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Learning how to market your business and close sales can be the toughest part of running a business. Most of us start a business because we happen to be good at “something.” We started a business because we were good at accounting, or landscaping, or building houses, or freelance writing, or software programming, or Web design.

But chances are, we are not that great at sales and marketing. Heck, you can’t be good at everything, right?

Unfortunately, no sale = no eat.

But if you want to boost your marketing by 100% and make it easier to get sales, try this one little technique that anyone can learn to do … Read entire article.

Posted in Sales & Marketing

The online marketing landscape has become so complex that cutting through the “noise” is now one of the biggest problems small businesses face. Sorting out WHERE and HOW to spend our limited time and resources is increasingly the challenge.

So Many New Choices

Part of the problem is that we are bombarded right and left with new choices.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has taken on a much higher profile as the number of indexed Web pages balloons and it gets harder to be found in search engines like Google. The search marketing industry is now in the multi-billion dollar range. Not only is search growing, but it is increasingly being broken down into distinct specialties, such as local search, paid search and mobile search marketing.

Affiliate marketing has become big business, too … a more-than $6 Billion a year industry.

Blogs, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and every manner of social media site are discussed ad nauseum. Yet, many businesspeople do not have the time it takes to investigate these social media sites. Most people have only the vaguest idea what these sites do or how to use them — perhaps just a nagging sense that the sites are somehow “hot.” ‘Better not be left behind,’ you think.

OK, It’s Complex. So What Do We Do? Read entire article.

Posted in Planning & Strategy, Sales & Marketing

One day not long ago we got a call in the office. My husband looked at the caller ID and said, “Hey, this says Google is calling. Can that be? Or is it some telemarketer spoofing Google?”

In fact, it turned out to be Google. Calling me.

Yes, I really got a call from Google. Out of 300 million people in the United States, Google had chosen to call li’l ole me.

When I heard the young woman in the other end of the phone say, “Hi, this is Emily from Google” I zipped through a range of emotions in about 3 seconds flat.

First I got a little thrill. Hmmmm, I thought. Have they heard about me and want to recruit me? Or maybe they want me to speak at one of their events. Could be a big opportunity here ….

No, wait! My next thought came with a sinking feeling. Uh, oh … I wonder if I inadvertently violated one of their quality guidelines for my website. Maybe they’re calling to tell me my site is being removed from the Google index. Geez! How bad could it be, that they have to call me personally to lower the boom?

Well, as it turns out, it was neither of the above. Read entire article.

Posted in Planning & Strategy, Sales & Marketing

An age-old chestnut in business centers on the railroads during the rise of the automobile: Even as roads, cars, and 18-wheelers undercut rail’s dominance of the transportation industry, railroad executives comforted themselves by claiming dominance of the “trains business.” Goodyear, Ford, Mack – these new companies weren’t competitors. Instead, they were a new industry, similar perhaps, but heck, none of them made trains.Had the barons of rail seen themselves in the transportation industry, rather than the train industry, the great rail companies of the 19th century would still be household names. (Quick, can you name one now? Yeah, me either…)

So what does this have to do with your business? Well, we’re in the midst of a similar shift, but with a major twist. Today, I’ll assert, no matter what business you think you’re in – be it making widgets or providing a service, you’re now in the media business, plain and simple. Those that recognize this shift will succeed, those that ignore it will atrophy and eventually become irrelevant.

Now, what do I mean by the media business? Well, let’s start where all good businesses start: with the customer. Your customer’s media habits have changed dramatically in the past ten years. More likely than not, your customers spend nearly 15 hours a week online – it’s where they play, communicate, interact with services, and shop and research major purchases. In short, your customer has developed a major new media habit. The question is: Has your business? Read entire article.

Posted in Planning & Strategy, Sales & Marketing