mainstream TV show was cancelled.

His network is known as TWiT (This Week in Tech.)  Just 5 years later, Leo’s shows are listened to and watched by millions every month and his advertisers and sponsors include the likes of Visa and Ford.

He now employs a dedicated team of professionals and produces and amazing TWENTY PLUS shows a week.  He’s aiming for a full 24-hours a day “CNN for geeks” service and I know he will do it. More info on Leo can be found here.

Learning from Leo Laporte?

I can see 3 BIG lessons from Leo Laporte’s growing success, which we can all learn from.  Here they are:

1. Quality.  Leo focuses on delivering a very high quality product.  From the beginning, Leo insisted on investing in the best quality equipment possible, and then reinvesting, as the business grew.  He has also worked hard to attract the most entertaining, knowledgeable guests he can.  As the success of his network grew and he was able to start employing people, he brought in the best people he could.  At every step, he has focused on quality, rather than speed or “cheap.”

In my experience, quality does not come cheap, but quality costs far less than when we take the cheap route.  For instance, it can often seem like a wise move to go for the cheapest web host, but what about the cost of all that lost business, if our site is down too often or too slow for people to use?  It might seem like a wise move to hire a cheap accountant or CPA, until you find out that by saving a few hundred a year, you have been overpaying thousands each year in taxes.

It’s about getting the best you can afford and then when you become more financially secure, reinvesting in even better quality.

2. Community. Leo Laporte understands the importance of building a community and engaging with that community.  He takes messages from his listeners and viewers during most of his programs and asks them for suggestions / feedback.  He sets up dedicated chat rooms, where the listeners and viewers can chat with each other and contribute to the show.

There’s a real community feel to Leo’s network, something that helps retain his audience and engage them.  Some of his advertisers have been with him for years, because Leo’s community appreciate that the advertisers are who fund his shows and they are vastly more likely to use and recommend their products.  The advertisers and the listeners are thus, part of the same community. It’s amazing to watch!

As I said yesterday, a community is far, far more commercially valuable than a following or an audience that you broadcast too.

3. Work.  Leo has worked extremely hard to build the TWiT network.  Having come from a mainstream media background, Leo was used to big studios and teams of professionals to get his shows on air.  It must have been hard for him in the beginning, to go from that, to being the guy who made the coffee, wrote the scripts, fixed the equipment and booked the guests.  Until relatively recently, Leo fronted all his shows himself; as well as working with his advertisers, booking guests, writing show plans, working the control desk AND doing a daily tech radio show for an FM station too!

The lesson here is as old as commerce itself.  The best plan in the world will not work for us, if we don’t work for it.

Business leaders are often the first people into the office in the morning and the last ones home; at least during the earlier stages of their business.  All too often, we see people who want to get the result, without putting in the work first.  This is why scammers and con artists have always found an endless stream of people to fool out of their savings, with the promise of easy money.

Quality, community and work.  Three simple words, which bring with them a lot of challenges – But also the promise of something amazing.

Marketing tip: Stop shouting for attention!

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Is your marketing shouting at people?

If you go into Starbucks today and start shouting at the people around you, you will definitely grab their attention.  However, it’s not the kind of attention you want to attract.  Many small businesses use a very similar approach with their marketing.  In an effort to capture attention, they act in a way that gets them noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.

They not only fail to generate new business; they can permanently damage the reputation of their business too.

Some examples of how companies shout at people with their sales and marketing:

  • Adding people to their newsletter list, without permission. It’s spam.
  • Spamming people on Twitter.
  • Meeting people at networking events and using that transparent crap; “tell me about your business and how I can help you.” Wake up, it’s not 1985 any more!
  • Asking people to join their Linkedin network, claiming they worked with them (when both parties know it’s a lie.)
  • Unwanted telemarketing calls to people’s homes at 8pm.  Just what you need when getting a young child to sleep or relaxing after a hard day.

In marketing, it’s easy to confuse movement with progress.  People see that they need to win more business and they know that they must do something – quickly!  So, they do what they hope will generate the new business they need.

The marketing challenge here, is that just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should.  Just because we can pay someone to spam 500,000 people with a marketing email from us, doesn’t mean it will generate anything positive.  Yes, you can waste half your life attending the same networking events, with the same people, all there to sell, none there to buy – but it’s massively ineffective.

Thankfully, we each have the freedom to make our own choices about the way we market our products and services.  If we use our freedom of choice wisely, our success is guaranteed.

Don’t treat people like numbers!

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Many businesses seem to forget that people are people and numbers are numbers.  As a result, they lose touch with the ‘people‘ side of their business.

Here’s why this is a REALLY bad idea:
It’s People who work for us, buy from us, recommend us and help us – not numbers!

When a business starts regarding people simply as ‘numbers’ on a spreadsheet, customer base or mailing list – it becomes disconnected from those people.  This is madness!

Each client, customer, potential client, reader, follower and contact you have is unique.  These people have feelings. They have good days and bad days. They have ups and downs. They have days where they want to cry with joy and days where they cry with sorrow.  These unique, immeasurably valuable individuals are many things to many people, but they are NOT numbers.

Always focus on the people behind ‘the numbers’ that you use in your business and whenever possible, try to connect with them.  Sometimes, something as simple as a sincere offer of help, a quick phone call or even a smile, can turn someone’s day around.

Will this help you grow your business? Quite possibly.

Will it transform the way you FEEL about your business and the way others FEEL about you? Definitely!

Standing out from the crowd!

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Here’s a great way to make your business stand out from the crowd for all the right reasons!

A common marketing problem

Most businesses really struggle to develop something uniquely valuable about their services.  That’s why your local; accountants, designers, insurance companies and recruitment firms etc, seem so similar and find they have to sell their services based on prices or fees.

  • They use the same generic promises.
  • Offer the same or a similar range of services.
  • Advertise in the same places.
  • Attend the same events.
  • … and thus make themselves all-but invisible.

They are pretty-much camouflaged, which is the exact opposite of what they need, if they want to gain the attention of prospective clients or customers!

Companies that look too similar to their competitors, find that their prices or fees are the only thing a prospective customer has, to measure their VALUE compared to the others.  As a result, these companies find themselves competing for business based on price.  They blame the marketplace for being too cost-conscious or fee sensitive; when in reality it is they themselves that have failed to show the marketplace enough unique value.

Marketing and customer service

One way to really stand out and make a GREAT name for your business, is to provide genuinely exceptional customer service.

Here’s why:  Offering exceptional customer service is one of the best ways to retain your existing customers and develop new ones at the same time. It’s a super high leverage activity.

After all, people universally adore being looked after and being made feel special.  If you want to plug your business into the power of word of mouth marketing, this is a superb place to start.

The great news is that customer service excellence is rare today – So rare that when you provide it to people, they tell everyone.  In other words; if you become one of the few businesses that takes people’s breath away with YOUR customer service, your business can generate stacks of powerful word of mouth publicity.

A recent example

I needed to get my car repaired last week, so I used a local garage that had been highly recommended to me.  The garage examined the car and gave me a quote.  They were very highly recommended, so I told them to go ahead and fix it.  They told me that my car would be ready in two days.

The garage owner called me the next day, to say that my car would be ready to collect on time and offering to send someone to come and pick me up, to collect it!  When I arrived at the garage, they had repaired my car and given it a thorough clean; inside and out.  It looked like new.  There was a small note left on the passenger seat, with a list of free extras they had provided.  For example, they had filled up the screen wash and made sure the car’s tyre pressures were correct.  They also must have noticed my 4 year old son’s child seat, so they left a Disney stories CD in the car too, again with their compliments.

These are fairly small, inexpensive things to offer; yet they make a huge difference and have a massive positive impact on how their customers ‘feel’ about them.

What did I do after being treated like this?  First off, they got a MASSIVE tip from me.  In reality, my tip probably paid for all the extras 3 times over.  I also asked them for a pile of their business cards, which I have been handing to everyone I know locally; telling them how great these people are and what an amazing service they provided.

Promising exceptional service is easy.

The CHALLENGE is providing it!

If you want the marketplace to shout about you from the rooftops, your level of customer service has to be worth shouting about.

In my experience, business owners typically believe they already offer a good enough level of customer service, when in reality they are not even close.  They try hard and go the extra mile – but so do all of their serious competitors.  That’s just average – it’s not ‘exceptional.’

It’s easy to find out if we really are offering this level of service, because we will already have people eagerly recommending us to their contacts and friends.  We will already have the marketplace buzzing about the wonderful way we look after people.  We will have people sending in their résumés, because they really want to work with us.

If you are not getting that kind of traction, you might want to try this: Think of some companies you know, who already offer breathtaking customer service.  They don’t need to be in your industry.

Next, write down what it is that they do, which YOU could do, to make people feel just as good about you and your services. Then, work on adapting those ideas in a way that works for your business. It takes a little effort, but it’s well worth it.

Social networking or commercial networking?

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Whilst it’s relatively simple (if time consuming), to develop a large social network, many business owners tell me they find it difficult to successfully market their products or services via social networks.

Here’s why I believe this happens & how to fix it!

People talk in terms of “increased brand awareness” and “being part of the conversation,” yet many struggle to turn the time they invest in social networking, into bankable results for their business.

One person, with over 100,000 people in his social network, told me that he has not made a penny for the thousands of hours he has invested in developing it.

Social network or commercial network?

Part of the marketing challenge with social networking, is the social part.  Our social network is considered by most, to be our family and friends – The people we actually socialise with outside work. This helps explain why people get the same negative response when they try and “sell” something on a social network, that Multi Level Marketers used to get; back in the old days when they were told to sell to their family and friends.

It just feels wrong!

Whilst professional networks like LinkedIn are designed from the ground up for commercial networking, other networks like FaceBook and Twitter etc were not. These were designed for social networking – Places where family and friends can keep in touch and have fun.

If someone uses Twitter or FaceBook for business and they are not getting the results they want, I find it’s usually because they have built a social network, instead of a commercial one.  When they then introduce a commercial component to their messages, their social network often kicks back against it.  If you have used Twitter for any period of time, you will know exactly what I mean!

As I write this, my business has generated over £60,000, via commercial contacts I have made on Twitter in 2009.  I have a 100% commercial network on Twitter and as such, I love to chat about marketing and share great marketing ideas with people.  Yes, I let my personality come through, but I do that off-line too.

Because people know me as a marketing professional on Twitter, if I had a marketing book and offered it to my network there, it would feel right to them.  It would be totally consistent.  Equally, because people associate me with the marketing of small and medium sized businesses, when they want to speak with a marketing specialist, they feel totally comfortable giving me a call.

Commercial networking tip

If you network online for commercial reasons (like I do), focus on developing a great commercial network.

Are you on course?

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Did you start using Twitter in order to waste a stack of time attracting “followers”- Or to generate more sales, leads and business connections?

Did you invest in those expensive brochures in order to watch them slowly go out of date – Or to increase the effectiveness of your marketing?

Did you invest in your website in order to remain invisible online – Or to generate a regular, predictable flow of sales, leads and enquiries?

Marketing tip: Focus on your outcome

It’s way too easy to start a marketing activity with all the right intentions, only to realise one day that you have been slowly drifting off course and are now getting little if anything in return.

Grab yourself a coffee and take a few moments to look at your current marketing activities.  Are they on track to help you make more sales and generate more high quality business?  If not, stop whatever you are doing and either get back on track or develop a more effective marketing strategy.

Owning a hammer doesn’t make you a carpenter!

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Here’s why so few people get the marketing results they want from social media tools like blogging, Twitter, FaceBook etc.

If you wanted someone to make you a superbly crafted piece of handmade, wooden furniture, you would go to an experienced carpenter or cabinet maker.  You know that it takes training and dedication in order to develop the skills required, to build beautiful furniture.  You wouldn’t just buy yourself; a hammer, a saw, some wood and nails etc, and expect to immediately be ‘gifted’ the skills required to build it yourself.

For some reason, many people seem to think that different rules apply to anything connected to the Internet!

In marketing, I see people every day, who believe that just because the tools exist online, to help them build a network or community, that all they need to do is start using them.  Then, they start blogging, using FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc and wonder why they see very little commercial progress.

It would be just like giving me a carpenter’s tools and expecting me to build some beautiful furniture – I would end up with nothing more than bruised thumbs and an ugly pile of wood!

The best most people achieve from their online community / network building, is to develop lots of ‘links’ with others, who are equally unaware how to commercially benefit from all these tools.

If you are serious about using social media tools to help you improve your marketing, don’t end up with bruised thumbs! Learn the fundimentals of community building AND THEN start using these amazingly powerful tools.

Quick marketing tip

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Right now, no matter what kind of business you are in, one person or company is leading the way; locally, nationally or internationally.  These elite providers get to work with the most commercially valuable clients and their name is usually on everyone’s lips – but why?

A great marketing question

Most businesses spend their time focusing on their own little ecosystem.  They focus on their own business and their client’s or customers – that’s it.

Why not take some time out and do some research on what the top people in your industry are doing right now, which you could learn from or improve upon? This study of success can be extremely illuminating and a very effective way to make a lot of progress, very quickly!

Trust me – We’re great!

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This post is all about how to increase your sales and profits, by matching your actions to your promises.

Marketing & trust

Trust plays a BIG part in sales and marketing.  That’s because we buy from people we trust.  It’s also why testimonials and referrals are such powerful marketing tools.  They provide a short cut to the trust building process.  Even if you don’t know a service provider, the fact that a friend recommends them to you, immediately makes you massively more likely to do business with them, than with a stranger.

Marketing & consistency

There has been a lot written about the importance of building trust, yet very, very few marketing professionals ever mention one of the most important elements in the trust-building process. Consistency.

Even if a person or company has been recommended to you, you are unlikely to go ahead and use their services if they seem inconsistent, when you speak with them or check them out.  For example, if Bob recommends an accountant to you, but when you call them you are left waiting for ages before an uninterested person answers the phone, you still won’t use them.  That’s because there’s a lack of consistency between what you have been told and what you have experienced. This causes confusion and in marketing we know that a confused mind ALWAYS says NO!

Consistency & image

Many businesses (of all sizes), think that this consistency problem can be overcome by investing in a snazzy new logo and some well designed marketing material.  Banks and phone companies are a great example of this. They will often invest a fortune (millions) on beautifully designed websites, brochures and commercials – only for you to find that when you call them, you are placed in a queue, before your call is transferred to someone who’s clearly not interested and usually reading from a script or check list!

Whilst it’s REALLY important to invest in great design, this is only part of the challenge.  You also need to make sure that a prospective client’s experience of your business is consistent with that polished, professional image.

Marketing & customer service go hand in hand

Why not take a look at the overall experience a prospective client is likely to encounter, when connecting with your business?  Examine every part of the process.  This should include (though not exclusively), things like; how you deal with their initial email enquiry or phone call, how you handle the initial meeting and the follow-up.

How does their experience in these areas match up with your marketing promises of great customer service?  Remembering all the while that GREAT customer service means that you offer significantly better customer service than your competitors! Every business I have ever studied promises great customer service, yet most provide an average service at best.  They seem to do as little as they can ‘get away with’ – when they should be constantly searching for better ways to improve their customer’s experience.

This simple exercise should be expanded to include how well you look after your existing clients too – that’s if you intend keeping them!  Right now, with so many businesses really struggling, your competitors are working harder than ever to persuade your clients / customers to switch to THEM.

When you decide to offer truly great customer service you; add value to your service, generate more referrals, win more new business and just as importantly, retain more of your existing clients / customers too.

Do this right now

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Question: What happens whenever the economy gets tough?

Answer: People become massively more value focused!

Right now, there are businesses in the same industry, in the same town, selling to the same people; with very different results. Some will be struggling, whilst others will be seeing their market share increase – even in a recession.

We know that people are searching for great value right now, so ‘right now’, could be the perfect time for you to look for new ways to pump more value into your product or service.  No matter what you do or how well you do it, there will be something you can add or refine, which will increase the market value of your offering.

Most ReTweeted

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I received a very interesting email on Tuesday, which will be of interest to ANYONE who is using Twitter as a way to market their business, but not getting the kind of results they need.

First off, for those of you who do not already know, I used to be the 3rd most followed person on Twitter in England and one of the world’s top 50 most followed people. As a marketing professional, I quickly saw the total lack of value in having such a massive, yet untargeted network and got my Twitter account reset to zero! After this, I started achieving amazing marketing results from Twitter – In total, I have now generated around £50,000 in new business, via contacts I made on Twitter – using the service for an hour or two a week.

Bob’s Twitter problem

Bob, not his real name, wrote to ask me for some advice. He said that he spends around 3 hours each day on Twitter and that he has over 50,000 ‘followers’ – BUT that he has nothing to show for it; other than regularly appearing on various lists as one of the most ‘retweeted’ people that day. Bob wanted to know how to transform what he referred to as “all this popularity” into income for his small design business!

Twitter is NOT the end game – It’s just a tool

Many people, who start off using Twitter as a way to market their business and make new contacts, end up quickly forgetting this and instead, become obsessed with attracting as many followers as possible.  Building a large following on Twitter then becomes their end game – instead of building their business with the help of Twitter.

I took a look at Bob’s Tweets and they are mainly just him sharing other people’s favourite links.  As a result, his ‘following’ is untargeted.  He explained in his email that his ideal follower is the owner of a small business.  As far as he knows, very few of his followers are in that position.  Those who are, are usually following lots of other designers.  He went on to explain that the additional traffic his website gets because of his Twitter use, has been of zero value to him. No sales, no new clients and no referrals.

100 followers and 2 new clients in a month

Yesterday afternoon, I was speaking with a client of mine, who’s an Accountant.  He has only been using Twitter for a month, (around an hour or two in total spent Twittering) – YET he has already attracted 2 new clients directly via Twitter, using the same approach as me!

In February, I made over £7,500 from a project I undertook, for a contact I met on Twitter.  In total, I have made in excess of £50,000 via contacts I have made via Twitter.  I achieved this, even though I only invest around 20 minutes using Twitter, 3 or 4 days a week.

How come?

Professionally marketed businesses achieve great marketing results because they use an effective marketing strategy to develop their business.  The other 99% of small businesses ‘play it by ear.’  Most marketing carried out by small businesses is undertaken simply because it’s free / low cost – like email marketing, blogging or using Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn etc.

These businesses will send out emails, purely because they have a ‘list’ of names and it’s free to send these messages.  They will write a blog, without a clear idea of exactly what they are seeking to achieve. I had a comment on this blog from a reader, who has been blogging for 5 years, and has yet to acquire a single client through his blog!

Understand Twitter’s limitations

I have mentioned a few times already, that I have generated tens of thousands of pounds in business from people I MET on Twitter. The key word here is MET – I met them on Twitter – but I did not get to know them or try and market to them via Twitter. Twitter was exclusively used as a method to meet interesting people.

Twitter is a very poor tool, if you want to develop a relationship with someone.  Because of this, I make it super-easy for people to email or call me.  I advise my clients to do the same.  The contact page of this blog, for example, has my full contact details; postal address, phone number and email.  THAT’S where I ‘connect’ with the people I ‘meet’ via Twitter – NOT via Direct Messages!

Twitter is a great place to meet, but once you have met, if there’s any synergy between you and your new contact – GET THE HECK OUT OF TWITTER AND START TALKING!

For marketing, Twitter is NOT about numbers

Bob spends 3 hours a day on Twitter, ReTweeting other people’s links and communicating with a few dozen ‘regulars.’  That’s why his business is seeing no return for all his efforts.

From a business perspective, it’s far more profitable to have a smaller Twitter following, made up of people with a genuine interest in your core business.  These can either be prospective clients or prospective ‘introducer’s’ – People, who will recommend you to their contacts.

When I had tens of thousands of followers and followed over 20,000 people back, I was wasting a stack of time dealing with messages and direct messages from people, who had zero interest in me or my business.  They just wanted me to ReTweet links to their website, ask people to follow them or whatever, but they were really just sucking hours of my time each week, with no return on my part.  I occasionally got 600 direct messages in a single day!

Quality is key – not quantity.  Today, I have 2000 followers and I follow around 80 people.  However, I have spoken to or met way over 100 of the people who follow me. Add those I have sent / received mail from and that figure is closer to 1000.  NONE of these relationships have been built on Twitter.

Conclusion

You would not dream of meeting someone at a networking event, who was interested in your services, and then refuse to follow that up with a call or a meeting would you?  Just because you meet that same person via Twitter, the rules stay the same!

In my experience, the most profitable way for a small business to use Twitter as a marketing tool, is to use it as a way to connect with targeted people.  Once you have connected, if there seems to be a synergy, treat them like ANY other business contact and talk to them.  Show them that they are worth more than 140 characters to you.

Also, focus on quality and not quantity.  If you want to attract people with a potential need for your products or services, keep your Tweets on topic as often as you can.  I have people who I study on Twitter, like Bob the designer, who make it impossible to easily find out what they do for a living, based on their Tweets.

Your profile might say what you do and link to your website or blog, but remember; if your Tweets do not get people interested enough, they won’t check your profile out!

A pain in the neck

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In case you were wondering how come I have not posted anything to the blog for the past couple of weeks, here’s an update!

Over the past eight weeks, I have been suffering with an increasingly painful trapped nerve at the top of my neck. The end result was that for the past two weeks, I have been totally unable to type with my left hand (hence no posts to the blog.)

After realising that the medication I was on was not going to work, I decided it was time to call in a Chiropractor – and there’s a valuable lesson here, for anyone in sales!

I actually met with three qualified Chiropractors, before picking the one I trusted the most to get me out of pain and mobile again. Interestingly, the one I picked was NOT the least expensive. He was actually the most expensive by some margin!  However, he WAS the only one of the three to actually ask me about how the pain was making me feel; how the sleepless nights were impacting my quality of life etc.  He engaged me on the most basic level, by connecting with me as a human being. He fully understood my exact position and all the problems the pain was causing me.

Twenty minutes later, he had a new client.  Within 24 hours of my first treatment, he had reduced my pain by around 50%, I was able to throw the pain killers away and most important of all, I started being able to sleep again, after weeks of sleepless nights.

Sales lesson?

There’s an old saying in sales, which tells us that; “you buy the person, not the product / service.” By identifying the impact the pain was having on my life as a whole and showing me genuine empathy, my Chiropractor had set himself apart from the other two people I met. Their talk was all about them, how great they were and how affordable their services were.  They came across like salespeople, which is always a mistake, because there’s so much resistance out there to sales / marketing messages!

As Seth Godin, a friend of this blog said recently, “Selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.”

By the way, you REALLY should subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog – it’s excellent!

I have made many, many millions of pounds and dollars worth of sales over the years for my clients and myself and can honestly say, I have NEVER sold anyone, anything! However, LOTS of people have bought things from me!

Enough with the pitches – it’s 2009 for heaven’s sake!

Look for ways to contribute for free to your marketplace.  Engage people and show them you understand their ‘pain.’ There’s a recession on right now and many of those in your marketplace are hurting – get out there and find a way to help as many of them as possible.  For example, I offer free advice to people via this blog and my marketing newsletter. 95% of the people who read my material never even say thank you or comment here or email me – but that’s not important!

You see, there’s a MASSIVE 5% of people; who say great things about me, who recommend me to their clients and friends, who invite me to speak on their TV shows and radio programs and who pay me to handle their marketing for them.  These people forward my newsletter on to other people, they recommend my blog to everyone and they link to me. That’s why this blog as almost 13,000 links, even though it’s just 6 months old.

This is also the reason why I have no advertising on this blog.  I don’t want to sell you anything. I want you to come here, knowing that there’s no sales pitch.  I want you to know that when I say Seth’s blog is great or that FriendFeed‘s a great service, I am saying it for free, because I genuinely believe it.  If you like my work, use my ideas and see great results and THEN decide you want me to work with you, you will have to dig around the blog and find the one page, which tells you about my services.

Attraction marketing

Some call this approach ‘attraction marketing.’  That’s a fairly accurate description, because it’s an approach to business development and sales, which ‘attracts’ leads, enquiries, sales, orders and new clients / customers – rather than the traditional ‘pursuit marketing’ model.  There’s another post all about attraction marketing here.

Have a great day and please feel free to be one of that rare 5%, who forward this post, tweet about it, get in touch or leave a comment!

Seth Godin, Robert Scoble & Chris Brogan

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In this post, I am going to share one of the success factors behind; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan with you.  It’s all about one word; contribution.

A few weeks ago, I had a problem with this blog.  So, I got in touch with two experts, who I knew would be able to help; Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan.  In no time, both were kind enough to get back to me with some excellent advice and the problem was solved.

For those of you who don’t already know; Robert is the former ‘technology evangelist’ for Microsoft and is now one of the best known figures in technology.  Chris is, in my opinion, one of the world’s leading authorities on ‘social media.’  Between them, they have a dedicated following of hundreds of thousands of people.  These are two very busy people!

Of course, these guys gave their help without a second thought.  They also did so privately, OUT of the public gaze; so no one knew how helpful they had been to me, except me. That’s because they gave without expecting something in return. Neither of them know I have written this post or that it will be read by thousands of people today.

Seth Godin and contribution

As marketing expert and best selling author Seth Godin once told me;

“If you have an ulterior motive, your generosity is suspect.”

Wise words – especially as Seth shared them with me freely and in private! That’s right, these were not comments Seth made on a blog or in a Twitter message observed by thousands, to show how smart he is.  No, it was just Seth taking time-out from a very busy schedule, to share an idea with me. (Thanks Seth!!)

I genuinely believe that it is not a coincidence, that each of the three people I have mentioned in this post, are at the very top of their chosen professions.  For example, I was first made aware of Seth’s work, not by an advertisement or by his marketing blog – but after a good friend recommended him to me.  I was first made aware of Robert’s work, after Leo Laporte recommended him to me.  Again with Chris, he was recommended to me by a client of mine, who’s a fan of his work.

I would LOVE to think that after reading this post, some of you check out Seth Godin, Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan for the first time.

Seth, Robert, Chris – Thanks!

Focus on results – NOT hits!

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One of my favourite sayings is; “start with the end in mind.” In other words, make sure you know what your outcome is, before you decide to take action.

I was thinking about this earlier, when I received an email from a reader, who had just realised that the time and money she had been investing in marketing her website and blog over the past 18 months, had been pretty much a total waste of time!

Yes, she had seen ‘traffic’ into them increase from zero to around two thousand unique visitors a day – but it hadn’t generated anything tangible for her or her business.  In fact, it had actually hurt her business; because her time spent blogging, online networking and doing SEO had limited the amount of chargeable work she could do for her clients.

Marketing goals

This lady’s original marketing goal for her website and blog, was to showcase her skills as a business finance expert to a new audience and then convert some of these readers into paying clients.  However, she became so focused on producing regularly updated content and getting her Search Engine Optimisation ‘just right’ that she was using these numbers to track her success – rather than the actual number of new clients and enquiries she was getting.

This is a common scenario, when someone gets so involved in the mechanics of a marketing activity, that the activity itself becomes their goal – rather than a tool to help them reach their goal.

Taking stock

marketing results outcomesIf you have a commercial website or blog, how focused are you on the tangible or bankable results you get from it?

I am not talking about hits, metrics, comments or subscriber numbers – I’m talking about actual, business results, what your accountant would call your ROI (return on investment).

Here are some examples of questions we all need to ask ourselves, if we invest our time and/or money on a website or blog:

  • If your site/blog is there to generate enquiries for your business – how many is it generating each day and what quality are they?
  • If your site/blog is supposed to be generating advertising revenue, how much money is it making for you each week?
  • If your site/blog is supposed to be positioning you as an authority in your area of expertise, how many more calls are you getting from newspapers, trade publications and the media – wanting your opinions?

It does us all good from time to time, to take stock of where we are and to ensure that everything we are investing our time, money and energy in is actually taking us toward our business goals.  Otherwise, we run the risk of rowing our boat REALLY hard in the wrong direction and suddenly wondering why we are in the wrong place after all that hard work.

Boost sales with your advertising!

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In this post, I am going to show you how to get massively better results from your advertising – starting right now!

Making advertising work!

If you tried advertising in the past and found that the only winner was the person who sold it to you, you’re not alone.  Over the years, I have helped market the services of thousands of businesses, spanning just about every industry and profession.  During my initial conversations with the people behind these businesses, I would often hear a version of the following statement:

“We tried advertising – it doesn’t work!”

Advertising actually DOES work (really well), but only if you use it correctly.  I have personally sold many millions of pounds (and dollars) worth of products and services for my clients and myself, with the help of advertising.  In this post, I am going to share one of the secrets of my advertising success with you.

If you have a small or medium sized business and are advertising with the intention of making sales, boosting your profits and transforming your income; I suggest the only form of advertising worth investing in is action advertising.

Why is ACTION advertising so effective for smaller businesses?

ACTION advertising is designed to make the reader take action.  Big companies are usually seeking to get someone to switch from one brand of cola, razor blade or sports shoes etc to another.  These adverts can be effective by simply associating good feelings or famous / beautiful people with their ‘brand.’

Small businesses typically advertise in order to generate sales.  Their advertising needs to; get their phone ringing, fill their store with eager buyers or fill their inbox with sales requests and enquiries.  This means their adverts need to inspire some form of direct response or action from the reader / listener.  A good quality action advertisement includes the following:

–  It tells the reader who the advertiser is.
–  It tells the reader what the benefits of their product or service is.
–  It gives them a motivating reason to ACT NOW – to call, visit or e-mail the advertiser.
–  It tells them to contact the advertiser – usually with a time sensitive or limited availability element!

Here’s an example of a simple action advertisement I read (with the company’s details changed):

“ACME Widgets can save you a recession-busting 45% on your annual widget costs, that’s why we are inviting you to attend our wine and widget evening on 26th February at 7pm.  You can reserve your place now by calling Rachael on 012345 123123.  As places are limited, please call now to avoid disappointment!  Acme Widgets, 22 East Street, London.”

In contrast, most small business advertising creates little motivation for the reader to take action.  These ads are often based around the following:
–  They tell the reader the name of the service or business.
–  They show the reader the advertiser’s logo.
–  They tell the reader a little about what the advertiser does or their benefits.
–  They sometimes list a ‘special offer’.
–  They usually give the reader some contact details.

These ineffective adverts provide information about who the advertiser is and what they do, BUT give no reason for the reader to take action and contact them.  Guess what – generally, no one does!  Here’s a real life example, (with the company name/details changed):

“Acme Widgets have over 20 years of experience and our customer service is second to none.  Last year our widgets were voted ‘Best Value Widget’ by What Widget Magazine.  Our best selling Orange Widget is just £250.  Acme Widgets, 22 East Street, London”.

The majority of small business advertising I see in the press or in trade journals, is far less effective than it could or should be.  There is nothing compelling about what they say – nothing to inspire the reader to do anything.  When I started out in marketing, back in the 1980’s, we used to call these ineffective advertisements ‘flick-through ads’ – because people would literally see them and just carry on flicking through whichever publication they were in, without doing anything.

Remember, all motivation comes from motive

If you want your advertisement to generate masses of new business, you can!  But you need to advertise where your ideal future clients/customers are and give them a BIG enough reason to inspire them to take the action you require.  People are not stupid and will only contact you if there’s a compelling / motivating enough reason for them to do so.  Just having your message “out there” is simply not enough!