Lies Lies Lies!!

I’m in the mood for a good rant today…

Tell Me Lies, tell me sweet little lies
~Tell Me Lies, Tell me tell me lies~
Oh no no, you can’t disguise
~You can’t disguise, no you can’t disguise~
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

It’s a song by Fleetwood Mac called “Tell Me Lies”. Maybe you’ve heard it? Catchy tune. (if you know it, bet you’re singing it in your head!)

So what does it have to do with anything?

I’m fed up with the lies, the pure garbage that is being fed to people and unscrupulous marketing.

… let me tell you a story…

I stepped into the world of touch screen phones. Yep, I got tired of waiting for Blackberry to come out with a new phone for T-Mobile and upgraded into the new HTC Sensation. It’s a touch screen, big display, 4G, has all the bells and whistles, android, easy to use – I love it and so does my wife. My kids love “Angry Birds” – wow what an addictive waste of time that game is eh?!!

I get my first bill and trying to be a good steward I review it to make sure there are no surprises.

Wrong.

2 bogus charges. Ugh. That means I’ve gotta call customer service. Fortunately T-Mobile has great customer service. I usually get a cheery, delightful person who is happy to help. Today was no exception. I got Jessica, a pure delight. She reviewed the charges in question with me.

The first was for insurance. When I got the phone, the sales guy pushed this hard on me. I declined several times and he persisted like a battering ram taking out a castle door. He said “it’s free for 30 days” so I relented and said ok.

Guess what? … it wasn’t free. Not only that, the T-Mobile rep said they have no authority to do that.

My Blood Starts To Boil

The second bogus charge: there’s a monthly charge of $9.99 to allow us to download ringtones from a 3rd party. Neither me or my wife signed up for it. Some cheesy 3rd party company bogussly (is that a word?!!) spammed us some cryptic texts. Irritated, we replied for them to stop.

Well, I guess they didn’t and instead they signed us up for their service and we got dinged for it. Purely unethical in my books. I’m sure they make a tidy profit, afterall how many people have cell phones and how many times do people check their phone bills? The T-Mobile rep said that this kind of stuff unfortunately happens a lot. And to cancel this bogus service, we have to contact the 3rd party and have them remove it. You can be sure I’ll check my bill next month!!

Happy Ending to This Story

Jessica “Your Friendly Neighborhood T-Mobile Rep” to the rescue!! – she reversed both charges and got us all squared away. She made it such a pleasant experience. And I’m grateful for her.

Thank you Jessica.

What Does This Have To Do With Marketing?

I have clients come to me time and time again looking for advice. I get contacted out of the blue by clients, some have gone months without reaching out to me and suddenly they want advice on a variety of topics – internet marketing, SEO, Social Media, Facebook, website design, landing pages, USP’s, the list goes on.

Why do they contact me?

Just like the garbage I had to deal with on my phone bill, there’s so much crap being thrown around out there about marketing. There are a lot of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

YOU MUST KNOW THIS AND BEWARE

I’ve had clients Adwords accounts turned off because they were seduced, I’ve had clients waste THOUSANDS of dollars changing their site to appease someone jibber-jabbing about SEO (I’ve got a great story about a test we did where we got multiple listings on the first page of Google for a term that has over 4,100,000,000 – yes, you read that right, multiple first page listing out of OVER 4 BILLION SEARCHES!! – there were some radically strange things going on that we uncovered but I’ll save that story one for another day.)

I’ve had clients come to me that have wasted tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on “guru’s” and other consultants. And within the first few minutes we could identify the problem.

Bottom line: you must be able to decipher fact from fiction and the truth from fantasy and seduction. If you can’t you’re doomed and will waste money, and even worse, massive amounts of time.

With the exhaustive expansion of online media and ways of getting traffic, if you can’t decipher this on your own, then I suggest you have a trusted adviser you can turn to. The bible says there’s safety in a multitude of counselors. Whether you read the bible or not, this is good common sense. Who are your trusted advisers?

And with all the seduction and wolves in sheep’s clothing out there, sometimes messages like this get missed.

A problem I have is I don’t have a bright shiny object I pitch.

What I do have is:

• time tested and proven, yet cutting edge and radically different methods for increasing sales
• what’s working now
• and straight answers for today’s problems

I guess that’s why people keep coming back to me for advice and allow me to help.

In your business, your clients and prospects are getting pitched garbage and B.S. too. If you help them decipher what’s real and what’s fantasy, they will keep coming back and refer more business to you.

Blessings,

P.S. Amazing how a good rant can improve your mood!

 

The Simple Two-Step Process

Talking with a client, we were exploring opportunities for him to grow his business. He was already successful and felt that there was more out there for him. So we started the brainstorming process, actually “brain dumping” was more like it.

We relentlessly explored opportunity after opportunity. And while we were doing this, I was pointed to a Seth Godin’s blog where I saw this little gem.

The simple two-step process

Step one: Open all doors. Learn a little about a lot. Consider as many options as possible, then add more.

Step two: Relentlessly dismiss, prune and eliminate. Choose. Ship.

The problem most people run into is that they mix the steps and confuse them. During step one, they aren’t open enough, aren’t willing enough to consider the impossible. And then, in step two, fear of shipping kicks in and they stay open too long, hold on to too many options and hesitate.

Simple doesn’t always mean easy.

How true that is eh?

There’s a sticking point for not doing each one – if you don’t do step 1, you almost always miss opportunities to make small bounds or quantum leaps. That’s a common problem today where people are too busy being successful that they don’t have time to open their eyes.

The problem with not doing step 2, is you carry too much junk with you for too long. I had this happen to me where I found myself on too many lists and was getting peddled the same “Whamo! Blamo! Instant Cure-all Magic Pill” and getting blasted 16x per day by the latest and greatest launch. This will destroy all productivity. I can’t tell you how many lists I unsubscribed from. Do yourself a favour and do the same. Keep only those that you get value from.

Look, you’re either growing or your dying. There are resting points but there is no standing still for too long. You will get crushed. So do yourself a favour, when looking at growth, consider this simple two-step process.

Blessings,

NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE TO SELL TO? How to have eager prospects begging for next-day appointments

Dan Kennedy, one of the top marketing experts frequently says that “one” is the worst number any business can have – one client, one source of revenue, one product, one lead source – you get the point. If you have only one way of getting leads, what happens if it dries up?

Let me tell you a story…

Tony, a friend of mine, has always been a hard working guy. He was in the Marine Corps, recon division, not afraid of much. When he got out he didn’t want to work for anyone else, had too much drive, so he went to business school. One day after class he asked the professor what businesses he owned. The professor said he never owned a business. Confused, frustrated and irritated Tony left. That was the last time Tony was ever seen there.

Tony is also a strong minded man so he decided he would learn business the way he learned to fight – in the trenches. He started up a yacht maintenance company and worked his tail off. Toiling day and night he finally landed a big account subcontracting for a bigger yacht maintenance company. Life was great. Big checks, steady year-round work, wife, kids, house, mortgage, car payments.

Then one day it happened… the bomb hit…

He showed up Monday morning to pick up his list of yachts to clean as he did many times before. This time he was told he was no longer needed. 90% of his income gone in the blink of an eye. It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially when you are a hard working man with a wife and kids looking up to you and depending on you.

I won’t bore you with all the details of what happened next but the short version went something like this…. hurt (crushed is a better word), confused, bills, anger, determination, prayer, supportive wife, strong work ethic, lesson learned, focused. Stayed in same business, printed flyers, hand delivered them, got a couple clients, provided un-paralleled value, knew his competitors were lazier, delivered superior service, treated his customers like gold (wow is that missing in businesses today!), got more customers, raised rates, hired workers, increased customer value by adding more services, continued to diversify, started brokering deals buying and selling yachts, bought a bigger house to support his bigger family.

You may be saying, “great story Chris, but how does that relate to me?”

If you don’t have multiple streams of generating leads, then you may want to start. Here’s the problem I see, too many businesses don’t have enough leads and so they start to look for ways to advertise or get their name out. Everything sounds so darn good that they try to do too much without much thought into anything. Nothing gets done.

Here’s the BIG lesson: develop focus. Draw up a marketing plan and focus on one source of leads at a time. (if you have an abundance of funds then outsource to get more done at one time).

Think about this, if you add one source of traffic every two months, then in the next year you will have 6 different sources of leads working for you, or 12 sources in 2 years. What do you think your business would look like if you did this? If you focused your thoughts and efforts and got one source going every two months, do you think you would have more success or would you be worrying about where your next lead was coming from?

Tony got focused and kicked some butt.
Now it’s your turn to kick some butt!

Hope you enjoyed this.

Blessings

Facebook, Social Media and “The Hype Cycle”

Social media is here to stay. There is no denying that. And Facebook is quickly becoming the new internet. And with Facebook's growing excitement, there will come a HUGE release of new products to teach you how to take advantage of "this greatest opportunity of our lifetime" (ever heard that before?).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against new technology or new products. I am constantly on the lookout for them and use many of them. What I am saying is that there is so much HYPE being sold with every new technology that you can easily get seduced and wind up wasting tonnes of time and money.

Here's something you may not know, every new technology that comes out follows the exact same pattern. If you can recognize the pattern, you have a better chance of winning the game. Miss it and you end up perpetually chasing "bright shiny objects." To avoid wasting time and missing out on LOTS of opportunity, I have made a video for you. Watch this now.

Don't feel like you have to jump on every bandwagon when it comes out. That can be too stressful. Also, don't feel like you have to wait forever either, that would be a buzz kill if you thrive off of the adrenaline rush of new things.

Just be laser focused on what is important to you. Have a few things that you are really good at. When you do that and have that focus, the rest will fall into place and you will never miss out.

Blessings
Chris.

P.S. If you want to discover the hidden opportunities that exist right now in your business and add an extra 15-35% profits (or more) in 3 months, go to http://www.chrisgoegan.com/programs/engineered-marketing-phase-i-tcp-analysis/

How to Apply Business Boosters In Your Business To Make Quantum Leaps… it’s not what you think

The last few weeks I’ve been writing about Business Boosters that will dramatically increase the results of ANY business.

Some of the Boosters included the likes of…

• Who wouldn’t want to Find an Army of People Eager to Sell Your Products or Services?
• How to Tap Into The “Hidden Goldmine” in Your Business
• How to Build Relationships to Get People to Keep Coming Back to You

Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to have these?

Of course everybody wants these. And that’s where the problem lays… how do you implement them?!

I mean, yes you want these. Yes you salivate like Pavlov’s dog at the thought of having a solid, secure business that just keeps pumping revenue into your bank account month after month after month whether you are there or sipping Mai Tais in a hammock in Bora Bora. The thought has got to bring a smile to your face.

Simple. You pick one of the Boosters, put it into place this week, pick another put it into place next week, and so on. In 7 weeks you will have all the Business Boosters in place and 2 weeks later you will need to open up a new bank account. It’s that easy. (can you pick up the sarcasm yet?)

Seriously, if it was that easy, wouldn’t EVERYONE be fighting for the same hammock? And Bora Bora would be overpopulated.

There are people out there that will have you believe this. Many of the “Guru’s” and slick talking internet marketers and used car salesman will have you buy into this fantasy world. It’s the legal version of crack that is hawked by the truckloads. They will have you believe in Mega Mansions, Luxury Yachts, Rolex watches and “livin the life”.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not good to sip the Pink Koolaid. It is, everyone should drink some of it. I did. It helps smack you upside the head and bring you back to reality. Because after the buzz wears off and you realize that you have been chasing pure fantasy, then you are ready for wisdom.

Wisdom is the perfect application of knowledge

Wisdom allows you to accomplish more than what you can accomplish off of a sugar rush any day. Oh, and by the way, you can have a good life with wealth, success, peace and strong relationships. You will enjoy it more through wisdom then through chasing fantasy.

When I signed up to do my Ironman it was an exhilarating experience. I had never done one before and had dreamed about it for over 20 years.

I could see myself crossing the finish line. Sheer joy on my face. Feeling of triumph. Fists pumping. Friends and family cheering me on. Pictures flashing. A pure, contented, joyful smile radiating out of my body.

My Ironman was 9 months away. I signed up on a Wednesday and on Saturday I got hit smack between the eyes with a healthy dose of reality.

My coach for the Ironman is an amazing man. Coach Dave. He has done many Ironman’s and helped 2-300 others do the same. Coach Dave announced that we were doing a 2 mile ocean swim. I was not ready to swim this distance and figured I could fake it and use good ‘ole will power and determination. Besides, I didn’t want to look stupid in front of my team. The other problem was I watched the movie Jaws to many times as a kid. I’m a guy from Toronto who grew up in fresh water. There are sharks in the ocean that will eat you right? But still I didn’t want to look stupid in front of my team. So I was ready to do it.

I missed the swim.

I conveniently had “something come up” and “had a previous commitment that I couldn’t get out of”. Truth be told, I was out of fantasy land and back into reality. Now I had a decision to make. Do I stay committed to my dream of finishing an Ironman or do I put it off and chase the fantasy later?

I got alone and reflected and made a quiet decision to pursue it. I knew it would require hard work, consistent work and wisdom.

I followed the daily workouts that Coach Dave layed out for me.

• Many times I didn’t “feel” like it but did it anyhow
• Many times I was injured and did the workouts anyhow
• Many times I wanted to quit, but I did it anyhow

9 months later I gave birth to that dream.

I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Coach Dave. It was just too big for me to tackle on my own. Thank you Dave.

So how do you apply the Business Boosters In Your Business?

1. You develop a workout schedule. Hire a coach if you have to.
2. Do the workouts whether you feel like them or not.
3. Measure your progress and adjust as necessary.

You do these and I guarantee you will make quantum leaps in your business. Say it takes you 3 months of focus to implement one thing – an Adwords campaign, improving your conversion strategy, developing a referral program – if you do it in 3 months then it is done. Then say it takes you 3 more months to do the next thing, and so on. In 12 months you will have 4 new Business Boosters or campaigns in place that are getting you results.

If you did this consistently for 1, 2 or 3 years, what impact would this have do for your business? Your lifestyle? Your security?

The Best news is that your customers will love you for it and your competition will be too lazy to copy you and will say “you got lucky”.

Blessings
Chris.

P.S. If you want to read my writeup of my Ironman Race, go to http://www.chrisgoegan.com/about-chris-goegan/physical-interests. It’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face when you read about what happened when I got out of the water after my swim.

Business Boosters To Crush This Economy – Part III

I was invited to a meeting put on by marketing genius Bill Glazer. He has 25,000 customers that pay him every month ranging from $40 – $1000 (he also has some high end clients too). Do the math – he knows what the heck he’s doing. Bill shared 7 Business Boosters That ANY Business Can Do To Survive And Thrive In This Recession. I covered #1-3 in a previous post and here is #4-7…

Booster #4 How To Find An Army of People Eager to Sell Your Stuff For You!! (this is very cool!)

Ok, who wouldn't want to have an army of people eager to sell your stuff for you? Just the thought of that has got to bring a smile to your face. Visions of grandeur. Of finally being on easy street. A situation everyone craves.

But how do you do that?

You Create a Referral Culture.

But how do you do that you ask?!!! Here are some bullets to help you:

• feature customers who refer you in your newsletters
• posts people who gave the referral on your social media sites
• thank customers who refer – my goodness is this ever horribly missed by many! I referred a client to a friend who is very skilled in his profession. He closed the deal and you know what I got – nothing! A simple "thank you" or email would have been plenty for me to refer more business. I got nothing. How many more referrals do you think I want to send him? Contrast that to a client of mine who gives any combination of thank you cards, gift certificates to upscale restaurants or a simple Starbucks gift card for a simple warm introduction.
• referral contest
• build a referral program into your business – build it into your sales presentation or in your brick and mortar store – where you give them a choice of gifts for giving you referrals on the spot
• create a referral rewards program
• take your best referrals on a night out or to a special exclusive event

To create an effective referral program, it is vital that you do three things:

1. Be very clear who are your ideal customers or clients
2. Be intentional to attract them using pull marketing
3. Create the ultimate customer experience for them

Do these and your odds of getting referrals will skyrocket!

Booster #5 – How to Tap Into The "Hidden Goldmine" in Your Business

Most miss this. Every business has one. It is the 3rd easiest way to get business (selling more to existing customers and getting referrals are #1 & 2 easiest). It is easier to get more business from here than it is to get new clients. It is approximately 7x more expensive to get a new client than to farm this one.

Create a Lost Customer Reactivation Campaign

Many businesses do this. But how they go about doing this is all wrong. They send some cheesy, flat, dull, boring 4×6 postcard saying "it's time for you to come back and see us".  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz – that's the sound of your lost customer's sleeping while reading it.

There are much more fun and creative ways to get people to come back in. One is to send a boomerang in the mail with a letter and offer to have them come back. You throw a boomerang and it comes back, get it? Sends the message to your lost customer that they are supposed to come back. Make sure your letter is not dull and boring though. And give them a compelling reason and an irresistible offer to come back in to see you.

But how do you know when to send this? …. every business has a cycle, determine when they should come back in and send it around that time.

Booster #6 – How to Build Relationships to Get People to Keep Coming Back to You

You must stay in touch with your customers and prospects. If you are married, when you were dating your wife did you only talk to them when you wanted something? No! You built a relationship with them on a regular basis. Same thing with marketing to your prospects and customers. If you want more business, you must build a relationship. This is called Relationship Marketing.

How do you do this?

Send them a newsletter.

2 ways to do it, is to send an electronic newsletter or ezine, the other is to send a print newsletter. Every business is different and some fit better than others. Here's one thing about print newsletters – they outperform electronic newsletters. To send a 4-page print newsletter it costs a buck a name. This includes all costs including postage. And it needs to be done monthly. Look at what your customer value is and figure out if it is worth investing a buck a month or $12 bucks a year on them.

Regarding the content, most people do this all wrong. They send a newsletter that is just boring facts about their business or a glorified sales pitch. While you want to include both, you put in a lot of other stuff in there – include some of your personality, add humour, articles about other non-business related things that are of interest to your market. And yes, recognize people who referred you business and give them a great offer monthly.

Booster #7 – Add More Media!

The worst number in any business is the number 1… if you only have one client you do not have much security, if you only use one source of media you are screwed if anything happens to it. I have read stories and met people that had one major account that was giving fat commission checks until the account was bought out by another business and the product shipped overseas, a distributor that lost it's sole shipping channel, a major client that decided to discontinue a product, an advertiser that was spending 1,000,000/yr on adwords and had their account shutdown overnight, someone had some work done on their website and had all SEO & SEM traffic turned off because a simple piece of code was missed, a company that was selling to Big Box stores that gave a mandate to reduce prices and squashed all profit margin, a printed magazine that decided to delay mailing by months until it was more profitable for the magazine.

Get the point?!!

If you are only using one source of media you are setting yourself up to be screwed.

As an engineer, you just know I am big into formulas. Here is one worth memorizing

Diversity = Stability

In this economy you must be smarter and more diverse. More businesses are beginning to advertise more. Remember this story… "2 guys were walking in the woods. One had running shoes strung around his neck. His buddy asked what they were for. He said they were in case they met a bear. His buddy laughed and told him he was never going to outrun the bear. He chuckled and said "don't have to outrun the bear, just have to outrun you!"

Most businesses are lazy and copy what everyone else is doing. You are different. You are on my list and are here reading this. You are smarter. You are being exposed to great stuff that will let you outrun your competition every time.

Now go figure out what to implement and go do it eh!

Blessings
Chris.

P.S. Want to gain more of an "unfair advantage" over your competition? … go get the ebook "12 Biggest Marketing Mistakes Most Businesses Make And How to Avoid Each One"… it's your's free. Put your name and email address in the  box just to the right of this post and I will have it rushed to you. Go do it now!

Business Boosters to Crush This Economy – Part II

I was at a meeting put on by marketing genius Bill Glazer. He has 25,000 customers that pay him every month ranging from $40 – $1000 (he also has some high end clients too). Do the math – he knows what the heck he’s doing. Bill shared 7 Business Boosters That ANY Business Can Do To Survive And Thrive In This Recession. Here they are…

Booster #1 – Get Out of The Commodity Business!!!

When the going gets tough, the natural inclination for many is to drop their prices. Afterall, when you drop prices you become more attractive and can compete better right? Problem is, your competition does the same and then at what point does it stop? Sure you win a job or 2 initially but then you hit a point where you are barely profitable. Your workload may stay the same but your profits drop significantly. Unable to keep margins up you have to resort to cost cutting and possibly letting go of people and getting back in the trenches yourself. Sure this may seem glamorous for a brief moment, but this gets old fast doesn’t it?

So what is the cure?

Get away from competing on price. Develop a list of why you are inarguably the BEST choice and ONLY choice. This way you completely separate yourself from your competition. One of the first things I do with my clients is to get them into a “category of one”. Where they are the ONLY choice for their prospects. The more you understand your market, the compeittion and what frustrates your propects and what their secret desires are, the easier it is to do this. In many cases you can actually increase your prices with no loss in top or bottom line.

Booster #2 – Constantly Build Your Herd

Little known fact… “Your Database is Your #1 Asset”.

I was recently talking with a friend that said he was thinking about buying an existing business. It would cost him 7 figures to buy this business. They have been around for over 20 years but have no customer list and no database. Sure they have a respected name but that’s it. No marketing system, no list, no database. He said he thought he could do much better than investing so much. I agree. For much less than that you can develop a sizable list and establish a powerful presence in the market.

So, back to your list… focus your efforts on developing and growing it. With a big list, you can make the initial sale and then come back around and sell them many other products or services later. Don’t have any you say? Put your thinking cap on and apply some creativity. It cost 7x as much to get a new prospect to buy from you vs. an existing client or customer.

And when you are looking at building your list, put an Iron Clad System in place for Customer Data Collection. Apply this to online data collection using squeeze pages. Apply this to offline data collection by training your staff to gather information on every customer. Next time you go to a restaurant, see if they collect your contact info or email address. Odds are they don’t. Do you think if they did and sent you great offers from time to time you would be more likely to come back more often? Think about how you can apply this to your business.

Booster #3 – 3 Step Survey Process

There is nothing so powerful to uncover your prospects and customers needs better than a survey. Who doesn’t like to voice their opinion about a topic they are interested in?

Here’s how you do it. It’s an easy 3 Step Process:

1. Ask 1-10 multiple choice questions. There are free online tools you can use like Survey Monkey and Survey Gizmo. Offer a gift or a premium for answering the questions. Note, for an existing database, you can get a great response with no premium. If you have no list or weak response, bribe them with a premium or a gift. This works really well. Then promise to report back results.
2. Report the results – people have more confidence in what other people want instead of what they want. That is a powerful statement. Go back and read it again. People want to know what others are interested in and will change their opinion and purchasing behaviour based on what others want.
3. Sell them the thing. Sell them what the biggest unmet needs are.

Here’s a note about surveys, when analyzing the results, don’t always look for the most popular answer. Look for the answers to where the most pain and frustrations are. This is where you can create even higher profits from even more loyal clients.

That’s enough for this week. Look for Business Boosters #4-7 coming soon!

Now go put one of these into play.

Blessings
Chris

P.S. If you don’t want to miss Business Boosters #4-7, you need to subscribe to my newsletter. To do this simply fill out the form to the right of this page to get your free report today. You will get marketing secrets guaranteed to make a difference in your business. As a special bonus, you will also get a Free E-book called “The 12 Biggest Mistakes Most Businesses Make in Their Sales, Marketing and Advertising and How You Can Avoid Each One”. I wonder how many you are making?