Monday's Marketing Minute

Wake up your lazy website!

actsmartweb — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:21:41 +0000

I spent the whole day Saturday testing WordPress 3.2 and many of the plug ins and widgets that we standardly use when creating our websites. It looks pretty good! I do have to say, though, that the Gravity Form program and the calendar program are still being held back from the newest release – there’s a bug in each of them that is really annoying so we’re keeping those behind. I’ll most likely be giving the go-ahead to update during the week of the 18th. Don’t rush ahead – I’ll let you know!

We’ve been listening to some good CDs in the car lately and it seems that the common topic has been about how to give away information to build your business. Michael Stelzner’s new book “Launch” also centers on how giving away turns into getting – more clients and more sales.

Giving has always made me feel good so that’s why I’ve always done it – it’s nice to know that it’s also a great sales building tool!

It’s time to get back to our website basics again. A website that isn’t updated and changed isn’t doing the good work that it’s supposed to! So, take a look at your lazy website and see what you can do to wake it up! We’re going to start with something VERY SIMPLE – the fonts.

Weeds In Your Garden?

actsmartweb — Mon, 09 May 2011 06:00:25 +0000

Our Accountability Group is re-visiting a program that we purchased last year. We’d fallen off the straight and narrow and our weekly phone meetings had become more dialog than direction.

It’s an easy trap to fall into – we really like and respect these folks and care about what is going on in their lives outside of their offices so when we get off topic. Those who know me well know that I am often the instigator, not the director.

I offered to set up a monthly itinerary to help us maneuver through this online video series presented help us all increase our sales. The first section is setting the ground work and asks probing questions like: “What have we tried in the past that hasn’t worked because we didn’t plan out enough or didn’t have the right people in place?”

This program’s analogy is that of a competitive sports team. Athletes train continually, they are constantly striving for to improve and they avoid people and situations that can deter them from their goals. One question asked: “Do you have any weeds in your garden?” Is there someone who is poisoning you and keeping you from excelling?

As I wrote up my notes, I realized that I was a weed in my garden! That I tangle up among the healthy plants and suck the nutrients from my soil.

As we get closer to our move in 2 weeks, I have to stay on point, to be prepared and follow through with all the tasks I need to accomplish. This means making lists and keeping track because I still have to take care of clients and keep my team motivated and on the right path, too.

Where’s the Round-up?

Just Back From Boot Camp in Nashville

actsmartweb — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:38:56 +0000

We’re excited to be back with lots of great information that we will be sharing over the next days and weeks.
We went to Atlanta on Tuesday and saw fellow business owners Randy & Claudia Rowe’s office which is about the same size as our new office. They have 4 techs, a dispatcher and Claudia does the books and has started doing the marketing. The four of us drove to Nashville to our Robin Robins marketing conference Wednesday.

Wednesday night, we saw Bill Rancic, the first winner of the Apprentice and host of the A&E TV show “We Mean Business.” Bill’s presentation was fun and interesting. He stated that we are born with only two fears; the fear of falling and of loud noises, all others are learned. We need to unlearn those fears.

Thursday morning’s presenter was Robin herself. She revealed her secret to writing the Ultimate Sales letter and it was brilliant! I had never appreciated why her sales letters work and now have an incite as to how to effectively crerate our own. It also stimulated me to create a new intake form and evealuation for our websites that will be very powerful for us and our clients.

After a quick break, we saw Dick Ruhe, who talked about how to have brilliant follow through on great ideas. (Perfect to help me implement Robin’s previous seminar.

After lunch, fellow Producer’s Club members presented their “Better Your Best” ideas. We coul d relate to so many of their challenges and their implementation.

The evening presented was Sean Stephenson. We saw Sean last October and were thrilled to be re-ispired by this great man! You may remember that he is only 3 feet tall and wheel chair bound from a rare and painful disorder that causes his bone to be extremely brittle and break easily. We’ve had Sean’s picture on or bathroom mirror and refrigerator these past 5 months and were glad to catch up with our friend.

Friday we saw Robert Stevenson who wrote “How to Soar with the Eagles in a World Full of Turkeys” and “52 Essential Habits For Success.” He spoke about how to become an extraordinary person in business and in life.

On the technical side,Kent Erikson spoke about the oncoming change to the way we do business and the eventual use of “Cloud Computing” and what it will mean to us and to our customers. It was met with heated debate and the unsettling feeling the change brings.

After lunch, we had the pleasure of hearing John Jantsch speak on “The Referral Engine” again. You may remember that we sponsored John last fall when he spoke at Stonehill College. We were reminded of some great ideas that we have implemented and more that we will want to do soon.

Then it came time to present the car to the winner of the “Better Your Best”Contest. Our friend Tom Malesic was the winner. He has worked hard to be awarded the honor of Robin’s Spokesperson”and we know that he will do a really great job!

Saturday morning brought the highlight of the whole meeting: Nido Qubein, an immigrant from Lebbanon who spoke no English when he came to the US at 17 with $50 in his pocket is now Chairman of the Great Harvest Bread Company and President of High Point University. Nido’s presentation was so inspiring that it will be the first one that we share with our team. We were moved to tears and challenged to be the best person that we could be numerous times as he spoke. You’ll be hearing more about our journey that we begin with him in the future and, we hope, see the exceptional results.

Our last presenter was Ken Glickman who has resently joined Robin’s team of regular presenters. Ken walked us through some result oriented proceedures in Time Management to help us implement all that we had learned this week. One of the 3 “To do”s on my list is him method of prioritizing and executing my list will be one of the valuable lessons learned.

Along with these exceptional presentations, we had the invaluable sharing we had with our fellow attendees. Many of these folks have become good friends and trusted advisors to us and to our business. We are blessed to be able to participate, learn and grow from these gatherings!

Get More Customers in 2011!

actsmartweb — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 06:00:59 +0000

We’ve been to our first “Christmas Party;” the Daniel Webster Estate held their annual Victorian Christmas Decorator Showhouse on Friday night. As always, the mansion was beautifully decorated putting us in a Christmas state of mind. It was wonderful! The house is open to the public until the 12th and is the perfect way for you to get in the spirit, too! Don’t miss it!

On Saturday, the Marshfield Chamber was a sponsor of the Holiday Festival and Parade at Proprietor’s Green. What a fun afternoon – Santa and the Mrs were there to get every child’s wish list and to have their photos taken, too. David and I sold popcorn and cotton candy on behalf of the Chamber and the highlight of the afternoon was the Holiday Parade!

A quick reminder – the Chamber’s next Professional Development Seminar is Wednesday December 15th at 8am at the Village at Proprietor’s Green. This month’s topic: Become a better leader-know yourself and know your team.
Kindly pre-register for the seminar by Monday December 13th so the Village know how many delicious goodie to make fresh for the continental breakfast. Registration fees are $10 for a member of any Chamber, $20 for non-members and are donated to the MCC Scholarship Fund. So inexpensive and valuable! Once again, Bernie Heine of Professional Business Coaches will be speaking.

One more thing – if you are looking for an affordable and very much appreciated gift, consider a

South Shore Dinner Club book.

I just finished redesigning their website in WordPress and it is a vast improvement over the one I did many years ago. It’s easy to order the books online or you can save the mailing fees and pick them up at the main office on Rt 139 in Pembroke beside Fedele’s Chocolates or at many area locations.Be sure to stop into Fedele’s, too, and tell Ron that I sent you! His are my family’s favorite chocolates as well as mine!

Want more customers in 2011? Be sure to read the article below for easy ideas – many that you already know but just needed a reminder!

For many businesses, this month is the busiest month of the year and it’s easy to miss the “little things” that could make a difference in your future sales and business growth because you are too busy taking care of the sale of the moment. Don’t miss these opportunities to get these customers back next year – all from your register’s counter!

Use a bag stuffer with an offer dated in 2011. Whether it’s a special discount or an extra item, current customers will feel rewarded with a coupon that thanks them for their business. This “Customer Appreciation” campaign will be very much appreciated!
Get their email address. This is worth GOLD! They already know you so the “sell” is easier. You’ll be able to keep in touch via Constant Contact or another email program. Keep in touch monthly with a quick email newsletter. Everyone is so distracted, they NEED reminding and will be thankful that you did!
Put up a sign to “Follow Us on Facebook!” With a Facebook Fan page, every fan’s list of friends will see your posts and get to know you and could become a fan – and a customer!. Facebook has lots of brand new features that can help you increase your sales! And, a well thought out and designed Facebook Fan page draws people in and gets them involved. If you want more information, contact our Social Media Specialist Danielle for more information – she is finding more and more ways to make Facebook indispensable as a marketing tool!
SMILE! Especially in this economy, people are more apt to do business with someone that they like and trust- and NOT do business with a Grump! We’ve always gone out of our way to patronize people that we like when it could be more convenient elsewhere. Customers who want you to succeed because they like you will go out of their way for you.
Start planning your 2011 Marketing Calendar. Yes, 2011 has come upon us so quickly – write up your marketing ideas for at least the first quarter. A goal of at least 1 campaign per month is a good start!

3 Top Strategies (Plus 2)

actsmartweb — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:00:55 +0000

It always happens, we get back from a particularly great seminar, all fired up and ready to start new projects and implement new ideas and then “life” hits us smack in the face!

Last Monday was pretty good, I went through my notes from the seminars in Nashville and made 2 pages of “To-Dos.” I then highlighted the top things I needed to do the next day and proceeded. So far, so good.

As the week went on, my regular schedule started getting in the way and I was only able to do a part of the list. By Thursday – NOTHING!

Friday morning’s Accountability Group meeting brought me right back into perspective. We had all written our Top 3 Strategies to Turbo Charge our Results. Here are my three:

1. Block Time – NO INTERRUPTIONS

2. List & Take Notes

3. Documentation & Systemization

I then realized that I had, in fact, been doing these strategies – List & Take Notes because I had done that early in the week with the 2 pages of notes and had referred to it several times each day. Now, all I had to do was block out time in my calendar to do a “chunk” of these. I also realized that I had documented several procedures that I don’t do often and always had to research. On Wednesday, I wrote up two of them and put them in our knowledge base so I don’t have to research them again. This seems to be working pretty well.

Our Accountability Group all had very similar strategies since we pretty much have the same problems – lack of time. My friend Linda Lynch reminded us during the call that we really can’t manage time, we can only manage ourselves! The first strategy on her list was “Plan My Week on Sunday.” I’m going to steal that one, too, and make it a point to take time on Sunday to block out time to do the things I know must be done.

Oh, and one last thing – our friend Randy Rowe had the BEST Strategy, one that I can’t do right now but I’m going to work toward it:

3) Take more Fridays off so I can be more refreshed for the following week. Or delegate more. YAHOO!

The Referral Engine

actsmartweb — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 06:00:42 +0000

First, I want to thank everyone who said they missed last week’s newsletter – I think I really enjoyed being in vacation mode and so I took a long weekend over Labor Day! Now, back to work!

An exciting thing happened last week and it was so perfectly timed that it’s a little scary! I got a call from Joe Costantino of Business Marketing Success. I’ve quoted Joe quite a number of times in this newsletter and have recommended his marketing coaching to my clients; he’s the next step up from my marketing suggestions. Well, Joe called to tell me that John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing had just written a new book, The Referral Engine. Here’s where it gets spooky – I had just purchased the book and knew that “referrals” were going to be the topic of my next series of newsletters.

It seems that John is coming to Stonehill to run a workshop called “Teaching Your Business to Market Itself” and Joe wanted to know if we wanted to be one of the sponsors! How exciting is that! Of course, we were honored and said “Yes!”

This is a no-brainer – you have to come to this event! It’s on Tuesday, October 5th from 4-7:30 pm and includes networking before and after the workshop and a signed copy of John’s book! Early registration is only $99!

If you haven’t been to a marketing seminar before, what a great first experience you will have! If you are like us and have been to many events, I think that we are all going to hold this one up as one of the best!

For more information and to register go to BusinessTrainingEvents.com. After you sign up, drop me a note so we can plan to sit together!

An Effective Website – For Visitors!

actsmartweb — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:00:20 +0000

David and I just got back from a much needed vacation. We spent a week on Lake St Catherine in Vermont where David kayaked and fished (No good fish tales here, we’re sorry to say! David said that he didn’t “fish” he “cast all week.”) and I worked on my new hobby – wool rug hooking.

We had no cell phone service to speak of and I didn’t even check email every day.Our son Matt and his wife Natalie joined us for the first 4 days and I think that we will consider this one of our best vacations ever!

Before I left for vacation, I redesigned a website in WordPress for my High School Alumni association. Because I haven’t had the time, I asked for help and Karen, a younger member of our committee, graciously volunteered to learn WordPress and add the content from the old site to the new. She emailed me to look at the site and I was taken aback. HER way wasn’t the way that I would have done it and her way was BETTER! She made it more “bloggy” than I would have and that’s why it was so superior to what I would have done. I get so wrapped up in websites that promote business that I would have done just the same – promoted the Association rather than Karen’s way of INTERACTION – what fellow alumnus really want from each other. Thanks, Karen, for reminding me that an effective website is designed for the VISITORS!

Moving Forward

actsmartweb — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:00:29 +0000

The summer is supposed to be quiet but we’ve already gotten 3 new web clients this month with appointments with 3 more in the next 2 weeks! I KNOW it’s because we do not let up on our marketing! Believe me; you can be getting new customers, too, with a little more marketing.

Yes, it is a commitment and it takes extra time, energy and maybe a little money but it is worth it!

We’re offering more services to our clients so we are moving forward rather than standing still in value. Take a look around; what new products or services could you be adding to your mix? To make room, what old one could you drop?

Several years ago, we had to make the really tough decision to stop servicing homeowners and to focus on small to medium businesses. This was such a hard decision because many of these folks had become friends and had been great customers who helped us build our business. Times had changes, though, and computers were becoming “disposable.” If we spent hours repairing a system, the service cost could be close to the cost of replacing the computer. Realizing this allowed us to make the growth decision to concentrate on business clients.

Is there a service or product that takes up time that you could use elsewhere? Yes, it’s a heard decision but many right decisions are.

Change Is ….

actsmartweb — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:00:16 +0000

Change can be good, it can be bad, it is almost alway’s hard! We’re going through a change here in the office; my web tech George gave his notice and Friday was his last day. This has been a week of trying to learn everything that I had

released to George’s responsibility over the past 3 years – that’s the bad part and the hard part!

The good part is that we have hired Yana Lambert, a dynamic and enthusiastic web designer with lots of marketing and editing experience. She’s already made great suggestions and changes to our printed newsletter. She is also a stickler for text continuity and spelling!

The other good part – although we will miss George, he is off to a bigger company where he will be the webmaster for their 3 sites. We know that all our clients wish him well along with us!

Change is an opportunity to grow – Yana’s strengths will be very different than George’s and we are excited about the benefits that she will be bringing to our clients and our team.

Do Your MVAs

actsmartweb — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:00:49 +0000

This week has been stressful for several reasons. Among them, we have been pushing hard to finish a HUGE website that I had hoped to have finished weeks ago.

I just finished reading “Invaluable,”a book by Dave Crenshaw. You’ll remember that we saw him at Boot Camp in Nashville in April. Of all the speakers, he made the biggest impression and change in us when he spoke about “The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done.” (If you missed that MMM and want to take the quiz that we took, email me and I’ll send you his eye-opening example.)

Back to his new book. It’s about how employees can become invaluable to their company and companies can become invaluable to their customers. It’s a short, easy to read story with a lesson; focus on your MVAs (Most Valuable Activities) and delegate or relegate your LVAs (Least Valuable Activities). Funny thing; LVAs are the activities that you are most likely to do because they are usually easy, mindless and quickly accomplished. They are also TIME STEALERS! When we looked at the tasks that we had on our list, we rearranged our time to work on our BIG PROJECT first and fill in with the LVAs right before lunch and before quitting time. This way, we didn’t use any more time than necessary on them (who wants to linger over an LVA when it’s time to go?) and we really worked our MVA for this week.

The outcome was that we finished the BIG PROJECT and now we are left with the finishing touches and final checking. I don’t think it would be done if we hadn’t made it our MVA!

One other thought from the book: “Invest in yourself to improve your market value.” We are doing that continually with the books that we read and the courses we take to increase our value to our company and especially to our clients. It doesn’t have to be at monetary expense, either. An hour or two of your time watching an internet marketing video or reading a marketing book from the library can greatly increase your value and your business’ value too!