Needs Must Outweigh Wants

While it always important to keep focus and find out and become what your customers need, not just what they want – that has not been so true for many of today’s business owners.

With a large percentage of current businesses never before having faced a recession, at least not from the helm of a company, it is very important to focus in on the things your customers need.  People will eliminate wants – not needs.

How do you elevate from a want to a need?  Good question…and the answer is coming up…be sure you know what services or products you provide that none of your competitors do.  This is your niche, and adds value to you – taking you up from want to need.  Then, be sure to address the things your competitors don’t.  You can bring not only the clients who need your services, but those who need better service or goods than they are getting down the cyber or real street.  Finally, be sure to use language and present value as a need, not as a want.  Show your clients how you – and you alone – fulfill a space they would be hurt without.  Something they don’t want to give up.  Something they will hang on to as long as possible.

Times may be tougher than we’ve had in awhile, and costs are surely rising.  However, this doesn’t mean doomsday and apocalyptic choas are on the horizon…bury down in your niche and claim your space – and you’ll be there to thrive when the economic climate turns warm and sunny again.

Check out this new Logo – Marketing Pedagogy has Begun!

Marketing Pedagogy – Andy Greider’s company

Sometimes, it is amazing how you write an article – having used the products – and then come back and use them again to find they have gotten that much better!

With the launch of Andy’s new company, Marketing Pedagogy – he had to come up with a logo – and quick. 

Using the very cool tools found in this article – “A logo, 500 Business Cards and Lots of Fun for Under $100” he built the new logo for his company, leveraging along the way the support of his friends, professional peers and others to help find the logo  with the most appeal.  The logo cost $49.  The color palettes were free – and the business cards were less than $50.  What a deal!  Check it out in action – here!

Choosing Inferior Domain Names Can Ruin an Online Business

A website by any other name, would not be so sweet….or so says the cyber-bard.  Many times when we’re picking a site url, we fall prey to classic mistakes – here are the most common – and how to avoid them:

1. Buy a .net instead of a .com – and you will most likely send more than 15% of your potential repeat busineess to the .com – most likely a huge competitor.

2.  Not buying the .net, .org, .info, etc of your own name – to protect it on down the line.  Serious online businesses should own all, and all should point to the .com.

3. Using a number in your domain name, such as FreeAdvice4Life, but not purchasing the freeadviceforlife.com address.

3. Keep it short and sweet – urls of less than 7 letters or digits work well.  Others are very forgetable.  Phone numbers are 7 digits for a reason – and the world isn’t getting any better at paying attention to details or retention.
3.5  Begin to branch out to other countries with a name that doesn’t translate well.  Nothing worse than being an url that gains traction here and then becoming a whole new entity in another country – it is, after all, the world wide web.

4.  Using two different names – one for your company – one for the web address.  Consultants R Us as the name, then CRUS.com as the web address…or worse yet – with hyphens consultants-r-us.com.

5. Getting too close to the bone on a new name – or too closely emulating a trademarked name with cache value – and a large legal department.  Doing so can crush a young company.  Just when you gain momentum, they notice you – and you go away.

6. Trying to come up with a word without a current meaning and then expecting people to recall it without spending millions on new ads. 

7. Forgeting that a name online has to “paint a picture” – Sam’s Bikes On Main doesn’t work online.  Trying for something that is online oriented works much better than simply transfering a brick-n-mortar name to the internet.

8.  Buy only the singular or plural of bikes.com or bike.com – try for both and stop sending your clients to the competition.

9. Working on a new company name without first checking for the url availability.  There is nothing worse than hitting paydirt on a great name to find out the url isn’t available.  Check all of them before presenting.

10.  Not buying potential mispellings – especially if your web address is something easily mispelled.  Most people count on the average web surfer to be a deft typist, and it simply isn’t the case.

So, there are some tips on choosing an online name.  For more info, please feel free to connect with me via phone at 404 516 4204 or via email at andygreider@comcast.net with “naming my website” in the subject line.

Thanks!

Be Found at the Top Of Google and Yahoo – for $9.95 a month

www.qaliassignup.com

Just out of beta is qAlias, the most deadly efficient manner of personal optimization in search engine traffic available today; – and the most cost efficient as well, at $9.95/month.

For only $9.95 per month (with a month to month agreement) this is what you get:

- Page 1 Guaranteed Sponsored Listing on Google
- A one page informational website – easy to create and maintain!
- NO extra pay-per-click costs or other expenses
- A Bulletin – which is a combo blog and email newsletter
- Online Business Cards (so when you forget them, are short on them, or whatever), just say-> Google my name! (Try it now – Google Andy Greider)

No matter how common your name – no matter how many others with that name sign up – you’ll always obtain top page one listing and control what the web says about you through your own informational website, at the top of the sponsored links!

If you sign up today, the rate is only $9.95 per month – go to www.qaliassignup.com and get in for this AMAZING and almost embarrassing rate.

Get your listing started – it takes only 5 – 10 minutes to sign-up. Plus, you can pay your fee by PayPal or credit card, and your profile shows up almost immediately!

One other tip – be sure to write your bio page in a separate program, like Microsoft Word and then paste it over, as the servers will be very busy with this special offer. This will make the sign up process even easier.

$100 Monthly Marketing, Online Search Optimizing Best Budget Option

One of the major marketing considerations for a small business stems from increasing your personal visibility online without breaking the bank.  From the creators of www.uniquenessispower.com comes a value filled $100 monthly package of services, which when leveraged together, work synergistically to help increase your personal brand online.  Since most people buy from people, not companies, this results in an effective way to network and grow your business.

Currently, when someone meets you, one of the first things they are likely to do, is google you.  So, what happens when they do?  If you don’t come up in that first page, or there is old or bad information out there, it can reflect poorly on you.  This is the first deep impression people get of you, in many cases.So, what can you do to make that impression as controlled and positive as possible? We recommend the following tools (totaling to $100 a month) for how to make your name the top listing in Google, how to leverage Web 2.0 technology and how to network online like a pro.  Here’s how it all comes together: For $50 a month, become a member of Fast Pitch! one of the fastest growing online business networks in the world.  Fast Pitch! helps you get connected to thousands of other professionals in your region and globally.  Fast Pitch! also helps you promote and share your business-related content with other members including press, blogs, videos, podcasts and more.  On the radio show, we’ve described FastPitch! as a combination of Linked In, YouTube, PR Web and happy hour.  It’s literally a one-stop shop to network and market your business!  When you create your profile, make sure you mention “Uniqueness is Power” co-host Lee Kantor’s name in the “referred by” box.

Then, for $40 a month on Hello World you get all the web 2.0 you need and more – with potentials for trainings and demos, both live and recorded (an alternative to WebEx and GoToMeeting), a great new business tool in video mail, a quick meeting alternative in video im, plus a one stop locations for your blog, podcasts and vcasts. 

Next, to attain the top ranking on Google under your name, check out the $10 a month solution with QAlias – this allows you control over what is being said about you online, in that first impression, to some degree. 

Finally, as a small business, do not forget  - ads on Craigs List are free for services and are a great way to leverage and distribute this new information you can now create to the general public.

The Publicity Formula gives 5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Hire a Publicity Coach instead of a Publicist

By Guest Columnist Yoshi Simms

 

Have you considered hiring a publicist but their fees are way out of your price range? 

Do you need a publicist but you’ve heard the horror stories of “I paid my retainers and got nothing?”

Regardless of the fact that this may all be true, at some point people need to know about your business other than by word of mouth.  Publicity has served and still today is the best avenue in getting the word out.

Yes indeed, publicity is the most respected and credible way to get your business seen, but the cost of hiring a publicist can sometimes put a real strain on a small business.  This is one of the main reasons a lot of businesses have turned to Publicity Coaching.

Publicity Coaches teach entrepreneurs to be their own publicist, for their own business.  You have a coach that shows you step by step, exactly how to do your own publicity just like the pros.  You actually become the publicist for your business.

Let’s check out these 5 reasons why you may want to consider Publicity Coaching:

#1 – Cost

This is the number one reason companies have turned to publicity coaching.  The usual fees for a publicist range from $1500-$5,000, depending on the publicist and the number of hours required to publicize the business.

#2 – Customized Plan

When you work with a publicity coach, your publicity plan is customized just for your business, not some template used for all other businesses.

#3 – Media Savvy

You will learn everything there is to know about the various forms of media and how to get your business noticed by them.

#4 – Product or Service Leveraging

Create relationships that turn into clients by leveraging your products or services.

#5 – Media Publicity vs. Public Publicity vs. B to B Publicity

In today’s society, mainly because of the Internet, there is more than just media publicity.  Learn how to get to all 3!

So as you see, Publicity Coaching is a great alternative to hiring a publicist or a public relations firm.

Yoshi Simms

Publicity Coach

The Publicity Formula

www.thepublicityformula.com

info@thepublicityformula.com

678-318-3632

Tops 10 Tips on Building Your Blog – and Advancing Your Business Online

We all want to have a better blog – and we all want to help drive traffic to the blog we create – so how do you do that?  Here are 10 tips on how to build your business by better blogging (alliteration is so much fun!) 1. Show how you were a super hero – with case studies…take a few minutes to explain how you helped clients and what you did for them that no one else could do.

2. Find areas you can carve a niche in – specialties you know you are good at, and that can benefit you both in pay and in consistent business.  Focus on those in special features on your blog – it helps with your SEO and helps with your referral-ability.

3. Write articles about things that are hot industry topics – and be someone that stands out – make a statement – even if they don’t agree, they’ll often listen.  Some of the best clients I’ve ever had were people who didn’t agree with me, either to start, or ever – at least not on the issue they found me through.

4. Forumlate a Top 10 “Questions I Always Answer” – and then replies and a quick 2-3 paragraphs on all of them, to give the standard reponse – yes it’s a BLOG-FAQ. 

5. Pass along the best of what you’ve heard and learned.  It is very helpful to the readers of your blog to know that you also credit others – for instance, a lot of what we learn here comes from blogs out there – and when we borrow info, we give credit – so here we will thank the E-zine Queen, the folks at Duct Tape Marketing and Yanik Silver.

6. Letterman isn’t the only one to make Top 10 Lists that are popular.  Call it the “ADD” or “Follow the Shiny Object” syndrome of America, but people love top 5 or 10 lists.  Build a list of things people need to know about and place it on your blog.  C’mon, it isn’t that hard.  There are plenty of things you know about that, broken down into 10 subsets, makes for an interesting entry in your blog.

7. Post reviews of products or services that compliment what you do for a business – and see if you can work out reciprical blogroll links with the people on the other end, or perhaps some sort of shared referral agreement.
8.  Interview a competing associate for a blog spot – ask 3-5 questions that matter to the readers of your blog – and get their input on how THEY would handle things (I’d use this tip about once a month, personally.)

9. Find Books,  Blogs, Speakers, others, that you can write reviews of, and that you can crosslink with.  This ties into #7 but is different in the fundamental approach and reason for doing.  With Authors, Bloggers and Speakers, you have an unlimited audience of people who will Google that person’s name and find your review or comments.

10. Actually ask for people to write you – and listen to the people you write for each week – take questions – answer and post.  This is a great way to lend credibility to your blog and to your audience.  I try to answer posts whenever I can on the blogs I help maintain.

BONUS TIP:  Be sure to do “reader activities” or “spotlights” – guest articles, testimonials and other info is vital to the continued success of your blog.  This is another great weekly, bi-weekly or monthly feature on your blog. And then, to go Gitomer on you – here’s 10.5 – be consistent with your output – be sure to post one or two times a week, at minimum.  And finally, when we figure it out, we’ll post about WordPress’s widget for expanding your blog even further. Thanks for listening!

Andy, Lee and the crew at www.uniquenessispower.com

Live Thursdays at 6 pm est – www.uiplive.com

 

Remove Your Opinion, Increase Your Sales

While there is very little that gives more satisfaction to a small business owner than hearing their radio ad on air, there is ONE thing that certainly surpasses it – hearing the register ring as a result of that ad. 

Ironically, most of the time, the spot that earns the sweet cha-ching sound, isn’t always the one the owner would have picked.  Most people are not born marketers.  Yet, so many C-Level executives and small business owners assume since they know how to run their business, they know how to market it as well.  Thus, they have trouble keeping their personalities and individual likes and dislikes out of the mix when it comes to crafting spots, placing ads or designing other creative to support their company. 

Would you rather have ads that you like or one that drives traffic consistently to your business?Often, the best copy and creative gets left on the cutting room floor, not because it wasn’t the best for the job, but because the head honcho didn’t “like it.”   It’s reasonable that because emotions drive our likes and dislikes that they can get in the way of logic. 

So, how would you know if in the event you don’t like an ad – that it has potential to be effective? Simply put – place yourself in the shoes of your audience.  If only the decision maker could remember, they aren’t very often the end user.  Simply because the spot is running on a station they don’t listen to, or using colors they don’t like, is irrelevant.  The owner’s like or dislike of the ad represents the tree, not the forest.  The massive forest is the target audience – the end user.

If you allow personal marketing preferences to interfere and simply address “your tree”, the money spent on the effort will not be anywhere nearly as fruitful, if it succeeds at all once it goes out to the proverbial forest.

Don’t get wrapped up in whether you like the creative or not – worry about if the creative will drive sales.  This isn’t, after all, about you (unless you are the sole customer of your company.)  It is about most effectively reaching your target customer and growing your business.  It is about finding the best manners and methods with which to earn your customer’s actions and loyalty.

It is about all these things, but ultimately, it is about making the register ring.

How to Harness the Internet and Own Online Customers

This year’s big buzz is around rich media and online advertising; which leaves little doubt we will see this medium takeoff in the coming months as more companies embrace this method for reaching customers. Rich media represents a way to reach the masses, and with accountability to show ROI on advertising dollars. Despite all the positives; overall efforts will not be as successful as they should be.

Why not?

Despite the onslaught of online advertising, much of it will be heard and seen as noise and flashing graphics, ignored as millions of potential viewers cruise on by. Throughout today’s online advertising environment, the message simply isn’t expedient enough, and doesn’t provide what the internet user covets – something that is fast, moving and fluid.

So what happens?

There sits your extremely expensive flash presentation with streaming video and eye-poppers, just waiting for your target to click; meanwhile they are 5 pages away in 30 seconds flat. When you are building an online campaign, you need to understand what your customer seeks, and how their mind works while they surf. Play to that mindset. Your message must hit hard, fast and be very relevant. In addition, to get the most return for your marketing dollars, your online foray should be coordinated with support for your other communication initiatives, building your brand and forwarding your business plan.

Sounds tough, right?

That’s because it is. Maybe that’s why so few companies in today’s marketplace have yet to produce a good online rich media campaign – let alone a great one. Most have created one, or worse, dozens, where the traditional rules get kicked out the door. Customers are overlooked, the message and integration with other initiatives is pushed aside and cute gimmicks that rule the day take center stage. You may end up with something that looks cool, but if the customer never clicks, who will know? If they click, but don’t take action, what good was the effort?

What Can You Do?

Resist the urge to change the strategy and the rules. To realize the power of rich media in expressing your brand and offering to the world you must remember: Online advertising is faster than TV, more engaging than radio and most present than print. It is a powerful medium for the future, but your technique has to be near perfect. Success is measured in fractions of seconds. You have less room for error than ever before.

Yet, the answer has never been more evident. The traditional marketing morays have never been more important – know your customers and their tendencies. Hit hard and fast. Experiment and be interesting, but ultimately, keep it simple – promote your brand while creating action that sells your service or product.

The Future Belongs to You…

Make rich media an integral and dynamic piece of your marketing and branding arsenal, instead of the money pit it will become for most companies. Capture those nano-seconds potential customers will see your message online, and own them. Grow your brand, elevate your company and sell your product or service – today. Your online market – whatever field you are in – is wide open and ripe for the taking.

 So, what are you waiting for?

Andy Greider
Home Business Owner and Coach (www.saveyourbottomline.com)
Entreprenuer, Marketing and Business Consultant (www.carrollwhite.com)
Radio Show Host, Author (www.uniquenessispower.com)

Qualify Hard, Sell Soft – Getting To Yes, Through Next…

We all know that time is money.  When you own a small business – it becomes more and more apparent when you find yourself saying, “there just aren’t enough hours in the day” or “I couldn’t get anything done today with all the interuptions.”  And in the end - the person that directly effects is you – and your bottom line.

So, how do you get through the day with more time on your hands?  There are dozens of tips and ideas for doing so, and making your business more effective, but we’ll begin with:

Qualify Hard and Sell Soft -

So, what does this mean?  Well, in the past, businesses selling things and especially the sales people making the approach, were encouraged to qualify soft and sell hard (present the features, and then apply heavy handed tactics to close the sale.)  This progressed to Qualify soft, sell soft – where the sale takes on the feel of a relationship – albeit a somewhat laissez faire one.

In today’s marketplace, you can save the potential client and yourself a great deal of dancing (read “wasted time”) by asking pointed direct questions that will help qualify the sale, so you can ask 5-10 minutes later – “are we now in a position to do business together?”  Most people frown on this approach, but it is far and away the most effective method.  People don’t want to use it because it seems almost sure to cause some people to walk away.  But really, if they walk away due to a few tough questions – would they EVER have been a customer – and how much time would it take to find out?  This is what we mean by getting to yes, through next.  Instead of hearing no – hear next – and understand the customers who are qualified are the ones you want in the first place.

Qualifying hard isn’t meant to upset – it is meant to engender honesty, integrity and trust right upfront, and show the potential client you care more about the business being right for BOTH of you, than you do anything else.  And personally, that will get me to “be someone’s friend” much faster than anything else.

So, what questions do you want to ask?Understanding what the customer wants, if they are new, or shopping around, if they’ve ever bought widgets before, if they enjoyed that experience, if not – why not, and more are all key to bringing them into your world and making them your customer – oftentimes, when qualifying is done right, it means they are yours for life.

If you want to know more about the idea of qualifying hard and letting the sale fall into place by sharing, you can drop me a line with questions or thoughts.