DT Business Strategies
Maximize your ROI with a Small Business Marketing Strategy that Works.
By Christian
I got a question from a reader the other day about how to use RSS as a promotional tool and to get more traffic for your blog. You can use RSS as a great way to get subscribers and syndicate the content you publish to a number of other sources.
Many of you know about RSS already, but if you have questions about what it is or how to use it, this quick video will show you what I personally do to use RSS to promote my blog. I hope it helps, and I welcome questions đ
By Christian
The mentality that selling is bad or loathsome is pervasive. The more I talk about it, the more Iâm confronted with the misconceptions people have. Even blogging A-listers and well-known social media consultants proudly express their preference for marketing over sales. Sales is broadly viewed as distasteful, and that is simply unfortunate, because it spells a huge number of missed opportunities. Marketing and sales overlap in fundamental ways, and to think you can do one or the other, especially when it comes to social media marketing where personal engagement is a key component, is a big mistake that will dilute your effectiveness to no end.
Marketing works. So does sales. They are different skill sets, and a business owner needs to know how to use both. Surely many businesses have operated purely on marketing in the past. And this is what has allowed a fear of sales to develop. But social media marketing is becoming more and more crucial, and the more social media becomes an indispensable component to business, the more sales skills will become a requirement for success.
Thatâs why Iâm using Next Level Blogger to spread the word about the importance of learning how to sell while most other bloggers are still focusing on ads. This is the direction business blogging is going.
As business owners, we need to learn that selling is not manipulation. It is not some black hat, malicious tactic. It is not the act of underhandedly trying to extort our customers. What a simplistic and inaccurate way of looking at it! Sales is a skill set. Nothing more. Nothing less. It teaches you how to engage people on a personal level, effectively and skillfully matching problems and solutions to a mutually beneficial end. It can be used to truly offer an invaluable service to our customers and clients.
Like any skill set, sales skills can be used for both good and evil. It is no different than the skills an attorney learns for navigating our legal system or that which a physician learns for solving problems of the body. Any skill set can be used for good or harm. Unfortunately sales has been abused (as is the case for ALL fields of expertise, but I digress), and it has been misunderstood for many years.
Traditional business models have allowed this misconception to perpetuate. But of course, traditional business models are crumbling these days, and that is why I’m preaching the importance of learning these essential skills, which I teach to clients. Marketing works. But combining sales and marketing in a skillful manner makes you invincible. It is a super power!
Seriously though, if you know marketing you can make a great living, and that is a beautiful skill to have. But if you know how to sell, you are recession-proof. Period. And that is a killer skill to have as well. Why would you not want both?
You can use a car to destroy property or even kill someone. That doesnât make driving evil or underhanded. I find it ironic that sales gets a bad wrap while marketing is touted as a more ethical and honest way to conduct business. Give me a break. Iâm tempted to accuse people who say this crap of being high-minded and elitist, but I know itâs not the case. Itâs just that they havenât had the same experiences Iâve had. They donât know the power of sales. Marketing has been abused and used to convey inaccurate and misleading messages for generations. It is no less a means of distraction and coercion than anything else.
The reason marketing has become the preferred method of building a business is not because it’s “better” or “more effective”. It’s only played out this way because it allows business owners to run their businesses from a distance…without getting emotionally or personally involved with their customers. Put more simply, itâs less messy. I donât mean to downplay the power of marketing here. But marketing does allow you to remain detached, while sales puts you in the thick of it. Itâs scary, and when something is scary our minds come up with all kinds of excuses for not doing it. But excuses donât build successful businesses, do they?
Well, the days that we will be able to get away with running our businesses without personal engagement are numbered. This means we need to learn how to engage people on a personal level and help them solve their problems. There’s a word for that. It’s called “sales”. And if selling makes me evil, baby I donât wanna be good >:)(just kidding)
Do you avoid selling to your customers, clients or blog readers? Do you find it difficult to ask for people to buy things? Do you feel selling is selfish, unethical or rude?
By Christian
Every business has them. Most business owners are oblivious to them. Thatâs where you and I need to be different.
What is an advocate? An advocate is a fan of your business. Someone youâve worked with or someone who has bought from you. They know what you do, like what you do and truly believe you bring real value. They have no problem sharing their belief with their friends and peers. When someone has a question about something that relates to what you do, they donât hesitate to say âYou should really talk to so-and-so. Theyâre the best in the business.â You gotta love an advocate!
But ironically most business owners DONâT love their advocates! Mostly because they donât know about them. This is a step we cannot afford to ignore.
I mentioned every business has advocates. Is this true? It really is. If youâve done business for any length of time, you no doubt have some real fans. See if you really sucked and everyone you work with is disappointed, youâre simply not going to be in business for very long! So if youâre in business, yes you have advocates. And itâs essential to take measures to identify them.
How do you find them? There is a highly specialized technique I use that I was taught by a guru many years ago. I ask. You should too!
When someone buys something from you or subscribes to your newsletter or works with you as a client, etcâŚask them how they found you. This is old school, and oddly enough many businesses just donât do this.
Are you going to get an answer 100% of the time? Absolutely not. It truly is impossible to get perfect results with this. The beautiful thing is that it doesnât have to be flawless. You just need to make a concerted effort. It will pay off for you.
The reason your execution doesnât need to be perfect is because just by catching up with a percentage of your advocates can have a beautiful effect. You donât have to snag all of them (although the more the better); you just need to snag SOME of them. Do this, and youâll be writing me a thank you letter at some point. I guarantee it!
The cool thing is that an advocate can be turned into a real asset. Letâs say you get a new client. You ask them how they found you, and they give you an interesting answer. They tell you that their coworker had worked with you about 6 months ago, and they told them you were the person to call. Youâve officially received a referral client. That is an awesome thing.
Youâve already done one great thing. You asked. Now you have an answer, and you have a name. The next thing you need to do is contact that person who referred your new client to you, and you need to thank them personally. I recommend even sending them a gift of some kind if appropriate.
Reward this behavior. Donât let their gracious behavior that led to you getting a new paying customer go unnoticed. Let them know in a very clear way that you appreciate it. And let them know that you want MORE!
Itâs easy to see that big companies are understanding the power of advocates more and more. Referral programs are growing in number. Vonage offers a month or more of service for free to every customer you refer to them. Thatâs just one of many examples. Vonage understands that word of mouth advertising is powerful, and they want to harness as much of it as possible. Thatâs smart.
Like I mentioned, this kind of activity is most likely happening behind your back. If you believe in letting things like that go on without you having any control over them, then thatâs up to you. But if you can harness and encourage and make it worth their while for people to continue referring business to you, do you see how powerful that can be?
Are you asking your customers how they found you? Are you taking this (or any other steps) to identify your advocates?
By Christian
David Risley is one of the bloggers I read regularly, and if youâre not completely familiar with his site you should get over there and subscribe right awayâŚif youâre interested in marketing yourself effectively online that is đ
I run this âmake money onlineâ blog from a very different angle than David and most other writers in this space. Iâm not a media guy. Iâm not a marketing guy, and Iâm CERTAINLY not a tech guy. Iâm a sales guy.
Iâve spent years in the field selling and training others to make money for themselves. Iâve spent the last three years adapting all that experience to internet marketing, and itâs been a beautiful journey. Thatâs my angleâŚdirect sales. Itâs what I do, and itâs what I teach.
An article David Risley posted a couple days ago speaks to how essential direct sales is to blogging. I highly recommend you check it out. I love seeing a well-known blogger like David Risley talking about this, because it makes me feel like this very important idea is catching on. Unfortunately it has a long way to go before being mainstream though.
I am convinced a fundamental truth is coming out more and more, and itâs essential to pay attention to itâŚhere it is:
The WAY people search for information and buy things is changing. This is a permanent, global change. However, the REASONS people buy things havenât changed at allâŚand arenât going to.
What does this mean to youâŚthe business owner or professional who wants to thrive throughout this economic downturn and all these paradigm shifts that weâre witnessing? Itâs simple. It means you need to become a competent sales professional. Youâre in sales! You need to become very good at engaging people and selling to them.
As a sales trainer, Iâve trained over a thousand people to go out and make more sales. What do you think is the biggest obstacle Iâve had to overcome?
It isnât any of these. Fact is, sales is pretty damn simple. And you know what? It still is. There are absolutely some things to learn, but itâs not rocket science.
The biggest obstacle Iâve had to overcome with my sales training clients is EXCUSES. Hereâs the brutal truth: people avoid sales like the plague. Even sales professionals avoid it. Itâs called âcall reluctanceâ. They come up with all kinds of creative ways to avoid selling.
In fact, people pride themselves on their aversion to sales! CEOâs talk openly about how they hate to sell. People talk about how they avoid selling as if itâs a good thing. This is such a misplaced mentality, and it shows clearly how misunderstood the art of selling is.
But hereâs the rubâŚmore and more people are realizing they HAVE to learn how to sell. Because if you donât sell, youâre out of business. You have to make sales to stay in business, yet most business people hate sales. See anything wrong with this picture?
Hereâs something I hope will offer some comfort: Itâs not sales youâre afraid of, itâs BAD sales. Good sales is simple, natural and fun. And high-paying! You have to learn how to do it. It takes training, and it takes practice, but anyone can learn it. People misunderstand what sales is because theyâve spent their whole lives avoiding itâŚtheyâve never learned it.
As Risley mentions in his article (if you havenât swung out to check it yet, please do), many bloggers out there are still fixated on making money with advertising. Thing is, that works to a certain degree. If youâre getting a lot of traffic (I mean a lotta lot of traffic), you can make some scratch with advertising. But there is SO much more opportunity out there. The bottom line is that not all niches are high traffic niches. So if youâre niche isnât a high traffic niche, are you S.O.L.? Well, if you arenât willing to learn direct sales, then yes, youâre S.O.L.
So many gurus and âexpertsâ out there are touting social media as a way to âsell without sellingâ. Screw that noise. If you donât sell, you donât make sales! Let’s call a spade a spade. Sound fair?
âSelling without sellingâ is another way of saying âmaking sales on accidentâ. When it comes to my business, I want to know what the heck Iâm doing. I donât want my success to be accidental, because if itâs accidental, then I can succeed one month and totally suck the next month, and I wonât know why. Thatâs no way to live.
Here are three steps every business owner or professional needs to make right now:
Weâre entering a new era at full speed, and itâs an era where job security is non-existent, opportunity is huge and risks are high. More and more people are coming online to market their wares. Business is highly competitive. To succeed you have to be good, period.
Thatâs the world we live in. If you are willing to do the work, you can thrive and live very well here. All you bloggers out there looking for a quick buck or some turnkey âautomaticâ or âautomatedâ solution to making moneyâŚgo on and keep looking; let me know how that works out for ya!
Almost 10 years now Iâve been in sales and training/coaching people to make more money. Most people are looking for a way to chillax. Why would you want to kick back and chill when you have a BUSINESS that excites you? You wouldn’t. You’d want to go out a raise hell every single day. Thatâs why I consider it so vital to absolutely LOVE what you do. Because when you LOVE what you do, you canât wait to get at it every day. You push hard every day for results, because you just really like what youâre doing. Thatâs where you want to be. Thatâs where you have to be!
I read in a book years ago that sales is âthe highest paying hard work and the lowest paying easy workâ. Iâm pretty sure it was Brian Tracy who wrote that, but Iâm not positive. But itâs true.
Iâve known sales people (in all different kinds of fields) that are barely getting by, and Iâve known sales people who make an absolute killing. Whatâs the difference? I know many people are still convinced that successful sales professionals have a particular sleazy charm that just comes naturally to them, and in order to be good at sales you need to be born with the âshyster geneâ. But itâs not true. First of all, selling is not sleazyâŚat all, when itâs done well. Second, sales can be learned. And it can be taught. Thatâs what I do.
The difference is not some innate talent or ability. The highly-paid, successful sales professionals of the world all employ an ancient and proven technique that works every time. They work their tail off, and they love every minute of it!
So, quick recap:
Sales comes naturally to very few people, but it can be learned by anyone. It is the art of engaging people on a personal level and helping them to solve a problem. When done well, it is a invaluable service to others.
Of course when used poorly or maliciously, sales is the same as any other powerful weapon. It can be used for both good and evil. It is the evil use of sales that everyone fears and wants to avoid. The solution is simple. Donât be evil. If youâre not evil, then learning to sell will not make you evil. It will just enable you to help you customers on a much deeper and more meaningful level. It will also make you rich. Nice secondary benefit, no?
At the end of the day, sales is nothing to be scared of. It is simply a skill set you learn. You learn it through training, study and practice. And when you learn it, it makes your income and livelihood impervious to any changes in the economy. A good thing!
How do you feel about selling? Do you avoid it? Does it scare you? Do you think Iâm full of it and that learning to sell is not necessary? Iâd love to hear your thoughts!
By Christian
Asking for the order is a key sales principle. In fact, itâs a key life principle! If you donât ask, you donât get! This can often come off as a âduhâ kind of statement. If you want someone to buy from you, you should probably ASK them to buy from you! Agreed?
But year after year, study after study show that salespeople will often perform an entire sales presentation and fail to ask for the order at the end. Bottom line: itâs scary for many of us to ask people to buy something. So we leave them to figure it out for themselves. We do this in the name of politeness, but really we do it out of fear. As I probably donât even need to tell youâŚit rarely produces the desired result.
Internet marketers and bloggers are big culprits of this as well, not just sales people in a classic, traditional sense. Most often, as much as I hate to say it, bloggers. So many bloggers want to make money yet fail to ever ask for it. They donât want to be pushy. Itâs understandable. But the sentiment is misplaced. Iâll explain in a secâŚ
First, itâs important to understand that asking for the order goes for making sales but also for many other things as well.
Tell your readers what you want. Ask for the order. If you donât, youâre expecting them to telepathically figure out what you want, and well franklyâŚwhy should they go through the trouble? If you want to get good results as often as possibleâŚmake it easy for them!
Asking for what you want requires confidence. Confidence comes from three places:
Iâve trained over a thousand sales people, and I can report that very few people are good at sales starting out. I sure wasnât. Selling simply does not come naturally to most people. It is a skill set you acquire through hard work and practice. One thing about sales is very cool. If you follow the rules, you get the results, period.
Employ these three principles, and youâll get the results youâre looking for!
Genuine value is the element I mention first, because itâs the foundation. If you donât create genuine value for your readers, everything else is a farce. Thereâs a difference between selling via confidence and simply trying to make money.
Selling is not the act of extracting money from peopleâs wallets. Selling is the act of freely and voluntarily exchanging real value. Give your reader something very valuable, and then they reciprocate. Itâs a win-win. It all starts with value. If you skip this part, the exchange is empty, and you wonât be in this business for long.
This is why I mentioned earlier that the fear of being pushy is misplaced. Itâs pushy to try to get something for nothing. Itâs pushy to expect someone to pay for something they donât need. Itâs pushy to pressure someone to do something thatâs not in their best interest. Youâre not doing anything of this sort.
What youâre doing is providing highly valuable information to people who have specifically sought you out, because they want what youâre offering. And as it happens, youâre good at what you do, and youâd like to be able to keep doing it. In order for that to happen, you simply need to get results. Itâs fair and necessary to ask for what you want. And your readers arenât going to know unless you tell them what that is.
How do you create genuine value for your readers? Be good at what you do! Study your business like a mad man. Write quality, helpful content, put out good stuff. Thatâs the first step.
Itâs important to understand that this step doesnât work all by itself. Itâs just step one of three. Many bloggers put out awesome content and still fail to make money or get results. Itâs not just about genuine value, but itâs a necessary first step.
Technique is simply a matter of making sure youâre very clear on what results you need and expect from your blog, and then systematically going through to make sure every element of your site, from the opt in boxes you use to the way you manage your email marketing, is arranged in such a way that it is clear to your readers what youâre offering and what you want them to do.
There are a number of ways to ask for what you want when it comes to managing a blog. As I mentioned before, itâs not just a matter of selling products when it comes to blogging. You want people to comment on your posts, subscribe to your email list, buy your affiliate products, etc. There are likely a number of actions you want your readers to take. Itâs important to ask! Try these specific steps. They are all ways of asking, and getting:
Use a plugin like TweetThis that makes it easy for people to share your content with others, and make sure to remind people on occasionâŚâHey, if you like this post, please retweet itâŚâ you get the idea.
Clearly, different blogs have different goals, but this list is a start. The idea is to have your goals in order, and then simply make sure your site and the way you manage it is conducive to getting the results you want.
This element is crucial as well. The fact is that when it comes to business blogging, turning your readers into advocates, customers and clients is an ongoing process. The more you practice the better you get.
Iâm surprised sometimes at how often someone will ask me why theyâre not making money from their blog when, with all due respect, all theyâve done is put up a dozen posts or so and install an Adsense module. Maybe a couple affiliate links. That will make you some cashâŚif youâre getting several thousand visitors a day. Short of that, youâre going to need to be more aggressive and tactful in your approach.
Think of your blog as a small retail shop. Youâre not WalMart. WalMart puts a bunch of stuff up on itâs shelves, sells everything really cheap and then brings in massive amounts of people through. That creates sales. Youâre not WalMart, so donât follow their business model!
What happens in a small retail shop? There are fewer items for sale, and the prices are higher. But things are also very clean. There is character, and when you walk in, a friendly person walks up, smiles and warmly says âHi! How can I help you?â Personal service. One-on-one engagement. DetailsâŚthese things matter. And they also add up to you being able to make a fine living off any niche you want. But you gotta ask for the order đ
Hereâs the bottom line: sales is simple. Itâs hard work getting results on a day-to-day basis. But the process is not hard to understand. It’s just a lot of work đ Itâs why youâve got guys like Gary Vaynerchuk yelling at us to get our hustle on. You have to believe in what youâre doing. And you have to LOVE what youâre doing, because to build a small business that makes bankâŚis a lot of hard work. No magical web design, no plugin, no kick ass turnkey business opportunity is going to save you from that reality.
That said, if youâre willing to really work it, there is massive opportunity out there! And the fundamentals of sales are steadfast. They are simple, and they remain simple.
If youâre not getting results from your siteâŚthere is something broken in your implementation of the steps I just outlined. Youâre either not asking for what you want, youâre not asking often enough or *gasp* youâre not creating genuine value for your readers. One way or another, your fortune lies locked behind door one, two or three! All you gotta do is go figure out which one and smash down the door!