Starring You

A recent email from the smarties at MarketingProfs informed me that:

the average user of online video watches more than 16 hours of video a month and YouTube videos are watched over 3 Billion times a day! This is astounding.

Video is rapidly becoming essential to modern marketing and you seriously need to think about how to get on board before the train is so far from the station that you’re feeling impossibly behind the curve.

Before we talk about how, let’s talk about what.

Here are some potential ways to use video for your business:

1. Instead of blogging, vlog. This is running a regular video blog. Perhaps the most famous one is Wine Library TV from Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It.  Gary did 1,000 episodes of this show and became very famous along the way in the internet economy and marketing world.
2. Run a retail store? Create a commercial every week that would be like a one-minute spot on TV. Feature specials, new arrivals, and an employee spotlight. Keep it light and lively so it’s fun to watch.
3. Are you a coach or consultant? Create regular videos that teach your audience.
4. Are you an artist? Shoot videos that show people how you create your art.
5. Are you a caterer? Show videos of certain signature dishes being made with your unique personality thrown in.
6. Are you a speaker? Record your presentations and edit snippets of them for posting on YouTube so you can get hired as a speaker more easily.
7. Add a video to every email newsletter you send out.

And the list goes on. There are many ways to use video to present yourself and your business in a positive way. I’ve been using ideas three, six and seven lately. Here’s an example:

3 Ways to Engage with Email Marketing

If you’re wondering if I’ve gotten business by using video, I absolutely have. I’ve heard a few times people say that they wanted to work with me after watching my videos.

The clients that are using video best to market their businesses are Aaron Parnell and Dave Crimmen, who both got the power of video a long time ago. Robert Brilliant, who shot the video shown above certainly uses video to market his business since he is in the business. David Neuendorff of 1MinuteReel edited the video above and also uses sample videos on his site.

In a future post we’ll talk about how you can create video on your own or with the help of a pro like Robert or David.

If you have questions right now, send me an email or leave a Comment.

In the 80′s we had telephones, the mail, fax machines, and face to face. All that has changed now. The ways to communicate with another person have exploded . The old ways still work, but now we have email, instant messages, texting, Twitter, Skype and so on. Wow, it can be overwhelming to consider what ways one should use.

Here’s what I recommend, have about 10 different ways you feel comfortable with so you’re not hitting people the same old way. Email may be your favorite way to contact someone, but what if the other party gets too much email already? In that case your email’s likely to be ignored.

What you can do alternatively is to send them a Facebook or LinkedIn message, or maybe a text. Indeed, they might prefer one of these methods. The fact is they’re more likely to respond if you communicate with them the way they prefer.

So, then, what if the other party likes social networking as a way of staying in touch and you don’t do that? Well, you could pick it up just to communicate with them. For the right person it might be worth it. You don’t have to become a full-blown social networker, but just a casual user for the right times.

Now we’ve only talked about 1to1 communication. What about mass communication? Email marketing and Facebook are great for that. Prefer direct mail? I like SendOutCards, which allows me to send a lot of personalized real cards all at once – very useful and a blend of modern and old fashioned methods.

I’ll just mention one more method here and that’s BLD marketing. What’s that you say? It’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, of course. Many deals are closed during meals. I make it a point to take out all my clients to lunch as often as possible. They really appreciate it and we have a chance to get to know each other better without the clock running. I like to meet prospects over meals or coffee, too. People are generally looser when they’re in a social atmosphere. The conversation seems to flow more naturally than in a quiet office. If you’re not using BLD marketing, then maybe you should read Keith Ferrazzi’s now classic book on the subject, Never Eat Alone.

The last point I’ll make is that there is what I call ‘disruptive communication’. What I mean by that is you get a message to someone in an unexpected way and that disrupts them and makes them take notice. For example, you stop by their office and leave a note and, if allowed, small gift. That will get their attention more than an email. Facebook messages can be disruptive, too, since few people get many of these. Texts are disruptive and are being used more and more for marketing purposes. Use a form of disruptive communication when you’re having trouble breaking through to someone. Don’t just keep sending emails.

If you’d like the handout I used for this talk as a checklist to see just how many communication methods you’ve got in your quiver and what you might want to add, just email me and I’ll send it over to you. And if you have a favorite disruptive form of communication I’d like to hear about it. Please comment below.

Okay, I’m going to get a little technical with you here. Google Analytics is a free software that you install behind the scenes on your website to get a ton of data on the visitor traffic.

A typical report will tell you:
- How many visitors have hit your site in a given period
- What percentage of visitors are new versus repeat
- Where your traffic is coming from, e.g., Google, Facebook
- What percentage is coming from referral sources like Google versus direct input, which would be your URL
- How long visitors are staying on your site
- What pages they’re looking at
- What words they used to find your site
- What part of the country or world they’re coming from

This is just a sampling of the data you can get from Google Analytics. It can also be combined with Google Adwords campaign to give you great data about how well your advertising efforts are working.

With Google Analytics I’m able to understand how my site is doing from month to month in terms of traffic. I can tell how my traffic spikes after I’ve done a lot of public speaking or released blogs through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.What I’ve found is that most of my traffic comes from Google and from people entering my URL right in to a search engine. Since I’m not getting much traffic from Bing or Yahoo, then I know that I either need to focus most of my energy on Google, or figure out why I’m not getting a lot of traffic from the other search engines and work on improving optimization for them.

Another key stat is how long people are staying on my site. On average people will remain on my site for two and a half minutes. I feel pretty good about that. However, I’m also seeing that a good percentage of my visitors are bouncing from my site, which means they stay for just a few seconds and leave. This tells me they didn’t find what they were looking for. I can look to see what keyword searches are bringing people to my site to learn whether my site is relevant for those searches.

Here’s an example of this. I did a blog comparing Costco and Target stores in terms of customer focus. It’s an educational blog for small business owners. Unfortunately this blog comes up a lot for people searching for Costco or Target. They click on the link to my blog, then immediately leave since they aren’t a small business owner. Google Analytics helps me understand this sort of phenomena on my site. As you dig in to the reports you’ll learn some fascinating truths about your site.

Bottom line, it’s an amazing package that every business should have on their website. If you don’t have it, then learn more and determine how to install it on your site. I can refer you to a resource who can install it for you if you’re not sure how to get it done.

If you would like to go through your first report together after you’ve had it installed for 30 days, feel free to let me know and we’ll set up a time to do that.

The bottom line is this: You need to be aware of what’s happening with your website and you will not know unless you get this software installed and activated.

Picking up from a recent post about creating a great impression, one of the simplest ways for any retail business to make one is to have an impressive sign. The flipside of this is that if your sign is really old or just wrong in some way you’ll make a bad impression, which is probably not any business owner’s goal.

In this post I’m going to highlight a few examples of good and bad signs. The first situation is when a business changes its name. That necessitates new signs. Well, signs usually aren’t cheap, which drives some owners to look for the least expensive way to brand the new name.

In this photo you can see that this real estate agency has changed its name. It’s pretty obvious since they chose to get an inexpensive banner and place it right on top of the old sign. Now if the decision was made rapidly and they needed something quick to put up for opening day I could understand this move. However, this banner still hangs over the old sign months later. It’s even worse at night when the old sign lights up and shows through the banner!

Why does the owner want to keep this as the permanent sign for their real estate office? Probably to save money. I wonder how much this money-saving move is costing in the quality of prospective customer impressions? I also wonder how many of the realtors in this office are proud of where they work driving up here every day? This sort of thinking was the genesis of the saying, Penny wise and pound foolish.

Now this sign is for a new restaurant that’s opened up in the local area. The owner wanted to make a strong impression on those driving by, which number in the thousands daily. The location is on a major boulevard and faces traffic that’s coming off of a major freeway. I apologize for the quality of this picture as I took it with my BlackBerry from my car.

I think you can see that the sign is lighted up though, which is what makes this a nice sign day or night. I’m sure the owner paid a lot for this sign and could have saved plenty by getting a sign that didn’t sparkle. But, in my opinion it was worth every dime as this sign alone makes me want to see the inside. It must be classy is what goes through my mind when I see this sign.

This sign is an example of how to make a strong impression. It’s big and bold and very easy to see from afar. Again, not an inexpensive sign by any means, but as the store is on a major thoroughfare and next to a large drugstore, gym and supermarket it’s probably worth going the extra mile to get something impressive.

Now that you’ve finished this blog, why don’t you take a look at your sign? Is it making a good impression on your business? Does it beckon people to come inside and have a look? Or does it make people think you don’t care about your business enough to invest in it? Your sign is often what creates the first impression someone will have of your business. If it creates a bad impression and turns people away you won’t even know because it’s very unlikely anyone will take the time to tell you. That’s why I’m telling you now to have a look.

No matter how much up to date and polished your sales skills are you could still miss your goal if you’re not mentally up to the task. I’m talking about that little voice in your head that says, “You’ll never make your goal.” or “Why try again, you know they’re not going to buy.”

This little voice has been called all kinds of things: The Voice of Judgment, Charlie Bear, Voice of Doubt, and The Little Voice, naturally. Whatever you call it, you must call it quits. This voice of doubt is a surefire way to reduce your effectiveness when you’re working, and worse, cause you to procrastinate. In my sales coaching I spend a good deal of time on the mental side of selling because it’s crucial to be confident.

Just in case you have some issues in this department once in a while let me offer 3 ways to stay mentally tough day in and day out.

1. Daily affirmations – Before you start the day tell yourself how good you are. Tell yourself that people appreciate you, need you and are looking forward to doing business with you. Tell yourself that the world wants you to win and there are people everywhere looking to help you succeed with your plans. Tell yourself that you’re getting better each day by paying attention to what your customers need, focusing on ongoing self-improvement, and through increased knowledge of your products and services and how they help others.

When you tell yourself these types of affirmations each day you start becoming really self-confident. You hit the street with a look in your eye that says, “I’m ready, world.” Try it for the next 14 days if you haven’t been doing this already.

2. Immerse yourself in self-improvement books and audios – When I first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989 I had nothing but a degree in Advertising to vouch for my intelligence and capability to finish what I start. Slowly but surely I started building up a work history to complement my education. I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence in these early years. So, I turned to Tony Robbins, Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy and Wayne Dyer for help. These are guys who knocked it out of the park before I was in the game.

I wasn’t a reader so I listened to cassettes, then CDs. I also attended events. I still recall breaking a board at a Tony Robbins event in Burlingame and hanging on every word of a Wayne Dyer presentation in Oakland. To this day I still listen to CDs from these giants of personal development and many others. Why stop? As Zig Ziglar likes to say (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Sure motivation wears off, but then so do the effects of a shower. That’ s why I recommend them both daily.”

3. Get better and better – In 1998 I was hired by Oracle Corporation. It was my most challenging job to date. It was a thrill to get the job, but the voice of judgment was running fairly unchecked through my brain. I would now have to lead meetings with more experienced people in attendance. How would I tackle this with my few years of professional experience? I needed more than affirmations and a CD set, I needed some training. I turned to Dale Carnegie. My manager was initially reluctant to approve the expense for a 12-week program, but he could see that I really wanted this. So, he got it approved for me.

Dale Carnegie changed my life and that’s no exaggeration. It broke my fear of public speaking, taught me how to communicate in ways that build up people, and helped me learn numerous ways to conquer worry and fear. Since then I’ve looked back at what I learned dozens of times and recommended the training to many. I still gift clients the classic book, How To Stop Worrying and Start Living from time to time. Many who take the course say it’s the part of the program that helped them the most.

There you have it, 3 ways to win at the mental game of sales or whatever profession you have that challenges you mentally.  I hope they help you as they have me. Let me know if you have other ways that work for you. If you’d like to learn more about my Sales Coaching and Training, you can find information here.

As a Sales Trainer and Coach I work with business owners and professionals on their sales process. The process tracks the steps from interested to sold. There are several meaningful steps along the way, but the one where the seller often slips and loses the sale is in establishing the need.

This step is after you’ve established some sort of relationship with your prospect and are now looking to see if a need for your solution exists. Now you might be thinking that you wouldn’t even be talking with the person if the need didn’t exist and that’s probably true. However, how strong is the need that brought this prospect to you? That’s what you need to know. Furthermore, you need to keep on exploring to determine how many other needs exist and how important are they.

Before we get to how to do this properly, let’s examine a few mistakes new salespeople often make. The first one is to jump on the first need that reveals itself, then go for the sale. Whoa! The first need might be the weakest one in the bunch and hardly worth investing in your solution to solve. And you know what happens if you propose marriage before the other person’s ready? Bye bye.

Another rookie mistake is to be satisfied with a logical need. Let’s say you’re selling solar. Well, the logical need is to replace the utility company with your own power generating capability. All right, solar can do that. But at what cost? I spoke with a client last week that determined that a solar unit on their facility would take 20 years to pay off. That was too long for them. However, chances are the facility will still be there 20 years from now and they would be saving money all along the way exchanging their investment cost with what they pay the utility company.

When sales are based purely on logic they often fall apart. Did you know that it’s just about impossible to make money buying a hybrid vehicle? The price premium for these cars exceeds the fuel savings. So then why are so many being sold? Because the buyers are emotionally attached to being green. Ah, so there’s a key understanding. Get to the emotional needs of the buyer.

You uncover needs by asking questions. Emotional needs aren’t generally revealed in a first pass. Thus, you, the questioner needs to probe further when a need is discovered. Ask questions like, “And why is that important?” or “And what will that do for you?” You can actually ask these questions over and over until you get to the real emotional need underlying it all. Bingo!

Keep establishing needs until you have at least 2 needs. Better yet, go for 3 needs with at least one being emotional if not two. If you’ll be this diligent during this part of the sales process you will make more sales.

If you have any questions about this or my ongoing Sales Mastery program, which is ideal for those who are not seasoned sales professionals, give me a shout or comment below.

I’ve noticed a dangerous trend taking place in business circles today and that’s ignoring emails and phone calls from people you know are trying to sell you something.

I’m sensitive to this trend because I have been in sales off and on for more than 15 years now.

I appreciate that everyone is busy. I’m hardly able to keep up with the email and phone calls from clients, partners and prospects. However, I make it a point to reply to just about everyone who reaches out to me, which includes the unsolicited contacts. Why?

For starters, I believe that what goes around comes around. I coach all of my clients that if you own a business, you are in sales. Whether you are an attorney, contractor or web designer, you are in sales. Without someone selling your service, nothing happens.

So, if you’re in sales, then there are times when you are the one making the call or sending the email hoping to engage a prospect in a dialogue. If you regularly ignore calls and emails from those trying to sell you, then I think you’re setting the stage to receive the same treatment. And you know how frustrating it is to be totally ignored, doesn’t it?

My second reason is that you just might learn something. I spoke to a Yelp salesperson a few months back who called me unsolicited. We arranged for a phone appointment and he walked me through how advertising on Yelp works. I learned things I didn’t know, which help me be better informed for my clients. The salesperson was happy to educate me and I was grateful for it. This happened with a Google Places salesperson, too. I even got some free advertising activated as a result of taking his unsolicited call. That was worth my time.

My third reason is that you never know what might come of engaging with a stranger. I’ve had two people in the last month reach out to me for a consultation on growing their business.

One of them expressed a real interest in meeting me after speaking on the phone. I sent them an email with more detail on how I work and when we could meet. The email bounced back. I called back, reached the person and was given an alternate email address. I sent an email. No response. Ten days later I sent another email. No response.

By choosing to now ignore my attempts to follow up on his original inquiry he is missing out on:

1. Leads for his business. I pass leads to people in my network every week. I don’t know anyone else who does what he does. Indeed, I might even be a prospect for his services, but by treating me as an unimportant salesperson he’ll never know.

2. Key introductions. I regularly facilitate connections between people in my network to help business get done.

3. Free business-building education. I do free seminars all the time and get great feedback on how educational and helpful they are from people who don’t do business with me.

My point is you just don’t know what exploring a relationship with the person on the other end might lead to unless you take a minute to find out.

Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox now on this topic. Let me just say this, if you’ve been pretty cold to salespeople to now, I hope you’ll rethink this behavior. It just might be good for you. Email me your thoughts.

In a recent sales coaching workshop I lead, the number one takeaway mentioned by the attendees was learning about having a multi-step sales process.

My definition of a multi-step sales process is having numerous options to take people through besides contact, appointment, close. Many people in sales have just the one step, which is to have a 1on1 appointment with their prospect. When the prospect is clearly looking for your product or service this is the way to get the sale. However, there are those other times when you meet someone in a non-sales context. They’re not necessarily looking for you. Then what?

If the person you’re speaking with shows a little interest, then one option is to offer an appointment to discuss your service. What might work better though is to spend a little more time developing the relationship. There are several personality types that like to buy from people they have gotten to know over time. They rarely buy a service from a total stranger unless they really need the service urgently. Business coaching fits in to this category. Not too many people hire a coach they don’t know at all.

So, in this context what I’ll often do is pull from my options to extend a relationship’s development by inviting the person I’ve just met to do something else with me besides an appointment. I belong to a couple of referral clubs, run my own monthly networking and education event with a few partners, conduct free marketing seminars, am a member of Rotary, and on the board of a non-profit. Dependent on the interests of the person I’m talking to I can invite them to join me for any one of these  groups or events.

After they attend an event, and hopefully like it, then we might have an appointment, or they might come to another event. Or, they might connect with me on LinkedIn or subscribe to my newsletter.  With each successive decision to engage with me the relationship grows stronger and moves closer to a coaching engagement or paid workshop.

Do you see what I mean by multi-step? I attended Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid training in LA in 2008. It’s a great two days where you learn a ton about how to be really successful as a business coach, marketing consultant, sales trainer, personal trainer, life coach, financial planner and so forth.  As long as you’re in a service profession, BYS is for you. Anyway, a key point Michael made that has never left me is this, “Always have something to invite people to.” Face facts, people aren’t always going to want an appointment with you after meeting you the first or second time. However, people like to be invited to things (can be webinars or teleconferences, too). The more they like what you invited them to, the more they like you.

If you don’t currently have a few steps you could take someone through to get to know them better, you can improve your sales by adding some. Think about what steps you can add to your sales process. If you already have multiple steps, which ones work best for you to build relationships and get sales? Please share your ideas and comments.

Recently I wrote on the necessity of being remarkable. Today let’s talk about the mindset you need to have at all times if you want to win in business: You are in a competition. You may not know what you are up against when you start the day, but you’d better play to win every time.

We compete for dollars. We compete for attention. We compete for talent. We compete for referrals. We compete for publicity. We are always competing. Get used to this idea and embrace it for that’s what it takes to win in any economy, especially this one.

All right, let’s get to some specifics on competing at all times. First thing, look the part. I often see people dressing too casually when they’re working. Why? Because it’s comfortable? Be comfortable on Saturday. Look successful Monday through Friday. When you look successful it creates an impression that you are and who doesn’t want to work with someone who’s successful?

Next, be able to talk about your business anytime, anywhere. You never know when it’s going to be your turn to deliver your elevator pitch. Will you be able to rise to the occasion each and every time? If your answer is no, then fix this fast. Your competition is ready and they will eat you up if you’re still thinking about how best to say what you do and how it can benefit people.

How about your approach to sales? Are you selling with a process or are you simply winging it with prospects and existing clients? I know contractor’s school didn’t come with sales training and neither did law school or medical school. But now that you are on your own competing for dollars you have to be able to sell. Learning a basic and effective sales process will go a long way to help you in this critical area. Continue learning after that.

When it comes to competing for attention do your ads resonate with people? Are you testing different ads? Are you trying out multiple channels of marketing to see what works and what doesn’t? Are you at least marketing consistently? The war for attention is so intense now that you have to be savvy in marketing to get anywhere, or hire someone who is. Otherwise you’ll just be burning up time and resources. What marketing books have you read this year? Please tell me you’ve read at least one.

And now, technology. Are you using technology as a competitive edge over your competition? I’m always looking for new tools to save time or improve service. I’m now seriously considering buying a LiveScribe to better capture notes for myself and my clients. Don’t be afraid of new technology. Adopt it earlier rather than later and it will become your valued ally as you compete to be productive and efficient.

This brings me to the last topic, the competition for improvement. What are you doing to make your business better on a regular basis? I love this thought from the late Peter Drucker, “Look at your business as a customer would and think about what changes you’d make.” So incredibly simple, right? All right, raised hands time, who’s done it? I haven’t. I do listen to feedback and make changes, but I haven’t done exactly as Peter suggests. I am thinking that way now.

Your turn now. What ideas do you have to share in how you compete to win everyday. I’d also like to hear your comments on what I’ve shared. May you win today.

In John Jantsch’s new book, The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business To Market Itself, he talks about a podcast interview he had with Seth Godin. In the chat, Seth says that if you’re not getting referrals, it’s probably because you, your business, or both, are boring. Yep, boring.

Hmm, am I boring? I don’t think so. Is my business boring? Is that the opposite of remarkable? In that case I guess it is a little boring since I’m not remarked about often enough to be getting more referrals than I can handle. Sure, sometimes I’m remarked about, but it seems to me it could be a lot more.

John goes on to talk about Scott Ginsberg who has been wearing a name tag that says Scott, every day for 9 years. Seriously. I’m surprised I never heard of Scott before since that’s pretty remarkable. Scott found that by wearing a name tag he’s much more approachable and that has led to speaking about being approachable, remarkable, useful and so on. Pretty interesting fellow to say the least. I enjoyed watching a few videos on his site. Here’s one that I liked about blogging. I’m a fan of blogging. Duh.

Interesting video, right? He’s a remarkable person all right. Funny, too. I’m newly inspired after hearing the beginning of John’s book and after watching a few of Scott’s videos to spend more time thinking about how I can be remarkable. How can you be more remarkable? In this age of information overload if we are not remarkable we are swimming upstream in a crowded river.