Social Media for Small Business

How to Not Suck at Business Blogging

By Christian

This is a post I wrote a while ago, and I’ve decided to share it on Next Level Blogger for this reason…I believe everyone reading this blog is concerned with truly doing what’s necessary to be effective at marketing themselves online. This means different things to different people, but the one thing it means to all business people is that we need to make money blogging. In business, if it’s not profitable, it’s not sustainable. We need to be efficient, and we need to be good.

I maintain regularly in this blog that being successful at making money online requires embracing the salesman we all have inside of us. The topic of sales is always volatile. Most people do not want to be salespeople, but I argue you are a salesperson whether you want to be or not. It’s not a matter of whether you are or not…it’s only a matter of whether you’re good or not. My goal is to help all readers of Next Level Blogger to truly excel in this area and to be successful at making their business all it can be through blogging, social networking and internet marketing. That said, here are some of my thoughts on salesmanship. I’d love to hear your comments…

“Salesman” is a dirty word. It’s one of the reasons I’m attracted to the profession and why I consider myself a salesman. It’s a massively misunderstood profession. It’s also a massively abused and poorly executed profession. There are good salespeople out there, but there are very few. I am one of the good ones. It’s my mission to teach others that salesmanship is not dead but more vital and needed than ever. It’s good salesmanship that will make or break your business. It’s good salesmanship that will make or break your life. It’s good salesmanship (not money) that makes the world go round…

A good sales experience can profoundly change your opinion about something. It can make you a fan for life. It can affect your decisions in a fundamental way. Believe it or not, everyone is in sales. It’s not a matter of debate. You want stuff. Other people have what you want. You want them to give it to you. That makes you a salesperson. Look, this doesn’t mean you’re a GOOD salesperson. You’re probably not. You’re probably a bad salesperson. You’re probably ineffective and inept at sales. But there’s a good reason for that. The reason is you’ve never focused on your sales skills. You’re never sat down to make a plan to systematically improve your sales skills. Probably because you don’t consider yourself a salesman. That’s fine. It’s your choice. But I’m telling you, the sooner you accept the fact that you’re a salesperson, the sooner you can get down to work and finally start getting what you want out of life.

You Have Ethical Responsibilities

Here’s a real key to success in sales. And it’s one of the reasons so many salespeople are bad at what they do. You have ethical responsibilities. It is your right to live how you choose, but it is your ethical mandate to live in a way that is mutually beneficial. Most salespeople just want the close, and that is where they screw it up. The largest most important thing you can do to greatly improve the quality of your life in sales is to answer the question of “why”.

Why do you want what you want? Why do you want your boss to give you more money? Why do you want this person to buy from you? Why do you want more vacation time? Why do you want that new car? Why are you willing to work late and sacrifice time with your family in order to get these things? See, you better have good answers to these questions, and they better be answers you’d be happy to share with your mother. If not, you need to own up to the fact that maybe, just maybe that new car just isn’t worth working for. Maybe you want it for the wrong reasons. Follow?

If you want good things, for mutually beneficial reasons, that is the first and more fundamental step towards becoming a good salesperson. See, if you know why your goal is mutually beneficial, all you have to do is explain it well to your customer, your boss or whoever you’re selling to. With good communication skills, the rest is a piece of cake. It’s when we try to use good communication skills to our customers’ peril…that’s when we give salesmanship a bad name. When we have a goal which is not in our customers’ best interest, but we try to acheive the goal anyway…that’s when we’ve violated our ethical responsibilities. That’s not success, my friend, even if you DO have your dream car.

How to Rock

When you’ve aligned your goals with a healthy concern for others, you will ultimately find that what Zig Ziglar says is true, “You can have anything you want in life, if you can just help enough other people get what they want.” There is no better way to achieve your goals! Now that your goals are simply to help others, you will find that this one factor alone will affect your entire approach to building your business. Instead of just trying to close the deal, you’ll investigate the customer’s motives, needs and wants, and you’ll work to find a way to help and add value. This is true salesmanship. This is where you find common ground and develop a mutually beneficial relationship that lasts. This is how you REALLY reach your long term goals.

And that is why I’m in sales. I know that when I sell a product or a service, I’ve made a friend. I would honestly do whatever I can to help them out, and guess what…I get paid too. A nice little bonus.

How to Use Twitter to Build Business

By Christian

I want to write this quick post about how to use twitter to build business, because almost every time I mention Twitter to my friends, I’m met with confusion. So many people don’t get it. Or so they say. I think you all actually DO get it and just don’t want to admit it!

After all, what is there to explain?

Being able to keep constant tabs on everything people say about you and your brand. Do you not see the value in that?
Being able to contact everyone in your network once, twice or even several times a day and keep in personal contact with thousands of people easily, quickly and for free. Do you not see that value in that?
Having millions of people all in one place in an easily searchable and digestible configuration. Do you not see the value in that?
Being able to not only keep in touch with your base easily and cheaply but being able to massively GROW your contact base, meeting and conversing with as many people as you like…all interested in the same things as you or prime prospects for what your business offers. Do you not see the value in that?

If you do not see the value in these things…which is what Twitter is all about…you do not need to worry about Twitter. You need to get in touch with why you’re in business to begin with!

Is Twitter a funny little tool that will require you to learn some new things and think in new ways? Heck yes. But you’re an entrepreneur, right? Since when does a challenge scare you?

If you want to know how to use twitter to build your business, all you need to do is use it. It’s kind of automatic. Unless of course you just don’t see the value in interacting with people.

How do you feel about this? I know there is some discontent amongst the business community regarding using twitter to build your businesses, because I’ve come face to face with it many times. Does this touch any nerves, answer any questions or tick you off a little bit? Let me know what you think 🙂

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

By Christian

Many people out there are looking for a quick start to internet marketing. I understand. Most people in my network are business people, and we are the kind of people who want to get things rolling quickly. You know being online and marketing yourself with blogging, internet marketing and social networking is essential, but you don’t know the best way to go about it, and you have a million questions.

This massive access to information causes what’s called “paralysis by analysis”. In other words, we’re so fixated on learning what we need to do, we fail to act. This is death for business. You need to act, but you don’t want to screw things up. So here is a quick start to internet marketing checklist that will give you what you need to get started. It contains a little philosophy and a few specific actions that will get you off and running. There is a lot of value in knowing you’re starting off on the right foot, so I hope this helps. If you have any questions, let me know by commenting or contact me!

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

Make the decision that your focus is going to be building a real business…or extending your existing business. Do not allow your sole focus to be making money. If your focus is on building a real business, creating a good reputation and brand and creating value for others, it’s hard to screw things up. It’s when we decide to focus solely on making money that we start doing crappy, spammy things that we will regret later…and that will not do us any good. This is the first step, and it’s easy. Just decide that your focus is going to be on creating value for your customers, not just selling stuff. With that, you have already cleared half the hurdles. Believe it or not, it really is that simple!
Start a blog. Don’t over think it. Don’t dwell on it for more than five minutes. Pick a platform, and fire it up. If you want my specific advise, I recommend using WordPress, and I recommend having a professional set it up for you. I can do it for you, or you can have any number of other professionals do it for you. WordPress can easily be search engine optimized, and it is highly extensible. Some of the most successful blogs on the internet use WordPress, and for good reason. That said, it’s more important to have a blog than it is to make absolutely certain that every detail is perfect. Your blog will serve as the hub of everything you do to market yourself online. It is your home. You need a place to hang your hat. You need a blog.
Post to your blog regularly. The more you blog, the more you will learn. The most important thing is to get started. I could write for 10,000 words easily right now about how to do this. And if you want to solve any specific marketing issues sooner rather than later, I recommend using my consulting services to jump start your efforts. That said, this is not rocket science, and if you put in the effort you will learn everything you need to know simply by doing it. You get out what you put in. Again, if you’re focusing on creating value for your customers, your blog will be on target.
Get on Facebook and Twitter. Are there other social networks? Heck yes there are. Is there value in checking them out and learning about them? Heck yes. But this is a quick start to internet marketing guide, right? So let’s keep it simple. The fact is that Facebook is huge, and Twitter is massively important and an indispensable tool. You can do a lot of damage with just these two. Just as with blogging, use them regularly. An inactive profile is worthless to you. Just like if you leave your house unattended…it will deteriorate over time, this is true for your internet property as well. You have to maintain it for it to grow and remain valuable. Use your social networking profiles for being social and meeting people. Sure, link out to your blog posts and such, but keep the content you produce 99% social. Believe it or not, people know you sell widgets even if you don’t tell em. It’s linked up on your page, see? So they know already. You don’t have to tell them every five minutes. Meet people and concentrate on getting to know and learning from others with similar interests. After doing this for a while, you will start to get these mysterious messages in your inbox. They will be coming from people who have visited your site and are interested in what you’re selling, and you’ll wonder where all this magical activity is coming from. Some of it’s coming from Twitter, believe it or not. And it will have all happened without you having to hard sell anyone. This stuff works really well, if you work it. Let it take time. It’s fun anyway, so why turn it into hard work?
Let it take some time. Like I mentioned in the previous step, this stuff doesn’t happen instantly. One thing about internet marketing is that people often expect immediate results. I’m not sure why that is. It must come from a misconception about what’s happening. When you give someone a business card at a social event, do you expect them to buy something from you right there on the spot? No. You meet 28 people that night, and 9 of them call you back over the next few weeks. You build it from there. This is how it works. Social networking has become confused with being this new phenomenon, and we think it’s complicated. It’s not. Social networking is people with common interests hanging out, talking. This has been going on for ages. It’s how business is done. And building a business takes time.
Read and learn. Study what you’re doing. Read other blogs. Look at other websites, especially within the same field as you’re working. Apply the CASE principle of success I’ve described in a previous post. Never stop this. Learning and stealing ideas from your competitors is another age old business principle that is not ever going to go away. Use it to your advantage.
Don’t quit. Be consistent. As I say so many times, things take time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Of course I don’t consider this quick start to internet marketing checklist an ultra-comprehensive tool. After all, it’s a quick start checklist! However, I would love your input. Do you have anything you’d add?

In upcoming posts, I will be posting some of my top resources. Articles and tools I’ve used to learn this business. It’s only fair for me to share all my secrets with you, seeing as how everything I’ve learned about internet marketing is online…imagine that 🙂

Get High Quality Traffic to Your Site

By Christian

Use this ultra-simple technique to get high quality traffic to your site every day. It works. No, it doesn’t send HUGE traffic to your site. It sends high quality traffic. There is a big difference of course. Huge traffic is great and necessary if you want to make a lot of money from advertising. But as I talk about a lot here, high traffic is only one of many ways to make money online.

My personal experience comes from getting really good conversions from high profit products and services. Some of the sites I run now only get a few thousand visitors a month, but they are highly profitable, because when I get traffic I convert it. And when I convert, I don’t make fifty cents…if you know what I mean. So if you’re offering a truly valuable product or service through your website, you don’t need a lot of traffic. You need GOOD traffic…highly targeted to what you offer.

And the best quality traffic you can get is traffic resulting from personal referrals. Twitter makes this possible, and it is a beautiful thing.

Use Twitter to Get High Quality Traffic

Use this list and let me know how it works for you:

Build a quality network – Yeah, I know. This takes time! It’s OK. It’s worth it. Add people who have interests in line with what you’re offering. They will often follow you back. Also, put your Twitter profile up on all your social profiles, websites, etc. This is how you build your follower count. Use https://search.twitter.com to keep tabs on who’s talking about you or your brand. If someone is talking about how much they love (or even how much they hate) your product, do you think they’re a good person to follow on Twitter? The answer of course is yes.
Install Tweetdeck. Seriously, just do it. It’s the best Twitter client ever, and it will save you a lot of time and help you make better sense of your twitter feed.
Use Tweetdeck to set up ongoing searches for search terms relevant to whatever you’re selling. In other words, if you’re selling “brand xyz widgets”, then “brand xyz widgets” should be one of the searches you have saved in Tweetdeck, bare minimum. When people use the search terms you have saved, they will show up in Tweetdeck automatically. Can you see where this is going?
Talk to them. Thank them for loving you. Thank them for hating on you. Check out their profile, and if you think they’re a good potential buyer for what you sell, follow them.
When appropriate, send them a link to a specific article or other page on their site. **Keep it authentic and conversational. I want to stress that this is not an excuse for spamming people on Twitter. I’ve received my fair share of replies on Twitter when some spammer just responds to something I said with an affiliate link or with a link to a landing page. This is crap, and it’s not what I’m talking about. But if someone is following you and they tweet out something about how they’re really loving a certain band right now, for example…and you happen to have just written a post on how you love that band too…it’s more than appropriate for you to tweet out a link to it.

This takes time, and it takes work. And it is one of the best ways to get great, targeted traffic to your site. Let me know what you think!

How to Really Screw up Your Business With Social Networking

By Christian

As spamming continues to grow on Twitter and other social networks (I’ve been noticing it a lot this past few weeks more than ever), I’m compelled to mention again how easy it is to do more damage to your brand than good when using social networking tools.

Twitter and Facebook are great networking tools, but they’re being treated more and more like get rich quick platforms…as if such a thing really existed. I’m seeing a lot of ads for programs on “How to Use Twitter to Make $10k a month Starting NOW”…and other B.S. like this.

Does anyone actually subscribe to this mentality? I’m taking care not to mention any users or companies specifically. You’re not going to catch me bad mouthing anyone, but you and I both have seen this activity. Here’s the thing:

I think most of these users are more concerned with making money than anything else. They’re not worried about damaging their brand, because they’re not even trying to build a brand. They’re not even TRYING to build a business. They just want to make a few bucks.

I think this kind of shortsightedness is a shame. But the more I see this kind of activity, the more I think this is true. I hope the readers of this blog can see further down the road. Building a real business is NOT that big a deal! Anyone can do it. I hope you can see the truth…spamming out affiliate links and offering no value to your contacts is not a way to build a business. And ironically, it’s also not a good way to even make a few bucks!

When was the last time YOU clicked on a blind link in a piece of spam email you received? When was the last time YOU bought a product through an affiliate link that someone blasted out through an auto-DM on Twitter?

Sensible people don’t buy things this way. It’s just not how it works. If you’re building a real business that you want to be profitable and sustainable, this is the absolute last type of activity you should be involved with.

If people would stop looking for fast money and start actually getting to work, there would be a lot less crap out there. That’s for sure. And they would also learn that making REAL money is not all that difficult.

Have you seen this spamming activity or is it just me?

Do you subscribe to the idea that simply blasting out affiliate links is a way to make money?