Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Marketing Coach: Grow Your Business with Selective Access

There's an old marketing saying - create services around your products and productize your services. 

This is good advice because it works for big businesses like IBM and it works for smaller businesses - like yours. 

IBM used to be in the computer hardware business... They were struggling and almost went under in the early 1990's when IT hardware was becoming commoditized. Under new CEO Louis Gerstner, they decided they were in the business of solving business problems, not selling boxes. Within a few short years, their services and consulting revenue dwarfed their hardware sales.

For most small and solo professional service providers, our commodity is our time. Yet our value lies in our expertise.

So how YOU package, market and distribute your expertise become central to your lead-generating and revenue-generating success.

And the best way to do that is to implement a model I call "Selective Access."

Imagine you are running a 5-star restaurant. Your flagship offering is a 7-course gourmet dinner. You also offer lunch which is less fancy (and less expensive). And perhaps you have an up-scale catering or to-go division too.

Prices vary depending on the following four factors:

1. Quality and quantity of ingredients

2. Complexity of preparation

3. Level of service

4. Level of access to the dining environment

Put simply - dinner costs more than lunch which costs more than a snack to-go. 

In my own business, I offer 1-on-1 marketing mentoring (dinner), I run group marketing programs several times each year (lunch) and I work with a few people each month via 1-hour pinpoint sessions (just-enough, just-in-time power snacks!)

Plus I occasionally throw in a "happy meal" which is a free high-value session that's open to everyone. 

Now let's turn the spotlight on YOUR business. Think about - or grab a piece of paper and jot down - what the following looks like in your world: 

1. YOUR Flagship investable opportunity: 

2. YOUR Secondary investable opportunity: 

3. YOUR "To-go" offering (high-value, low-risk, fast, affordable)

4. YOUR FREE happy meal (think of this as a high-value "gift" you can offer to folks who might be good prospects.) 

YOU'RE INVITED: The next "happy meal" coming your way is Tuesday 10/30 at 2pm Eastern. It's a zero-cost high-impact Marketing Blueprint Session and you can read about it here. 

Hope you'll join us on 10/30. 

Bad news: You are 9 days into the month and your website traffic is down 43%. 

Worse news: You don't even know about it. 

Why not? 

Because if you're like most small business owners, (non-web) entrepreneurs and independent professionals, you look at your web stats once a month - and almost always when it's too late. 

So the question for you and your organization is - are you looking at your web marketing game plan as a forward-looking fitness program -- or as a backward-looking autopsy?

The autopsy approach sounds like this: "What went wrong? Where did our site visits go? How come opt-ins dropped? Our bounce rate climbed again..." Sigh, worry, fret, fret, fret...

The fitness approach sounds like this: "It's been 10 days since our last blog post, we have to post more regularly - let's put something up this Tuesday and again on Thursday. Where's our SEO score card? I think we dropped back a few places on two of our keywords and it looks like we're back at #1 again for 'Poughkeepsie laundromat' - woo hoo! We need to load some fresh tweets to drive more traffic to our free report because it looks like opt-ins are dropping..."

DANGER: The fit get fitter. And the autopsy people are dead on the table. 

Where do your website stats stand today?

Please leave your insights, advice and recommendations in the COMMENTS section below...

Keywords: Marketing coach, small business marketing coach

I just came across a website that claims to feature the Top 100 "Voices that Shape Opinion" - Grab a quick look here: http://say100.saymedia.com

It reminded me of a few years back when I was attending the 99% Conference and happened to strike up a conversation with Tina Roth Eisenberg, a sorta-cool, sorta-famous-in-that-indie-way designer and blogger. She is one of the Say 100 - http://say100.saymedia.com/design

Three things that made an impression on me when I met Tina:

1. She seemed like a nice, unassuming, down-to-earth person when chatting 1-on-1. She was no big deal to me because I wasn't one of her design groupies and she simply seemed like an interesting person among the 300 or so equally interesting people at the conference...

2. During this 10-minute coffee break, about a dozen people came up to her - interrupting our conversation - with that "Oh my god, it's HER" look on their faces... 

3. She interrupted OUR conversation each and every one of those dozen times to greet her fans - mostly strangers mixed in with one or two seemingly more meaningful acquaintances or friends...

So it became clear to me that among a certain subgroup of this conference, Tina WAS indeed a big deal. 

But she lost some points in my book by trading superficial fandom for the possibility of a new connection - even with a "nobody" like me. 

Truth is - put me in a different room, and among an equally teeny-tiny minority of folks, I am the one who is a big deal. But I make damn sure NEVER to treat a conversation partner the way Tina treated me. 

I've had a 5-minute conversation with a new friend at similar events while two, three or even four people start stacking up in my peripheral vision wanting a word with me. Know what I do? I ignore 'em. Politely but with determined focus, I continue my conversation with the person who was gracious enough to share THEIR time and attention with me. 

I'm a big believer in the notion of "love the one you're with" in a professional networking sense. Do anything else and you seem like a needy, egotistical goober who suffers from false celebrity syndrome (FCS - it's deadly). 

Here's my challenge to YOU - in the rooms where YOU are a "big deal," how do you treat your NEW friends, acquaintances, and networking connections?

Do you NEED to collect on every last drop of all that ego satisfaction?

Or are you willing to put your ego aside and act like a "regular person" when you may - or may not - be considered as such in the real world outside that room? 

If you're truly a big deal - regardless of the scope of that statement for you - are you kind, attentive and humble? Or is that just an act until YOUR fans start lining up and asking you to have their picture taken with you? 

It matters much more than a list of who matters. 

What do YOU think? Please leave your COMMENTS, thoughts and experiences below...

Marketing Concept: The Power of "Because"

Guest post from Sales Speaker Ron Karr

Imagine you have been waiting on a long line for the cashier in a supermarket. After 20 minutes your turn is finally approaching and out of nowhere someone cuts in front of you.

What would you do?  

Depending on your personality and values, the answers would vary from being quite physical to saying, “Hey buddy, the line starts back there.”  

Now imagine the same scenario, this time the person who cuts in front of you says, “Would you mind terribly if I cut in? I need to because __________”  

The reasons after the word “because” can vary from the person needing to get back to a child or animal in a car, needing to get home for an ailing person, being late picking up his kids, being late for work, not feeling well, etc.  

The actual reason matters, but it would not mean anything if the word “because” did not precede it. The word “because” signals a justification, a reason why something should be done. In the example above, not many people would... 

Read the rest of this post on Ron's Sales Expert blog here. 

I get questions. Some are smart and some are... not so smart.

This one is not QUITE worth the Marketing Jackass Award - but it's close. 

And now without further ado, here it is - THE Dumbest Marketing Question of the Week (yes, it's only Wednesday but I have a high level of confidence that it won't get any worse THIS week)...

=====
From: Joe Blow <joe@JoeBlowCompanyShallRemainNameless.com>
To: david@doitmarketing.com  
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 4:54 PM
Subject: David, may I borrow your mind?  

David,  

We all appreciate and can feel the power of social media. My question is, if I do not care about impression national wide / long time brand build, what's the best way to move products? Just simply sale it.  

-- Joe
=====

First, this gent wants to "borrow my mind." That's a compliment I suppose. Some days, I'm not sure even I can use it to best advantage. Tell you what, Joe -- it's yours. Be my guest...

If I don't care about impressions nationwide - Hello? This guy sells a product. A great product. A product sold on the web. GLOBALLY. Yet the premise of his question is that he doesn't care about impressions nationwide. This is problem #1.

I don't care about long time brand build - WHAT?? So you want the slam-bam thank-you ma'am instant sort of branding, name recognition, word-of-mouth referrals, and raving fan base, right? Coming right up... How about a zero-calorie Big Mac to go with that? And some non-addictive cigarettes? This type of wishful fantasy thinking is problem #2.

What's the best way to move products? Just simply sale it? The best way to "move products" and sell more is to make impressions nationwide, become known as the "trusted brand" in your market, focus on a niche to generate a raving fan base over time, and let your customers spread the word about how ridiculously AWESOME your product is. Missing this fact ("as obvious as a ham sandwich" as Alan Weiss likes to say) is problem #3.

The second best way (and it's a FAR DISTANT second) is to invest in a LOT of direct marketing and buy a LOT of advertising. 

I'm not being a smartass - really - because if you have the direct marketing and advertising budget of Bose, Gevalia, or Tempur-Pedic - be my guest. Spend hundreds of millions of dollars. But here's the rub: THAT will take YEARS too! And a whole hell of a lot more dollars.

You can do it my way. For 95% less money. Starting right now.  

Your call, Joe. 

What do you think? Please share your responses in the COMMENTS area below...

Here is special treat for you: A 45-minute content-packed interview with marketing coach and professional services marketing expert Stacey Hylen of Business Optimizer Coach.

Simply right-click the link below and select "Save File As..." "Save Target As..." or "Download Linked File..." and save the digital audio file to your Desktop:

Download Interview Now

Stacey and I share some rock-solid ideas to help you profit from "Low-Hanging Fruit Strategies to Rapidly Increase Your Sales" 

Stacey helps 6- and 7-figure entrepreneurs and professionals get more business, more profits, and more time off. 

NOTE: Don't forget to grab your Listening Guide and Resources that Stacey mentions during our interview. Grab your copy now at...

http://businessoptimizercoach.com/dnewman/ 

Listen in, grab your free resources and then please leave a comment below so you can...

This week's Marketing Jackass Award goes to... me.

Why? Because I just conducted one of the WORST sales calls of my life. Yes, it was that bad.

Let's count the ways so that YOU can apply these 7 lessons to YOUR sales process. And so you never have to blow it like I just did.

1. Wrong prospect. I knew it in my bones even before we got on the phone. He doesn't fit, he's missing a lot of the DNA markers of our most successful clients, he's sort of "out there."

2. Wrong process. Did he read the material I sent ahead of time? No. Did he know what business we are in? No. Did he understand how we work and what we do - and WHY? No. Is this my prospect's fault? HELL NO - it's my fault for not following my own process (and not making SURE the prospect followed it too). The only thing worse than "wrong process" is NO PROCESS. And as a marketing coach, I've been guilty of that in the past as well, but this time it was all on me that I had a process that my prospect did not follow. I should have rescheduled the moment I found this out. But I didn't.

3. Wrong budget. Why, why, WHY do I keep having sales conversations with people whose initial inquiries start with the phrase "money is tight" or "I don't have two nickels to rub together." (I've gotten both of these - verbatim - in the last 5 days). If they claim poverty on the approach, they will not suddenly become millionaires on the call. Bring up money FAST and EARLY. Not your fees but THEIR own pricing, their ROI, their average sale, their customer lifetime value. Do that and you'll set the context for your fees as an investment and you'll be able to avoid the sticker shock when you drop a number on someone before you've established commensurate VALUE for them. 

4. Wrong words. Do you listen (TRULY listen) to what your prospects say in the first few minutes of your sales conversations? Can you identify when they are using the "right words" vs. the "wrong words" to indicate their readiness to move ahead, their understanding of the value that your products and services bring, and their level of sophistication as an educated consumer? If you did, you'd make more sales faster - and you'd stop wasting precious selling time with price shoppers, tire kickers and broke-ass losers. 

5. Wrong questions. Do you listen just as carefully - maybe more so - to the kinds of questions your prospect asks YOU during the sales call? Can you tell from THEIR questions if they are tracking with your best clients and customers? Can you identify their underlying urgencies and priorities based on the questions that they ask? Have you ever gently redirected a "bad" question with the phrase, "The real question I'm hearing you ask is... And the answer to that question is..." Examples of bad questions include fear-based questions that fixate on guarantees, warrantees, all that could go wrong, insignificant details and irrelevant metrics. 

6. Wrong bravado. When a prospect spends any significant amount of time telling me how successful they are, how financially lucrative their business is, how much money they make, and what kind of car they drive, I know we're not a fit. Here's the truth, folks: Successful people ARE successful. They don't TALK about being successful. Someone who brags like this suffers from low self-esteem - or even worse, he is a mental child who is still psychologically trying to impress their Mommy and Daddy who never loved them enough in the first place. Move on - and quick! 

7. Wrong fit. Put your current prospect in an imaginary lineup with your very favorite clients and very best customers - both past and present. Does this prospect fit? Do they belong there? Are they a natural extension of your business family? If not, that should be enough to get you to hang up the phone right then and there. Like attracts like. If your prospect would stick out like a sore thumb in your lineup of current clients, that means there is something seriously wrong and you should NOT allow that prospect into the circle of the clients whom you love working with - and who love you. 

Fail to heed these 7 warning signs and the best case scenario is that you'll waste a lot of precious time, energy and effort on the wrong prospects who won't do business with you anyway. And the worst case scenario is that you'll end up with a goofball client - or at the very worst, a "nightmare client from hell." 

Friends don't let friends blow up their sales process.

You're welcome.

I love you. 

Thoughts? Insights? Reactions? Please use the COMMENTS section below to share... 

Want to Grow Your Business With Blogging? Here’s Your Quick-Start Guide

Guest post by Claudia Somerfield

One of the easiest and most powerful tools for growing your business is the business blog. Most marketing advisers suggest including a business blog as a sales tool. If you are a business owner, entrepreneur, or thought-leading professional and want to expand your influence with blogging, here is a quick-start guide that will have you up and running in no time at all.

Start with a clear plan

A common mistake that many businesses make when they start a blog is not having a long term plan in place. This applies to various aspects of the blog.

Consider these questions:

• What is the core purpose of your blog?
• How do you want it to look?
• What should be the writing style and tone of your blog posts?
• How openly do you want to position your blog as a sales tool?
• What kind of interface do you want to offer your blog readers to contact you?
• How do you want people to find your blog on a web search?

Having a clear cut strategy makes your blog much more focused, consistent and professional.

The web is often referred to as a fickle medium. If your blog readers do not find your blog of value, they will not return, they will not click through to your products or services, and they will not promote it by sharing it on their social networks.

At the end of the day, your reader looks for value, and your long term plan can help determine the specific nature and scope of the value you will offer.

Select your tool

The interface that you will use to upload and publish content on your blog is known as your blogging platform. There are several popular blogging platforms that you can choose from such as Blogger, Wordpress, and TypePad. While your web developer may provide you with a "home-made" interface on your website to create and add content to your blog, it is much easier and more efficient to integrate one of the more popular platforms. Take a look at what these platforms offer, and choose the one that appeals to you the most.

Create classy content

If you want your business blog to attract readers, and if you want the blog to become an integral part of your business strategy, you will have generate high quality content. You may want to employ the services of a professional blogger or content writer for this or you can do it yourself.

In the context of a business, there is no one who knows the nuances of the business better than you. However, you will want to keep in mind that it takes consistent posting of good content on a regular basis on your blog for it to grow in value.

Many business blogs make the mistake of compromising quality of content for quantity, over-using techniques like link building and search engine optimization to get more traffic to their blogs, but across time, they fail to engage the readers or to get them to respond to their call to action.

Promote

The key to popularizing your blog is to promote it. This can be as simple as sending out email announcements every time you update your blog, sharing it on your social networks, and notifying what are known as pinging services that will update web directories with your new content.

Social bookmarking sites are another commonly used promotion tool. The most popular social bookmarking platforms that are worth your time are Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon.

Network

Start building relationships with other business bloggers. Promote their work on your networks. This may seem counterproductive especially if they are your competitors, but it will establish you as a fair and open networker. This will also help you study other business blogs and learn the tricks of the trade. Study how they use interesting content to get their readers attention and how they convert it either into return visits or a click through to products and services.

Visit other blogs and leave your opinions in the comments section. As people take note of your opinion, you will find them wanting to network with you and your blog. As with everything in life, blogging for business has a certain amount of give and take involved. The more you give, the greater your chances of taking something back.

Business blogging is proven strategy that will help your business grow. However, for a blog to be noticed and acquire a reputation among readers and clients, it takes time and dedicated effort.

Study the basics of search engine optimization and keyword research so that you are able to bolster your content with the technical strength it needs to reach the top of search results. Make your content interesting and useful.

Remember that your blog posts are not direct sales messages, but rather high-value assets with which to build a community of interested readers who are your potential customers.

As you grow your dedicated readership, you will find that your blog has become a significant source of web traffic, leads, referrals, and new business.

====

About the author: Claudia is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on luxury and technology. She recently read an article on a t-rex car that attracted her attention. Her next writing project involves a flying car.

As a marketing coach, I did some work with the owner of a catering firm who wanted to systematize his company’s sales and service operations by writing an easy-to-use, reader-friendly but detailed procedure manual. Not compliance or transaction-related, but just the day-to-day “how we do things around here” kind of manual. A snapshot of the cultural DNA, if you will.

So far, so good.

He saw immediately how this manual could raise the bar on everyone’s performance at his company and make smarter marketing, excellent customer service and savvy selling a consistent, always-on capability, and not a once-in-a-while accident!

When we started talking about the way his employees handled inbound telephone calls, he wanted to label that section, “Answer the Damn Phone” because so many of his people considered phone calls an interruption and they were always complaining about getting their cooking, prep, and delivery tasks done while “the damn phone” was ringing all the time.

Hmmm… can you see where this is leading?

You should worry a lot more about business that falls through your fingers than business that you don’t win.

It’s the missed sales opportunities that cost small businesses more money than the customers they compete for but don't close.

See if you can spot the missed sales opportunities in the following two stories from my colleague Ed Peters of the 4Profit Institute. (Hint: it won’t be difficult!)

Marketing News magazine made 5,000 telephone calls to Yellow Page advertisers requesting price information on a particular product.

Here’s what they discovered:

• 56% didn’t answer within eight rings
• 8% put the caller on hold for more than two minutes
• 11% couldn’t provide the price information requested
• 34% provided the price and then hung up
• 78% did not even ask the caller’s name

 Ask yourself:

• Have you ever studied how your phones are answered?
• Who is answering?
• What are they saying, doing, and asking on the initial call?

Here’s a missed sales opportunity up close and personal: A few weeks before Ed moved, he called six banks that were within walking distance of his new office. He told them he’d be moving two business and two personal savings and checking accounts, and two other accounts for his kids. He told them that he did not want marketing brochures but a personalized response to his specific business and personal needs.

RESULT: Only two of the six banks responded! And the two that did sent -- guess what -- their marketing brochures!

He needed a bank fast, so he called the two banks that responded. One promised to call him back but never did and the other one put him in contact with their relocation department (where he should have been referred in the first place). Guess who got Ed’s business?

Questions for you:

• Do you respond to all qualified requests for information?
• Do you respond promptly?
• Do you respond accurately and give a personalized response, or does every request get the same off-the-shelf response?
• Do you follow-up after every request?

What's been your experience with inbound calls and inquiries? Please use the COMMENTS section below and...

Marketing used to be about “getting in front of” prospects, delivering your pitch, and making the sale.

Today, buyers increasingly distrust marketing “claims” and expect businesses to show, not tell, when demonstrating their products and services. They shun self-serving salespeople and seek businesses that focus on making a difference, not getting a sale. 

Thought leadership centers on earning trust and credibility. Thought leaders get noticed by offering something different—information, insights, and ideas, for instance.

Thought leadership positions you and your company as an industry authority, resource and trusted advisor—by establishing your reputation as a major contributor to your industry.  The exposure you and your organization will receive by focusing on thought leadership in the industry will earn your prospects' trust and credibility AND strengthen your relationships with your current customers.

(For another take on Thought Leadership Marketing, check out Jose Palomino's blog post here)

5 reasons thought leadership marketing really matters for B2B. 

1. Because Prospects Want Your Perspective, Not Your Product

As Jeff Ernst of Forrester Research puts it, “Business buyers don’t “buy” your product or service, they “buy into” your perspective and approach to solving their problems.” 

In other words, your myopic obsession with your individual product or service is a turnoff.

Thought leaders take part in conversations that are bigger than the little niche of the market they represent. You want to show you understand their whole world, not just what your product can do for them. 

2. Because the Sales Process Starts Early and Ends Late

Buyers are out to solve a problem, not a buy a solution. That process starts long before the active buying process does, Ernst notes. And the actual time to investigating the problem to searching out solutions can take months to years. 

Thought leadership helps you get in early, developing a conversation and building relationship with the buyer. This keeps you front-of-mind when you enter that mid-stage and late-stage period of the sales cycle. 

3. Because Your Buyers Use Google

These days people don’t expect to scour your website. They turn to peers on LinkedIn and Twitter, Q&A sites like Focus and Quora, and, more often than not, Google. 

You need to go where your ideal audience is. Once you’re there, your thought leadership content is one of the best ways to get their attention. Google is putting greater focus on identifying content that delivers real value.

Thought leadership is your key to getting found and spread around. 

4. Because Thought Leadership Needs Content, and Content Feeds Social Strategy and Demand Generation

B2B marketing today usually involves a mix of social marketing and demand generation. Both of these require content – compelling content.

The market has a short attention span, which means it’s on you to develop thought leadership that differentiates you from the crowd and gets you heard through the noise. 

5. Because Trust Still Matters

Cynics will tell you that trust doesn’t mean anything in today’s ad-saturated business climate.

They’re wrong, particularly when it comes to B2B marketing. 

It’s imperative that you build conversations that build trust over time, Ernst says. In B2B, where the purchase decisions get more involved and expensive, buyers want to work with brands they know they can trust.

Demonstrating thought leadership implicitly demonstrates you’re a company that can be trusted. 

Adapted in part from Jesse Noyes at Eloqua and Jeff Ernst, principal analyst at Forrester Research.

What does thought leadership mean for you? What strategies have you picked up to become a leader in your industry? Leave a comment and...