How to stop faffing and turn your BIG plans in to results

It’s the little daily stuff that makes it all happen!

Thinking big is good! You’ve got to have a plan. But starting the week paper shuffling, email faffing and hiding in Twitter is not going to crack it.

And a big problem many of you seem to have (me too!) is being able to break down the BIG plan in to little daily stuff.

Let me give you some examples:

“ Get blogging” becomes “Write and publish a blog article every Wednesday” (yes, I am sure you know that the more you blog, the more effective your blogging will be, but if you don’t commit to one every week, then it ain’t going happen!)

“Do more in LinkedIn” becomes “Invite 5 new connections on LinkedIn every Monday morning” (yup, you could be doing more, but hey – let’s start with something do-able!)

“Do newsletter” becomes “Write and send out your email newsletter every third Thursday” (OK, so once a week or fortnight is more effective, but if it is all too much you will only end up in overwhelm and that won’t do any good, will it?)

“Follow up on new networking contacts” becomes “Phone 3 people up on a Tuesday morning” (what phone?? Is that allowed in this new world of social networking?! – Duh! Yes!)

“Fill pipeline” becomes “Make a plan to meet one new person for coffee every fortnight” (Surely you could more, but hey one a fortnight is better because you are DOING it!)

Need me to go on?

It’s too easy to think BIG and then give yourselves HUGE plans … that never seem to happen.

It’s the little daily stuff that makes it all happen.

The Facebook weekly round up from the Web Tech Club

Facebook Fan Pages have been a hot social marketing topic for the past year, especially since the new look changes made a few months ago.

Small businesses are beginning to realise the potential that Facebook offers, but it’s still a confusing place to be.

How do you get your first few fans?  How do you keep getting fans?  Do you really need to spending all day and every day, getting new fans?

I’m exhausted just writing it!

This week I’ve been sharing some top articles about managing Facebook Fan Pages over at the Web Tech Marketing Club.

.

Here is the weekly round up:

• How to get your first 25 Likes on your Facebook Fan Page
• Why I think you have to have a personal profile on Facebook first before starting your first Fan Page
• 10 “set and forget” way to get people to Like your Facebook Fan Page
• Why Facebook Likes are not enough

.

Hope they are useful and do share your thoughts or comments below.

If you are interested in finding out about Facebook and other web tech marketing tools such as Twitter, blogs and email newsletter, then do check out what the Web Tech Club has to offer.  There is already instant access to April’s Web Tech Training Session “Facebook Marketing” – an hour long training session that you can watch and learn straight from your PC or laptop.

Some will, some won’t, so what … someone else is waiting!

Your first one or two years starting up your own business can be mentally tough.  You start from nothing and then find yourself with one or two clients.  Your confidence grows and you nervously push yourself that little bit more.  Perhaps get out to a networking event or call up a contact or two from your corporate days.

Then you may get a few more clients.  Yes, it feels good.

But then, your clients cancel.  ”I’m are too busy“, they say.  ”Apologies but I’ve got to go away on business.”  Or “I’ve got a few family problems to sort out.  I’ll call you again next month. Is that OK?”

You start to doubt yourself.  You start to feel desperate about finding another client. Are you really as good as you thought you were?  Are your clients cancelling because they think you are crap?!

The ebb and flow of clients is tough.  As new clients come to you, your confidence soars.  But as a client leaves you – even when you’ve done your job really well and there is no reason for them to pay for your services any more!!! – your confidence can flood away like a burst water mains.

This was happening to one of my clients this month.  Her initial joie de vie was starting to fizzle and she was questioning her ability and skills. I was reminded of a post-stick note I had stuck on my wall at about month 5.  I had exactly the same crisis of confidence. And as I read one of my favourite books “The Aladdin Factor” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, one the stories gave me this phrase:

Some Will, Some Won’t, So What …. Someone else is waiting!

That’s how life goes.  Some people you speak to will drop everything and demand a meeting with you right there and then. Others will have glazed over eyes and wonder what on earth you are talking about.  And others will commit to you … and then cancel, for no apparent reason.

So keep going! Don’t let the buggers get you down! If one person says no, so what! There WILL be someone else there who will say yes.  You just have to keep going to find them.

Because if you do constantly and consistently market yourself, you WILL attract new client constantly and consistently.

What do you do to get through the times when clients cancel? Would love your thoughts and ideas.

LinkedIn Connections: how personal are your invitations?

Out of the all the social networks, LinkedIn is the one that feels safest for most small business owners. You are on LinkedIn to talk business and do business. There is none of this confusing funny cat video sharing or having conversations about what you’ve had for lunch.

You turn up on LinkedIn suited and booted, ready to connect with other business people. But when it comes to sending out invitations to connect on LinkedIn, how personal do you get?

The problem with sites such as LinkedIn is that it’s easy to click the links and send stuff out. To most of you, this may not be a problem. You want everything to be made easy. But when you get a message in your inbox like this, how does it make you feel?

Ummmm, I’m not a colleague of yours. I don’t work in the same company as you!

Or what about this one?

A friend? Nope, don’t know you! Don’t believe I send you a Christmas card!

There are limitations to the invitations you send out on LinkedIn. Absolutely. You have the choice of adding someone to your network by adding that they are colleague, classmate, friend or you’ve done business together. If you choose the “other” option, you have to add their email address here and hope it matches the one that they use on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn give you these options because they want to connect with people you know. It’s not a site you dive in to “collect” email addresses (although lots of people seem to!!).

So rather than just click a box and hit the send button, why don’t you take a moment to add a personal message.

Yup, this takes time. Yup, you have to think about why you want to connect with the person. But how much better is it for the person receiving your invitation to have something like this arrive in their inbox:

Or what about this:

You don’t need to write war and peace. Nor do you have to try to be clever, witty or intelligent. Just make it personal!

You should be able to guess why I would respond to these type of messages and quite often ignore the first ones.  And if you are just clicking and sending, you are probably getting lots of connections … but how many of those connections are likely to turn in to potential leads and a referral network for you and your business?

Make the effort and get your LinkedIn connections working harder for you.

By the way – the number one place this lack of message adding seems to happen is on the LinkedIn phone apps. It’s too easy to be on your iPhone LinkedIn app, cruising around and clicking the connect button! Stop – think before you click!

For more top LinkedIn tips and ways of getting LinkedIn working harder for you, join me this week on this month’s Web Tech Training Session. Click here for more details.

The 5 most common email newsletter problems and how to avoid them

How many email newsletters have you signed up to over the years? Whether it’s a free report you’ve asked for or to get the latest news, it’s become the norm for many businesses to be capturing those all-important email addresses.

But how many of those email newsletters that you’ve signed up have been any good? How many have added any real value to your day?

And how many have been nothing more than clutter and spam in your inbox.

When an email subscription works, it can work very well in deed. Take note: email marketing should become a critical part of your business strategy. But when done badly, your emails can be causing your potential clients problems.

And problems ain’t what you want to be offering, are they?!

These are the 5 most complained about problems that emails can cause. And I bet you have found yourself cursing over one or more of them yourself. So, check to see if you are offering any of these problems. And if so, sort them out.

Get added without being asked – Top of the Pops and coming in at Number One, is my favourite email grip. Business card dumping and website mining. There are still plenty of you out there who feel it’s acceptable to upload lists or manually add email addresses to your email newsletter, without having asked permission from the person.

Email marketing gets the best resulsts when it’s permission-based, so don’t be lazy. Work out a real reason why someone would want to receive emails from you and offer your emails as an opt-in service only.

Can’t read them – As more of us are using smart phones and tablets to read and send emails, our screens are getting smaller and smaller. Fancy, graphic based newsletters may look great on a 13” screen, but when squashed in to an iPhone it just makes you want to hit that delete key.

Your subscribers may prefer text based emails, too. Images can work well for designed based businesses, but if certain email servers block certain graphics, you’re left with pretty ugly emails that may not be able to be read.

Keep your newsletter design simple. Keep it to one column. And avoid those magazine styles, unless you’ve done your research and found out that this style actually works for your business.

Too many – You must have come across this one! You’ve signed up for a free report and before you know it, you’ve had 4 emails in the first 24 hours … 3 of which have been recommending (selling!) affiliate products. Wooooooh there!

Yes, you can’t be shy about selling your business. You’ve got to make your offers to your subscribers as you aren’t a free publishing house (are you?!). But watch your scheduling, especially at promotion time.

You may find you have to spend some time and emails to build up the trust from your subscribers. Give some value before you go for the sale – make friends first – and you’ll find you won’t need to go heavy and “make the sale”. You are not a hormone-induced teenager trying to score on their first date!

Too few – On the opposite end of the scale is not receiving enough. A lack of consistency will dilute your efforts and will only make your subscribers wonder who you are. They may well have forgotten who you are if they signed up for something over a month ago before getting any follow up.

In fact, I got an email from such a business today. It must have been at least 2 months since I had heard from them last and yet they were obviously gearing up for a promotion. Hmmmm.

Be in touch with your subscribers regularly – at least once a fortnight if you are serious about marketing your business. Little and often goes a very long way.

Can’t unsubscribe easily – Grrrrr! Another common problem that really shouldn’t be here if businesses used proper email marketing systems. Replying back to an email with “unsubscribe” in the subject heading really is a pain. And as for having to re-submit your email address once you click through to a web page … well, talk about having to jump through hoops.

Once your subscribers have had enough of you, make if easy for them to leave. A “one-click” unsubscribe button is offered by all the major newsletters systems, so there is really no excuse for not being able to offer this. You don’t want your subscriber clicking that “spam” button do you?!

Any more common complaints you would like to share? Do add your thoughts below.

Do you display your prices on your website?

If there is one question that comes up time and time again with clients who want their website reviewed, it’s this: “Do I display my prices?”

My answer time and time again is YES! Of course! Why wouldn’t you?

“Oh, because I don’t want my competitors knowing what I charge.”

“I don’t want to put people off from contacting me.”

“I want to be flexible so I can charge more if I feel I can get away with it.”

Rubbish. Rubbish. Rubbish. And here are my reasons why:

Perception of being too expensive. I was checking out a new webinar system earlier this week and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t find the page called “Prices” or “Packages”. All I could do was to either sign up for a free 30 day trial or fill in a form for someone to contact me.

I know they wanted my contact details first. They wanted to pull me in to their marketing system so they could follow up and wear me down until I decided to buy. But I wanted to know whether the product was within my budget.

By not having the price on their website easily accessible, my only thoughts were “bet they are too expensive!” (Note: this is a good strategy to take for luxury, top end products if you do actually want to create the image of being expensive in your marketing.)

Wasted time on enquiries. If you want people to contact you for a price, you have to have the systems and spend the time to respond to these enquires. Coaches, you are the worst at this! You offer a free consultation – up to an hour of your time – only for the potential client to say “thanks, but I’ll have to go away and think about it”. Translated: “Thanks but it’s more than I thought.  I can’t afford your services but I don’t want to say this to you directly”

My conversion rate when I first started out went from 30% to 60% as soon as I put my prices on my website. If the prices put people off before contacting me, great. It saved me that consultation hour and I was able to get on with other stuff that did make me money.

If you have created the right product/service to provide a solution for your client’s problems, be confident about your pricing.  If you are not overcharging or under selling yourself, charging the “right” price is a good business decision!  It’s nothing to be ashamed of ;o)

Makes the sale easier. If someone knows what you charge before they start talking to you, the whole sales process becomes so much smoother. There is no need for you to stumble over the question “What do you charge?” They already know, so you don’t need to feel embarrassed or awkward discussing it. (We really don’t like talking money, do we?!)

If you do a lot of bespoke work and have to quote per client, then make sure you publicize a starter package, for example. Or quote a price range, highlighting what they would get for that package.

Stuff the competition. So what if your competitors know your price. If you don’t put it on your website, I am pretty sure – if they really wanted to – they would find a way of getting your price lists. You don’t have time to be getting in to petty price wars with other businesses.

So be bold. Be brave. Clearly state your prices or packages so your potential clients know exactly what they are in for, so that when you get to speak to them or they click the order button, they are ready to make the decision to buy.

Photo credit goes to: Unhindered by talent

One week? One month? One year? Or not at all?

If I was to ask you how far ahead do you plan your marketing, what would you say?

Do you splutter in to your morning coffee and stammer “Plan? Do I have to plan my marketing?”

Or do you merrily dig out out a your inch thick marketing plan that’s buried under piles of paperwork on your desk?

Planning ahead does sound rather dull, especially if you really don’t have an idea on what you should be doing.  Having a neatly tabulated marketing plan (printed in different colours depending on the activity so it’s easy to read!) that you don’t seem to have time to carry out is actually just as bad as making it up once in a blue moon, when you panic about your pipeline.

It seems that the main reason most of you don’t have a marketing plan is that you are just plain scared of the enormity of it all.  The 20 page template that your friendly bank manager (do they exist any more??!) gave to you when you first started out, just felt too overwhelming to complete.

And as for coming up with your 5 year Business Goals (launch first franchise, be hiring at least 5 associates, sat on the BBC Breakfast sofa …) it can feel, well … a bit tricky!

But if you don’t plan ahead then you are guaranteed a rough ride.  Fail to plan and you plan to fail may be a cliche but when it comes to running your own business, this can’t be ignored.

So what do you do?

The simplest and easiest way to think about your future marketing activity is to answer these 3 questions:

1.  Where are you now?

Be realistic about your current business – know what’s making you a profit, know where the clients you are attracting are coming from, know what it is you love to do … and what you hate too.

2.  Where do you want to be going?

If 5 years is just too big a goal for you, can you think about where you want to be this time next year?  What one project (one project at a time, please!) do you want to see working for you?  What type of client do you want to be working more with?

Be specific.  Be realistic.  Do set yourself a date in the future you would like this to happen by.

3.  How are you going to get there?

This is the part that seems to fox most of you, to be honest.  The sheer overwhelm by the number of things you could be doing.  Yes, live virtual events such as webinars and teleconference calls work.  Yes, Facebook is a top business marketing tool.  Yes, you could be speaking up and down the country.  Yes, creating your own LinkednIn Group is perfect for developing a community of your own.

But to do it all? In the next 3 months? Crazy!

One project at a time, remember!  What if I gave you permission to focus on just one marketing activity and got that to work before embracing anything new?  What if I told you that you weren’t allowed to do any other marketing activities until you got the first one to work?

I bet you would start seeing results far more quickly when you’ve just got one thing to do.

Keep it simple.  The less choice you have got on what you can do, the more likely you will be to get on and do it.

Photo by: Dickdotcom

Marketing through The Perfect Storm

You’ve typed out your marketing plan.  It may even be stuck up on your wall or scrawled across a NoBo board.

You’re feeling very pleased with yourself that you have committed to some daily and weekly actions to ensure you are chipping away at generating potential leads for future business.

But then…

A client project goes wrong – you have to spend an extra 10 hours on it because the client has changed their brief.

Your laptop switches off.  No warning!  It’s go to the shop to be fixed and you won’t see it again for at least 4 days.

Your child care changes.  Your au pair has hurt her back and she can’t come to you for the next few weeks.  And your mother, who is always on stand by for you, is away on holiday.

Then your partner gets ill.  You have to run around organising doctor’s appointments and picking up prescriptions.

And to finish your whole week off, you get hit from behind when you are waiting at the traffic lights.  You are OK but the car needs some serious garage work.

The Perfect Storm!

No amount of planning or mental preparation can help you avoid this.  Your contingency plans just can’t cover this amount of chaos and you have to focus on the here and now.

What’s happened to your marketing plan?  It’s disappeared under the pile post-stick notes, garage receipts and client notes.  That’s OK for a week or two.  It’s easy to catch up.  But what if your au pair doesn’t make it back to work and you have to start the whole child care planning again? What if your partner gets seriously ill? What if something else and then something else and then something else happens?

Ignore your marketing plan for for more than a few weeks and your business is going to start to suffer.

So how do you keep marketing during a perfect storm?

The trick to this is not in what you actually do on a daily or weekly basis, but the systems you spend the time creating.  And the one thing that many small business owners don’t spend the time or the money investing in, is their database.  A database of potentially interested clients who may want to spend money with you at some point in the future.

I’m not talking about the proposals you’ve sent out.  Or the consultations you have had.  Or even the database that you’ve bought to send out that promotional offer.  I’m talking about the people who aren’t ready to pick up the phone to you but are interested in what you do.

Permission based marketing!  Offering interested people the opportunity to subscribe or sign up for something on your website so that they can receive information that is valuable to them … and gives you the opportunity to stay in touch with them over time.

And the more you automate this process, the more effective and efficient your marketing will be.  Especially when you are in the middle of the Perfect Storm.

My Perfect Storm lasted about 6 months.  My dad died of Lymphoma almost 2 years ago and we had an 18 month roller coaster period before then of 3 lots of chemo.  My business had to move a peg or two down.  I still ran some events and still worked with a few clients, but during the summer of 2009, I basically “shut down” for about 6 months.  I put my marketing club on hold (which turned out to be a good thing because it morphed in to the Web Tech Club) and spent that time driving up and down the A303 from Hindhead to Devon most weekends, being a mum during the week and a daughter at the weekends.

When I came back to work in the Autumn of 2009, I knew it would be a hard slog to build my business back up.  But it actually wasn’t as hard as I imagined.  My email newsletters and blog had carried on periodically.  I was able to continue with writing articles and schedule stuff to go out.  And it was this constant drip feed of valuable info that allowed me to pick back up again and ride out that Perfect Storm.

So if you haven’t planned for the Perfect Storm yet, then I recommend you do so.  Make sure your marketing plan includes some form of email newsletter or sign-up offer via your website so you can build up a database.  Because if you do, you’ll find it far easier to pick up from where you left it.

Photo Credit:  Nebraskasc

Why should I use a shopping cart system if I can use PayPal to do it all for me?

This question came up from a recent webinar I ran for a mumpreneur group.  I was taking the group through online payments and how to get started taking credit cards via your website.

PayPal is a great place to start.  And yes, I know not everyone enjoys the PayPal process – but it is recognised as the number one way of paying for stuff on the web.  It doesn’t take long to set up an account and you could be taking payments via your website within a week.

But as I was taking the group through shopping carts, someone came up with this great question – “Why should I use a shopping cart system if I can use Paypal to do it all for me?”

PayPal is a wonderful system to safely and securely take credit card payments over the internet.  It may take your customers’ contact details – postal and email addresses – but one thing it ain’t is a customer mailing system.

And this is where a shopping cart system comes in. A shopping cart system gives you the ability to collect your customers’ details for you to use for future relationship building.  The most expensive customer you can ever get is always the new first-time customer.  And when so many small business owners focus all their energies and marketing budget on finding and attracting new customers, it’s easy to see why they don’t seem to move forward and grow their business.

Some of you may just sell one “widget” and that’s that.  But one “widget” does make a business and I am sure – at least I hope! – most of you have several “widgets” that your customers can buy from you.  An e-book for £9.99, a 3 month programme for £495, 1-2-1 coaching and mentoring, a DVD series or live training events – what ever you sell, you are probably building a range of “widgets” for your customers to choose from.

If you were to use PayPal to process your website orders, take the payments and send confirmations to you for you to send them the relevant “widgets”, your marketing is going to be focused on chasing that new first-time customer over and over again.

But use a shopping cart system, you will be able to see at a glance which customers have bought what, send out relevant emails to follow up sales, offering suggestions on what they can buy next.

You will be able to send out a regular newsletter, maintaining contact and gently reminding them that you are there next time they need something that you offer.

You will be able to set up affiliate schemes so that the people who love your “widgets” can recommend and make commission on these recommendations.

You will be able to create sign-up forms for your website so that people who aren’t quite ready to buy from you, can part with their email address in exchange for a free report, online course or video series.

So yes, PayPal can sort out your “Buy Now” buttons and provide a secure system to take credit cards, but you also need to consider your long term business growth.  You need to create a permission-based marketing system so you don’t have to focus all your marketing efforts on chasing new first-time customers.

It’s so much easier and much more fun re-selling to the same people over and over again!

And by having all your customers – both present, past and future – under the same roof, it helps keep things simple for you.

If you are looking for a shopping cart system, then I can recommend the system I use.  1ShoppingCart may feel rather overwhelming to start with, but it really does give you everything you need to run an efficient and effective marketing system and I’ve been using 1ShoppingCart for the past 5 years. Click to check out 1ShoppingCart for yourself.

Disclaimer: The link to 1ShoppingCart is an affiliate link however I only recommend products via affiliate links if I personally use them.  Every referral gives a me a small commission and if it works for me, then I’m very happy to recommend it to you : )

Photo Credit:  CraigCloutier

Don’t write your own stuff! 5 things to share on Facebook

Setting up a Facebook Page is simple.  Within a couple of clicks, you can set yourself up and have a new way of reaching out to potential clients.

In fact, it is so simple that many small business owners find themselves setting up a Facebook Page without much thought – usually late at night when they are tinkering around on the internet.  And this is where the problems start.

With little thought on who they are reaching out and no plan on what to actually share on their new Page, they do their best begging for fans and focus on getting people to Like them, only to give up and lose momentum when they get at a loss on what to add to their wall.  Another Facebook Page gathers dust, left alone feeling very sad and ignored.

Not  a good impression to give your new potential client, hey?

It’s tough coming up with fresh, unique content so it’s easy to give up before you even begin.

But what if you didn’t have to come up with new stuff?  What if you just shared other people’s stuff on Facebook?

As long as you are revealing the full source – a link to the article, a link to the Facebook Page where you saw it – it’s perfectly OK to share other people’s stuff on Facebook.  In fact, it’s actively encouraged! Sharing is the currency of Facebook.

So what can you share on Facebook?

1. YouTube videos: What interests your target clients?  Is it easy recipes for working mums?  Is it golf techniques and putting skills?  Is it recommendations for wedding venues and ideas for flowers?  I can guarantee that what ever it is, you will  find umpteen videos on YouTube about that subject.  And Facebook users loooooove their videos!
2. Latest news: Surf the national newspaper sites – The Times, Daily Mail or Guardian.  What headlines are worth sharing and commenting on?  Copy the link to that specific article or use the Facebook Share buttons on the sites.
3. Interesting blog articles: If you aren’t subscribing to the top blogs in your profession, then get to it!  Set up a free account with Google and use their Google Reader account to subscribe to the blogs that you find.  Once a week (or once a day – depending on your routine) scan through the articles and share one that your target audience would find interesting too.
4. Other Facebook Page’s Updates: When you are logged in as your Page admin, you can Like other Pages as your Page.  Updates from these Pages will appear in your Page’s Newsfeed.  Click the Share button and add your own comments.
5. Your Favourite Tweets: Use a RSS Feed App to automatically post each tweet that you favourite (click the star icon on the tweet in your newsfeed).  The feed for your favourites is http://twitter.com/favorites/YOURTWITTERNAME.rss (UK Readers: note the american spelling of favourites here).  Add this to a RSS Feed App such as RSS Graffiti or Social RSS and synch it up to your Facebook Page.  I wouldn’t recommend you do this too regularly as Twitter language doesn’t go down too well in Facebook, but the odd one or two every week can work.

So don’t freeze like a rabbit caught in headlamps trying to come up with fresh stuff every day.  That’s exhausting and can put too much pressure on you.

Share other people’s stuff on your Facebook wall and give your target audience the information that they want, in one central place.  Ask questions about what you share and give your thoughts, too.  It’s a great way of starting conversations and showcasing your expertise.

What other stuff do you share on Facebook?  It would be great to have your ideas on what you do, so do leave a comment.  Thanks.

Photo Credit: LizaWasHere

« Previous Page — Next Page »