Christian

Is Your Message Convoluted and Obscure (does your website suck)?

By Christian

wheelchair-fail — What message is your website giving people? Do you mean well but end up confusing people? Getting objective feedback is essential.

You are not objective when it comes to your marketing. It’s not your fault. I’m not objective when it comes to my marketing either. It’s impossible to be objective when you’re the one who creates something.

Is your latest blog post one that will engage your readers and get them to act?
Is your website’s layout clean and easy to navigate for your visitors?
Are you losing leads, because your opt-in form is hard to find?

As marketers…as business owners, we are not qualified to answer these and many other important questions on our own behalf. It is our customers who decide, so it is our job to listen and learn. It is not our job to cram marketing down their throat and then simply sit back, waiting for the orders to come in. Good marketing is…and always has been…a conversation.

This is why blogging is such a powerful marketing tool…because it is first and foremost NOT a marketing tool. It is a communication tool. Good marketers are good communicators. Perhaps the best book ever written on how to be an effective web marketer is How to Win Friends and Influence People…a book written decades before the internet even existed. Why? Because it teaches you solid principles on how to, well, win friends and influence people. This is exactly what marketing is always about, and blogging hasn’t changed that.

What HAS changed is that now we have the choice to bring the conversation front and center. What HAS changed is that we now have technology which allows us to interact with thousands, even millions, of people in a way that is very time-effective. This is the highest value of blogging to business owners…effective, personal communication in a way that leverages our time.

If your message is convoluted or obscured…you’ll know soon enough. Your readers will tell you by either complaining, not ordering from you, not signing up for your list or talking about you with others. Silence is also feedback. Most new bloggers seem to fear this kind of feedback, and that’s understandable. Feedback is not always fun. It is, however, an essential part of marketing, and without it your marketing will never be more than guesswork or a crap shoot. Feedback rocks. It can be tough, but at least it sets you on the right path…if you listen to it.

If you want to get some professional feedback on your blog or website, check out this page. I’m happy to do an entire site critique for you.

Become Instantly More Valuable to Your Clients

By Christian

acts-of-kindness — Random acts of kindness...probably the most overlooked and effective marketing tactic ever.

Zappos randomly surprises their customers with shipping upgrades. Not all the time, but sometimes. The surprise is delightful to the customer and costs Zappos very little. It probably wins them a customer for life more often than not. Not a bad return on investment, especially when that investment is only a few bucks.

We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.

Not only does an act of kindness like that often win a customer over, it also encourages good will. This causes the happy customer to spread a positive message about you. A little goes a long way. We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.

One small act of kindness doesn’t cost much, and it has the potential to create an advocate. This is the process of reaching out to just ONE person, who will likely reach out to many others on your behalf. This is leverage at it’s finest. We need more of this in business today. A single advocate for your business offers a far better return on investment than focusing large amounts of time and money trying to get a .1% better conversion from an old, tired marketing piece. Yet this is exactly what businesses do.

Established business owners with thousands of past clients will spend their entire marketing budget trying to reach new customers, and meanwhile they ignore everyone who’s already bought from them. I see this all the time. The people who have already bought from you aren’t old news. They’re your biggest asset. Treat them as such. Spend more time and money here than anywhere else!

This doesn’t have to be overly complicated. The whole point in fact…is that it’s simple, effective and inexpensive. Think of ONE simple thing you can do to surprise your customers or clients this month. Genuinely surprise them with something cool, and watch what happens. You’ll be delighted at the response you get.

One final thought; in order for this to be awesome, it has to be genuinely valuable and cool. Don’t fall into the temptation to send them some branded postcard that says “thank you”. You know the postcard I’m talking about. It says “thank you”, but it REALLY says “hey look at me and how nice I am”. Would your customer ordinarily pay money for it? If so, you’re on the right track.

Why I Worked for Years, For Free

By Christian

It takes the average business 5 years to become profitable. Think about that for a second. That means working…for 5 YEARS…for free. Who does this? What kind of sick-minded, masochistic fool starts a business?

We’re called entrepreneurs. We work for wealth, not a paycheck.

The difference between wealth and a paycheck is fantastic! It’s huge. I came across this graph that @mjdemarco posted a long while back, and I think it is very succinct:

Notice how employees (i.e. MOST people) earn quite a lot more than business owners at the start. Business owners are such fools, aren’t they? What losers. They could be making so much more money if they just got a REAL job. So why don’t they?

Again, it comes down to wealth vs a paycheck.

What is the difference?

A paycheck pays the bills. Wealth sets you free.
A paycheck comforts you. Wealth challenges you.
A paycheck makes the car payment. Wealth creates the opportunity for hundreds or thousands of others to make the car payment.
A paycheck makes you smile on Friday at 5PM. Wealth makes you smile when you wake up every morning.
A paycheck makes you look forward to vacation. Wealth makes you look forward to work…AND vacation.
A paycheck sees the internet as a way to kill time. Wealth sees the internet as an opportunity.

So you’re trucking along, and your blog isn’t pulling it’s weight yet. You’ve been working to get your email list going, but it’s taking a while. You’re doing all the right things, but you’re not seeing the results yet. That’s GREAT! You’re in the “working for free” phase of entrepreneurship.

You know what’s REALLY cool? Building a successful and profitable website or blog is even FASTER than building a traditional business. If you’re doing things right, it’s just not gonna take you 5 years. But a lot of you are getting really frustrated and quitting after just a few months. Sorry, you have to stick with it for a while. Please do. The results WILL come.

Why work for free? Because a paycheck is not your goal. Wealth is your goal. What’s wrong with paychecks? Nothing. It’s just a completely, totally different mindset, and if you want to build wealth, a wealth-focused mindset is a prerequisite.

For fun, I’ve included this rant from Chris Rock. Yeah, it’s been around for a long time. You may have seen it already. It stuck with me. It’s hilarious, and it contains a sliver of profound truth. If you’ll be offended by some adult language, don’t watch it.

From now on…build wealth. Have WEALTH be your focus.

If you’re viewing this in a feed that doesn’t support video, click here to view the video 🙂

The Number One Most Horrible Business Strategy Ever

By Christian

Every year this time I ask readers and clients…especially clients…what they’re planning on doing next year.

How will you improve?
How will you grow?
How will your business improve it’s reach?

A disturbingly high percentage of people respond with something like this;

“I’m going to try harder…”

or…

“I’m going to work harder…”

Candidly, this is the most horrible business strategy ever! Why? Because it’s not a strategy at all. Don’t let yourself fall victim to this trap!

This is a great opportunity to talk specifically about web marketing, since that’s the primary focus of this blog. Many people out there right now have some smart things on their to-do list for 2011. They might include:

Start a blog
Launch a new product
Do more prospecting
Get more sales people and/or affiliates
Etc

These are smart items to accomplish. Go for it! I am also an advocate of “try harder…” and “work harder…”. Let’s not misunderstand each other. It is important to work hard; just know that working hard isn’t a strategy. Starting a blog isn’t a strategy. Launching a product isn’t a strategy either. Let me clarify…

The difference between an asset and a strategy

Everything mentioned so far is an asset. Your energy…and the amount of energy you decide to put into your business…is valuable. It’s an asset. It’s an important one. So is your blog. If you’re going to launch a new blog this year, that’s great! It’s an asset. So is a new product. These are all assets, and a successful business needs to have strong assets. Just don’t mistake an asset for a strategy.

I see business owners make this mistake all the time! They create checklists, and they run through everything, convincing themselves they’re working hard and doing the right things. They’re acquiring assets.

Launch a blog…check!
Create a Facebook business page…check!
Create a new product or service…check!
Put in a few more hours each week…check!
Hire a new assistant…check!

You’re piling up assets, but there is no STRATEGY anywhere in sight! So my question to you is…what is your STRATEGY this year? I don’t care much what you want to accomplish. That is highly personal and subjective. You can set whatever goals you want. Whatever edifies you and motivates you…go for it!

Want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year? Great. A million? Great. Goals are important, but they’re very easy to set. We all know the importance of having goals and writing them down. What we need to FOCUS on is strategy. Most of your business plans contain 90% asset aquisition, and very little strategy. This is fun for a month or two, because you get to be busy, and you get to check things off your list, but after a short while it starts to become apparant that nothing is really happening.

Have you ever started a website, and it just sat there accomplishing nothing?
Have you ever launched a new lead generation system that cost you some money but fails to pull it’s weight?
Have you ever hired someone that doesn’t add to your company’s bottom line?

These are all examples of assets that have been mistaken for strategies. Let me explain…

The problem is that when we mistake assets for strategy, we end up with a bunch of assets that aren’t performing. If you buy a rental property, you have an asset. But if you fail to manage it properly, it turns to crap over a period of time, and you end up with a liability that just ends up costing you money. That’s what assets do when you don’t attach a strategy. So, make sure you have a strategy!

What is your strategy?

Want to start a blog? That’s a terrific, powerful asset. Congratulations! Now…what is your strategy?

What specifically do you want your blog to accomplish for your business? Brand awareness, lead generation, sales, client engagement?
What schedule will you follow to produce content for your blog on a consistent, regular basis?
What specific tactics will you employ to drive traffic to your blog? SEO, PPC, social media, etc?
What metrics will you use to TEST and measure your growth?
Why are these specific metrics important to you?
How often will you visit these metrics, and if things are not on track, what will you do to GET on track?

These questions are the BEGINNING of what it takes to create a strategy, and some of them aren’t necessarily easy to answer. You might have to do some research. You might have to do some networking or hire a consultant to give you some perspective. I do consulting by the way 🙂

The ideal asset to strategy ratio

Do you see the difference between an asset and a strategy? Do you see how essential it is to have one strategy for every asset you have? An asset without a strategy quickly becomes a liability. MANY of you have a lot of liabilities on board that are costing you a lot of time and money. You can cut them loose, or you can put them to work for you.

Importantly, when it comes to marketing most of you guys (for those of you who don’t know, I work with and write this blog for a specific type of small business owner) only need a few marketing assets. 2-3 strong lead generation systems coupled with a strong marketing strategy WILL produce more leads than you even know what to do with.

Are you marketing efforts getting that type of results in your business? If not…it’s time to develop a STRATEGY that works for you!

The 5 Stages of Awesomeness and High Conversion

By Christian

Want a highly profitable, effective marketing plan? I’m going to hit you hard and fast with this. Your marketing plan HAS to include all 5 of these elements, or you’re throwing away money…lots of it. Here are the five stages:

Attention – get their attention
Cultivation – build relationships
Conversion – make offers; sell stuff
Contribution – generate repeat and referral business
Advocacy – identify your greatest “fans” and aid them in the work of spreading your message

These five stages are all essential when it comes to making a huge living from a small blog or website. Interestingly, before internet marketing came to power, most businesses lived solely in the “attention” and “conversion” stages. Sell a product. Find a new customer, sell them a product. Find yet another new customer, sell them a product. And on and on it goes. Madness.

Most internet marketers these days spend all their time in the “cultivation” category. The focus now is all on relationships. I’m a fan of relationships. Where would I be without my friends and clients? Nowhere. That said, relationships are not the end of the story. They’re not even the BEGINNING of the story. Yet most marketers these days are convinced they’re the WHOLE story! Bullocks.

Read Jeffrey Fox’s great book The Secrets of Great Rainmakers, if you want the TRUTH about relationships. Read the chapter called “Relationships are Bunk”. Succinct. Beautiful.

Successful marketers make a killing all day long by taking each one of these essential phases to task. It can be done intentionally or unintentionally, but it’s a lot easier to take a deliberate approach and make sure you’re covering all your bases. Like all of the tactics we discuss here, if you do it, you’ll get the result. It’s just how it works.

Let’s discuss each of these 5 stages in depth. Please fire any of your questions to me by email or Twitter. I’ll answer them. Articles covering each of these individually are coming soon…