A tremendous amount of marketing money is wasted on trying to convince people to want it. “It” can be anything you sell.
So how do you fix that? What if people simply don’t want what you sell? You say thank you. Say thank you for letting me know you’re not interested so I don’t waste my fucking money and time on you. Crappy sales people try to build desire, the best know when its not there, move on and focus their energy elsewhere.
Take the money you save and spend it building up trust with those who do want it. Desire and trust are fundamental to any sale, and when you focus on these two qualities everything gets a little easier.
1. Be crazy passionate about changing the world. The best start up employees will almost care too much about the company.
2. Don’t be afraid to challenge the strategy of those with proven success.
3. The best ideas are often the ones that seem too risky, the ones that scare you the most.
4. Enjoy the process of building a startup instead of only focusing on the end game.
5. Don’t spend too much time writing a mission statement. Instead, write a killer executive summary outlining the problem you are going to solve, and how you plan to do it.
6. Do not ask potential investors to sign an NDA (nondisclosure agreement). They’ll laugh in your face.
7. Prove you can generate revenue by generating revenue early on. You have to focus on profitability. Show some traction.
8. Focus on creating a unique culture where employees thrive off one another.
9. Venture capitalists will lie to you. Never lie back, especially to your investors.
10. Don’t plan too far ahead. You just don’t know enough starting out to predict anything past 12 to 18 months.
Marketing is asking for someone’s valuable time and attention. Both are hard to get and will be even harder to maintain as media continues to fragment.
People pay attention when you educate and entertain them. Bore them and you’re screwed. Its a simple idea that many businesses neglect online, proven by thousands of unsuccessful personal and business blogs that write with internal motivations.
When you teach you gain loyalty. People will begin to come to you or your blog looking for advice. Some decide to follow your every move. Teaching also builds confidence. A trait not only important to building a strong following, but crucial for acquiring new customers.
So next time you sit down to write be a teacher instead of the guy trying to get something. Give something away for free without expecting anything in return. You’ll be amazed at how much you actually get back.
Do you ever come across a new product or service and say to yourself, “why didn’t I think of that”? Well, discovering the next breakthrough idea is not as hard as you may think.
Find Unresolved Problems
Most companies develop ideas for new products and services internally. They guess. We challenge you to go out and find real, unresolved problems your company can solve. Guessing is actually much easier. That’s why so many ideas fail. Finding a real problem increases your ability to succeed and mitigates the risk of investing in something new.
Go Out and Listen
Most companies just don’t listen. To find unresolved problems, go out and interview buyers in your market. Live in their world for a day. People love to talk about their business, their problems. Chances are they’ll hand you an golden nugget you can run with.
Measure the Potential Impact
Once you’ve found a compelling problem to solve, how do you know if you have a potential winner? Ask yourself, do people urgently need this? You have to make sure the problem is urgent and common throughout your market. Finally, make sure buyers will pay money for you to solve their problem. Great ideas are often worthless if no one is willing hand over a check.
Productivity is an area so many small businesses struggle with. Some make good progress, but most can never maintain it. Why are some companies so good at it, while others never quite get there?
We’re a small business that values productivity. It’s naturally one of the most important elements of a successful anything. After struggling a bit we’ve found a solution that works really well - keep it simple.
Think of simplicity as the secret ingredient to keeping your business, your team and yourself at the top of your game. Forget about buying into expensive tools, methods and plans that promise everything. You’ll find out that 95% of that everything is a useless constraint.
Develop a solid strategy that executes the basics beautifully and focus on one core idea at a time. Use simple tools that tie everything together and keep communication centralized.
The rules for writing effective content for the web have changed, and the consequence of not adapting can hinder even the best online marketers.
You spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars and countless hours driving qualified visitors to your website. Why not invest time into assuring those visitors find what they came for?
Write content that your visitors actually want to consume.
Picture the people you are writing for. Good writing flows like a conversation.
Break ideas into small chunks of knowledge. Don’t overwhelm your visitors.
Be clear, concise and cut out marketing-speak. Its all crap.
Ask yourself if the content fulfills at least one scenario a real person might have.
Use your site visitors words. Internal jargon may confuse them.
Give visitors something they value before you market to them.
Make sure your essential message stands out.
Use lists, illustrations, tables, and short paragraphs when possible.
Use headings to guide your visitors, allow them to choose what to read.
Neglecting your content is like a realtor sending clients to look at a mansion, but they arrive to find a wooden shack. No one will buy it, ever. Fulfill the promise your marketing creates by writing great, relevant content that satisfies your visitors needs.
Most businesses have an optimal size where productivity and happiness are perfectly balanced. How do you find yours?
Its hard picture your the success of your business without continual growth. After all, success is often times associated with growth. But don’t just grow for the sake of growing. Grow for a reason. Step back and realize that you don’t have to be the next Google. Most successful companies are a fraction the size of well known heavyweights, make tons of money and dominate their space no matter how big or small it might be.
Look around and you’ll notice most companies come into the market thinking they have to do more to succeed. I say its okay to do less. It may seem unnatural at first but its effective, and you’ll find its often easier.
Make sure everyone is happy and content, and size will work itself out naturally. You can always do more if less doesn’t work. The next time you feel the need to do more, step back and outsmart your competition by doing less.
There is a simple strategy that most small businesses overlook and it’s one of the most important elements of a successful online marketing strategy. Build a website that reflects and meets the needs of your visitors.
Focus on Your Visitors
Many businesses obsess over their accomplishments, their business and create content based on what they consider important. Don’t just focus on what you want to include internally. Think about the people that come to your site and what tasks they need to accomplish.
Support Their Tasks
Sit down right now and create a list of the different types of visitors that come to your site and tasks they are there to complete. There should be proper support in place to keep visitors satisfied, and interested in your business, products and services. Ultimately, your website content should effortlessly guide visitors toward your conversion goals.
Don’t Waste Money and Time
You can optimize your online marketing efforts and drive an infinite amount of qualified traffic to your site. But if you neglect the needs of those visitors, you may be wasting money in the form of missed opportunity. New visitors have a very low commitment to your business, and may click away at any moment if they don’t find what they need upon arrival.
Admit Your Site is Not Perfect
Emphasize the most important areas, make them easy to find and un-clutter what remains. If the visitor can’t find something easily, it does not exist. Simplify concepts, make important information easy to find and support the needs of each visitor. The first step is to admit that your website is far from perfect. Some of the best businesses have a strong focus on what needs to be fixed, a philosophy that should extend to your website.
As local advertising continues to improve and gain importance online, it becomes critical for smaller businesses to take action and create local listings in order to increase exposure and reach new clients. We’ve compiled a list of options to get you started. Some are free, others are not but all are worth your time and consideration.
Google Local Business Center
Submit business profile to Google Maps to appear within local search results
Free listings include address, hours, pictures, website and even videos
Run sponsored listings for more prominent placement
We hope this list helps you get started with your local advertising efforts. Feel free to list any experiences, opinions or sites we did not mention in the comments.
Thanks for finding your way to our blog. We’re a small company focused on helping small businesses, individuals and non-profits spread awareness online via search marketing.
We’ve set up this blog to share our knowledge of search marketing, business, design, the online world and life in general. We also hope to set a stage for engagement and interaction with you the reader – so please feel free to comment whenever you feel the need. We’re going to start with one post every week.
