I’m not just talking about time. Of course you’re investing time, right? If you’re not, then you’re likely not very successful.

But what about money? Are you investing money into your business?

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of small and medium-size business owners. Some have been startups with funding while others have had large marketing and PR budgets.

But I’m not talking about those businesses. I’m talking about small business owners. I’m talking about corporate trainers, business and marketing coaches, personal development experts and other service providers. I’m talking about clients whose businesses are generating less than $150,000 per year. In other words – small businesses.

It’s been amazing to me how often small business clients aren’t willing to invest in their own business. Sure, they might buy productivity or marketing products or hire out projects like website design. But they seldom have a longer-term plan beyond the project scope. And seldom do they consider an ongoing marketing or promotion budget for the growth of their business.

What gives? How can you grow a business if you’re unwilling to promote it? How can you increase your revenue if you don’t invest some dollars into marketing? I’m not talking about thousands upon thousands of dollars each month. I’m talking a few hundred or thousand or whatever fits your budget.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this – if you’re unwilling to invest in your own business, then why should anyone else? In other words, if you don’t spend money to promote your products or services, why should anyone spend money on them – if they can find you?

So, are you investing in your business? How? What’s your budget and how are you using it? And if you’re not, why not. Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from sash / slash on Flickr)

I’ve heard so many web-based small business owners do their best to avoid using the word advertise that I’ve begun to wonder why. I’ve worked with enough clients offline to know that it’s not small business owners in general. Offline businesses use advertising constantly to get the word out about their business.

But it seems different for online small businesses. Somehow it seems that the word advertise is unclean or dishonest or something. While I haven’t quite put my finger on it, it is obvious that online small business tend to look at advertising differently. They often don’t consider placing ads – even Google Adwords.

This strikes me as odd because a few, well-placed advertisements can often drive far more than business than their cost.

But the more interesting thing is watching how web-based small business owners avoid using the term altogether. Sure, they talk about marketing, but rarely about advertising. Why do you think that is?

Yet advertising is simply a part of marketing. The best, simple, explanation of the difference between marketing and advertising was written by Rick Cockrum some time back.

“Marketing is the sum of the activities you perform to get the word out about your business and attract the customers you want. Advertising is one marketing activity. It usually entails publishing paid announcements about your business. At our theatre we advertise in the local paper weekly. Our marketing consists of a website, word of mouth from our customers (our best marketing), involvement in local activities, public service functions, involvement with local business groups, (etc)… . You can see that advertising, while important, is only a small part of marketing.”

Rick goes on to suggest that you should “use both.”

I fully agree. I’m a huge – I mean huge – proponent of word-of-mouth marketing and client referrals. Yet it can be difficult to grow a successful business just by word-of-mouth. I’m not saying it can’t be done. Heck, I did it myself. But I know that the right ads in the right places can speed up the growth process immensely.

And advertisements work. No doubt about it. Otherwise Pepsi, McDonalds, Ford and every other company in the world wouldn’t spend the money on it. Even spam email works. And that’s basically what spam is – a paid advertisement sent to your inbox. What makes it spam is that you’ve not given the sender permission to email you about their product. Yet spam must work otherwise no one would be paying spammers to send their messages.

Advertising, for good or bad, simply works. That’s not the question.

The question? Is adverstising working for your business? If so, how; what sort of results have you gotten? If not, why not; what have you tried and how did it turn out?

And if you’ve not tried paid advertising on the web, why not? What keeps you from jumping in?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Pink Ponk on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Your business website should effectively represent your brand while providing ways for your leads to easily engage you. All roads in your business should lead back to your website, making it the pivot point for all your marketing. And you want to treat your website that way.

Furthermore, having a website opens the possibility to not just market to your leads, but to create a powerful touch point for engaging your audience in conversation and building relationships with your prospects and clients.

So if you want a successful business, and I believe you do, it only make sense to create a website that fuels the growth of your business.

Yet, as a small business owner, it can be easy – or tempting – to get in the way of your own marketing. You may take shortcuts with your business website. These shortcuts can become mistakes that undermine your business goals and turn your website from golden egg to fried omelet.

The sad thing is that you may not know your making these mistakes and undermining your business website.

So let’s look at 8 common, and often critical, mistakes I see everyday with small business websites:

Mistake #1: No Clear Objectives for Your Business Website

The very first thing you should do when you plan your business website is define its purpose. What objectives do you want your website to achieve? In other words, what do you want our visitors to see, to read and to do. To do is the most important set of objectives so you want your website objectives to be action oriented. Do you want them to sign up on your list, get your RSS feed, buy a product or take a survey? Any of these can be objectives. Just make sure your objectives are clearly defined.

One more thing on objectives: if you have more than one objective for your website, you want to put them in order of importance. Then, make sure you primary objective is the most visible and easy to find on your site. Your secondary objective should take its appropriate place behind the primary…and so on.

Mistake #2: No Strategies For Reaching Your Business Objectives

Once you know the objectives of your website you want to create strategies around how you’re going to accomplish these objectives. Strategy gets into how you’re going to do what you’re setting out to do with our business website. The more thought out and researched your strategies, the more likely your marketing and your website, overall, will be successful. From a strategy comes our plan of action, which gets us into tactics.

Mistake #3: No Tactics to Achieve Your Business Objectives

If you’re like most people, you’re pretty good at thinking about what you want to do with your business website. Often, where the trouble begins is when you have go from thought to action. That’s where tactics come in.

Tactics are the actionable steps you’ll be taking to achieve your business objectives. Your tactics are, flat out, a task list of what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. Think of your tactics as being the implementation of your strategy. It’s how you’re going to do what you think.

Mistake #4: No Targeted Metrics to Measure Your Progress

One great thing about the internet is that if it happens on your business website, you can measure it. Which means, you can find out amazing detail about how your visitors as seeing, reading and using your website. So the only question is are you recording that information?

What’s sad is that I see so many small business owners who aren’t even looking at their most basic website statistics. Yet, it’s so much easier to know how effectively your building your list, for instance, if you know how much traffic you’re getting. And from knowing that, you can make a plan for increasing you list signups.

There’s no way else to put it, it’s a mistake if you’re not recording your website statistics and looking at them with some regularity (not daily). And it’s a further mistake if you don’t take the time to learn how to interpret your website statistics because they will tell you what’s working and what’s not working on your website.

Yet, it’s important to go one step beyond just your basic traffic stats. You want to also consider how you’re going to measure the effectiveness of your strategy and tactics so you can see how well you’re achieving your objectives. In other words, you want a solid system of metrics – even a simple one – so you can evaluate your marketing and make it work better.

Mistake #5: No Integrated Marketing Plan

So often I see small business owners thinking of their website as one part of their marketing and their offline marketing as being another part. Don’t make this mistake. Integrate the two. Communicate your offline promotions online. And even more effective, use your offline marketing to drive people to your business website. This works great when you can make an offer on your website that your offline audience wants. As I said above, your business website should be the hub of you marketing – not just online, but all your marketing.

Mistake #6: No Focus on the Value of Your Offer

I’m asked to evaluate a lot of websites for whether they’re business ready. One of the most common mistakes I see is small business owners not focusing on or effectively communicating the value of their service. Too often, the focus is on either the cost of service or the ‘unique approach we use that makes us different than everyone else.’ Yet, this just confuses the prospect because either they don’t care about the approach or they have to consider what they’re getting for the cost. In other words, they have to figure out the value themselves.

Don’t make your prospects figure out for themselves the value of the services you provide. Tell them about it. Show them what they get, what they can expect and how you will help them solve their problems. And offer testimonials of people who you’ve helped so that they can see the social proof in your offer.

Mistake #7: No Action Plan for Your Visitors

We said earlier that your website should have clearly defined objectives. Once you’ve identified what your objectives are, it’s likely they require an action by your visitors for you to achieve. So tell them to take the action. Make it exceptionally clear that if they’ve gotten this far in your website, that ‘this is the action step you want to take next.’ Could be a list signup, a free report, a set of articles – doesn’t matter (as long as it’s toward your business objectives). Just be sure you’re hyper-clear about what action steps you want your visitors to take.

Mistake #8: No Balance Between Design & Marketing Message

Having been a website designer for well over a decade, I’ve dealt with this one a lot. Often, business owners become too concerned over the visual look of their website and it gets out of balance with the purpose of their site – which is a marketing tool to promote and sell their products and services.

That’s not to say that a website shouldn’t be visually appealing – it should. For instance, I’ve had dozens of people contact me just to let me know how much they like the design of my site. Yet your website design shouldn’t get in the way of your marketing message and business objectives. It should provide a professional, attractive frame for your all-important content.

Ideally, your design will be something people see initially and get a good impression of you from. Then, as they begin to read your copy, it should fade into the background. So think of your website design not as a paramount piece of the marketing puzzle but as a frame for your marketing message. And remember, that you want to consider your business objectives in any website design.

So these are the 8 most critical mistake I see everyday in working with clients on growing their business and on developing their web presence. There are more, of course. But I’ve found these to be the biggest and most important 8 to correct.

Does your website make any of these mistakes? If so, which ones? And what will you do about it?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from iampeas on Flickr, some rights reserved)

If you have a website, it serves one purpose – to sell something

Whether you’re selling goods and services or ideas and opinions – websites are about selling. If you have an offer, you want people to buy it. If you like something, you want people to try it. If you believe something, you want people to believe it too. And if you know something, you want other people to know it as well.

It doesn’t really matter how you slice it, the point of a website is to sell something. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a website? To display pretty pictures for everyone to see? Of course not. Websites are about selling because as people, we’re selling all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

You see, selling is merely an exchange of something that’s valuable to someone. That’s it. Selling is nothing more than an exchange. It’s nothing to avoid, be concerned about or even fear. We’re selling all the time. I’m selling you my opinion right now. And if it has value, you’ll buy it and make it part of yours.

I think where selling gets a bad wrap is when we remember those annoying little experiences when someone was trying to pressure us into something we didn’t want. You know what I mean. The appliance salesman who really doesn’t get that sales is about relationship rather than the next commission to be made. Or the car salesman who follows you around the lot when you just want to look around. In these cases it’s pretty obvious that some sales people just don’t understand that selling is a natural, human process. They try too hard, really. And from our experiences with these sort of people, we feel icky about selling.

But there’s no need to fell bad about selling. As I said, we’re selling our ideas, our thoughts, our beliefs and our opinions all the time. So really, selling is as natural as having a conversation. And it’s through conversation that we go about selling –

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even on our websites. We use the conversation on our websites to develop relationships with people who may want to buy what we offer (e.g. what we’re selling). That’s the entire point of having a website.

So here’s some pointers I’ve put together to help you with selling on your website – and in your business as a whole. Use these suggestions and don’t be afraid to see yourself selling what you know, think or believe. Embrace it and find a new freedom in giving what you have of value to people who value what you know.

1. Don’t try to sell. If someone’s contacting you, they have some level of interest already. Find out what their want or need is first. Then, give them the information they need to make a choice. On your website, identify their problems and help them see that you can help them solve them.
2. Engage people. One of the most important aspects of selling is engagement. You want to engage your prospective clients and customers fully. Use your website to meet people where they are and engage them in conversation. Stay in the conversation as it organically moves toward a transaction. Not all will, but if you engage more people will buy than not because you’re showing them you care.
3. Care damn it! Really care about the people who you engage and who visit your website. Caring is the single most important aspect of selling. Listen to what they want, be empathetic about where they are and just give a crap about them as people. They’ll know the difference.
4. Be authentic. Selling is a natural as having a conversation. But we don’t often approach it that way. All you need to do is be yourself. People will naturally gravitate toward you when you’re real with yourself and with them. And forget all the sales techniques and just be a person trying to help people. You’ll refine how as you go.
5. Be transparent. Be a real person being real with people. Read that again! If you don’t know something, be honest about it. There’s nothing wrong with finding out the answer and getting back to someone. People will be pleased when you say you don’t know. More importantly, it will build trust with them.
6. Know what you’re selling. Clarity in what you’re selling is so, so important. If you don’t know, you certainly can’t share it and if you can’t share it you can’t sell it. So find out everything you can about what you’re selling. See it from different angles and approaches.
7. Know why you’re selling it. So often overlooked is this question of why. But you must know the answer. Is it just to make money? Or are you wanting to make meaning and a difference in people’s lives? If your product or service is about helping people, then know it and sell it that way.
8. Know who you’re selling too. This is so often missed…you’ve got to know who you’re selling too. Not the person so much, as their need, their likes, their dislikes. That means, listen. Listen to what their need is first. Get as much information as you can about what they believe they need.
9. Match your solution to their problem. If you listen well, people will tell you exactly what problem they’re trying to solve and specifically why they called you to solve it. At that point you merely need to match your ability to solve their problem to the problem they believe they need solved. Don’t change or reframe their problem for them , reframe your solution.
10. Remember, it’s okay to sell. Selling isn’t a dirty thing. Remember what I’ve said above, we’re selling all the time – our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, etc. So selling is natural. The oddities come in when money’s involved. And there’s nothing wrong with selling what you have to someone who needs it and making money, even a lot of money, from it. It’s just an exchange.

Now, don’t treat this like every other blog post

Really, I mean that. Don’t just read this post, leave a comment and then go on to the next thing to do. Use what I’ve given you here. Sit down with it and look over your website, your marketing, and how you convert your prospective clients. Refine your sales process. And if you don’t have a sales process, create one. Honestly, it will make a massive difference in how you do business.

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I’ll even make the 10 key points here into a PDF for you to download. Just click the icon at the right and you’ll download the 10 keys here right away. No email address or opt-in of any sort. All I ask is if you find value, share it with your friends:

• Retweet this post on Twitter
• Post it on Facebook
• Vote it up on Biznik

Remember, selling isn’t a scary thing and it’s not a bad thing. Selling is a natural part of being a human being. So embrace it. You can sell with integrity and give your more people the chance to be helped through your products and services.

How comfortable are you with selling? What’s your own sales process?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from darma communications on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

What is your business about?

Is it about branding and marketing? I’m sure it is. Is your business about sales and profits? I sure hope so. And is it about making some difference in the world? Ideally, that would be nice.

But branding, marketing, sales and making a difference require one thing – relationships. Ultimately, business is about relationships. Doesn’t matter whether you’re selling products or pitching services, ultimately people buy because they trust you. And trust comes from developing a relationship – even if that relationship is built from content on your website.

Whenever I work in my business, make plans etc, I always think about people. I remember that it’s people that I’m doing business with not some segment of niche market (though I may use the terms). And I remember that my own clients hire not my business, but me; they hire me. While they may like, want or need what I know or can teach them, ultimately they’re working with me because of the relationship we’ve built – and are building.

Solid businesses, especially independent and small businesses are built on relationships.

That’s always been the case and it will continue to be the case going forward. Which is why I’m such a big fan of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Sure, Cluetrain’s been around a while. Yeah, many others have said the same things – perhaps even better – since. But I still like the original. I like the way it’s put together. I like that it can be definitive and yet explorative at the same time.

For me, Cluetrain remains the quintessential work on how businesses are relationships and markets are conversations. Probably my favorite section is a piece written by Doc Searls where he describes a conversation he had with a Nigerian Pastor named Sayo:

…After hearing (about ‘markets are conversations’), he acknowledged that our observations were astute, but also incomplete. Something more was going on in markets than just transactions and conversations, he said. What was it?

I said I didn’t know. Here is the dialogue that followed, as close to verbatim as I can recall it…

“Pretend this is a garment”, Sayo said, picking up one of those blue airplane pillows. “Let’s say you see it for sale in a public market in my country, and you are interested in buying it. What is your first question to the seller?”

“What does it cost?” I said.

“Yes”, he answered. “You would ask that. Let’s say he says, ‘Fifty dollars’. What happens next?”

“If I want the garment, I bargain with him until we reach an agreeable price.”

“Good. Now let’s say you know something about textiles. And the two of you get into a long conversation where both of you learn much from each other. You learn about the origin of the garment, the yarn used, the dyes, the name of the artist, and so on. He learns about how fabric is made in your country, how distribution works, and so on. In the course of this you get to know each other. What happens to the price?”

“Maybe I want to pay him more and he wants to charge me less”.

“Yes. And why is that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You now have a relationship”.

Their conversation goes on to talk about the importance of relationship in public markets. ”Transaction still matters, of course. So does conversation. But the biggest slice in the social pie of the public marketplace is relationship. Price is less set than found, and the context for finding prices is both conversation and relationship. In many cases, relationship is the primary concern, not price.”

In essence, price matters – but not as much as relationships. Just think about the recent purchases you’ve made. How often was it just about price and how often did you pay a little bit more because you had established a relationship with the seller? Branding, marketing, selling and good will all have their foundations in relationships.

So in creating your business, in running your business and in marketing your business, why not make it about relationships first? Sure, you absolutely need to know who you are, what you do, why do it and who you do it for. But once you know that, the rest is about building relationships. And relationships begin with conversation. And now, we’re back to using your website, your email list, social media and search engines to get into the conversation. This is where successful businesses are built.

What specifically are you doing to build relationships in your business? How do you nurture your current and post clients? And how to you build those relationships with prospective clients?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from dbarronoss on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

I’m constantly amazed at the amount of content that gets published to the web every single day

If I just count myself, I probably published a total of 100 website pages from 1997 to the end of 2006. Since then, however, I’ve published more than 2000 articles/posts on the web between my 3 websites, articles I’ve submitted, guest blog posts and content I’ve written for the membership sites I’m a resident expert in.

That’s remarkable. And if you consider that I wrote daily from the beginning of 2007 until some time late 2008, it’s even more remarkable that I’ve produced that much content. Interesting thing is I’m not close to being as prolific as many of the bloggers out there.

But what’s happening with all this content? How are people using it once it’s published? Or two weeks later? Or a year later? Is there something more we can all do with our content then just publish it online and move on to the next post? Perhaps there’s something more we can do with all this content – something that generates income.

What I suggest is package up some of this content and create informational products. Doesn’t matter whether it’s ebooks, e-courses, video tutorials or audio programs, informational products can generate massive revenues. For instance, I know a number of small business owners who are making mid-to-high five-figure incomes each month off of a handful of electronic products they’ve developed. That’s every month. That’s a lot of text-link ad click-throughs.

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we should sell just any old content. Nor do I suggest that we should stop producing free content to put on our blogs. Not at all.

But think about it. You’re taking the time to write useful content. What’s more, people are enjoying and gaining benefit from yoru content. Why not package it for them as themed pieces and offer it at a reasonable price? Seems logical, doesn’t it? Not only does it give you a chance to make a little cash off your writing, your ideas, your knowledge; but it also gives people who love your work a chance to support you. Everyone gains.

Yet there are many reasons you may want to consider creating an info product. Here’s five:

1. You probably already have the content for an info product. If your blog content is niche focused, it’s likely you already have content to create an info product from. All you’d need to do is compile your posts, organize them and do some edits and you’ve got an ebook that you can sell.
2. You’re going to be writing content for your blog anyhow. Maybe you have some content for an info product, may not. But your future blog posts (podcasts and vcasts too) can be crafted to be the content that makes up the core of an info product.
3. People want what you know...and they want it the way you explain it. If you have people finding and reading your blog, and if you’re number of feed subscribers continues to increase, this one should be obvious. They’re all reading because they like and want what you’re writing.
4. Your readers want to support you. Contrary to popular belief, people want to support you. Give them a way too. If you put up a ‘donate’ button, they may click it and make an offering – but how much. Instead, offer them more value by producing a product and they’ll support you even more by not only buying but possibly spreading the word as well.
5. Info products can increase your readership. Create a product – whether free or for sale – and bloggers will likely write about it. If they have it, they may review it. If they enjoy your blog, they may promote your products. Either way, an info products gives people something of great substance to share with their readers.

There are other reasons, for certain. For instance, your info product will always pay you on time – something I know some ad services don’t do. Or that your info product offers very long-term passive income potential regardless of pageviews. Not to mention, the info product is yours and once it’s created you get all the revenue generated.

And if you’re wondering how to get an info product developed, published and distributed, I happened to have written about that for you already.

So what’s stopping you from using your blog to create an informational product?

(note: image from users_lib on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

Whether it’s been remodeling my kitchen, building a pole barn, learning to kayak or developing websites, I’ve been one of those people who like to do things myself. Usually I read a little, research a little, make a plan and jump right in. And it’s worked pretty good – most of the time.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with doing everything yourself. It’s certainly serviced me well. I’ve learned a great many things and have gained a number of skills over the years. And the confidence I’ve gained in doing things myself has led me to take on projects I might otherwise shy away from doing myself.

It’s also meant that sometimes things don’t go so well. Sometimes I waste more time and spend more money than I would have having a professional help me. For instance, redoing the lighting in my kitchen during a remodel. What would have taken an electrician and his crew less than a day took me 5 long days doing it myself.

So while I’m definitely an advocate of doing it yourself, there’s times when doing it yourself isn’t wise…

What are you willing to do?

Planning for success is one thing. Executing for success is another.For instance, going back to my kitchen remodel, when I think of tiling my backsplash behind my countertop, I cringe at the idea. Now I’ve tiled before, so I know how. And, I know just enough to know that the backsplash is more tedious and time consuming because of all the little detailed cuts involved. So I hired that job out.

It’s the same in your coaching or healing practice. There’s plenty of things you should be doing to increase your reach, market your business and get more clients. But how much can you really do on your own? How much time to you truly have to learn it all on your own? More importantly, how much are you willing to do on your own?

Knowing when to get help.

To be successful with your business – meaning getting more clients, or selling more products or courses – it’s important to know when you can realistically do it on your own and when you need help.

With most coaches or healers I speak with – many who aren’t my clients – it becomes painfully obvious rather quickly that the reason their businesses aren’t full of clients is because they’re trying to do too much themselves. They believe that by doing it themselves they’re saving money and increasing their bottom line. The thing is, nothing could be further from the truth. The real truth, though it’s difficult even for me to admit all the time, is that…

You can’t do everything well that you do yourself.

It’s a hard truth to swallow sometimes, but it’s true. Trying to do everything in your business yourself will lead you to going crazy, wanting to quit or working so much that you never enjoy the reasons you began working for yourself in the first place. None of these are good. All of these lead to burnout and little success. And most of us know what that looks like.

Take marketing, for an example. You know you need to market your coaching practice to eventually end up with more clients. But what you do? How do you market effectively? How do you reach the people who are looking for what you offer?

And once you do, how do you convert them into leads, move them along into becoming prospective clients and then convert them into paying clients?

All this is a process. Each step has a number of proven solutions and task that can help you land more clients. But which do you choose? And if you do choose a program to follow – such as Robert Middleton’s Action Plan approach or Mark Silver’s Heart of Business model – how do you know you can even implement what they’re suggesting?

It’s okay to get the help you need.

It really is. Not only is it okay, it’s necessary to get help in order to be successful. Apple, Inc knows this which is why they have a Board of Directors from diverse backgrounds. Richard Branson of Virgin fame knows this which is how he can run dozens of companies under the Virgin moniker and have nearly all of them successful.

A little closer to you and I – every single person you know who’s been successful, either offline or on, has done so because they’ve asked for help from people. The gurus of marketing, whose programs you’ve probably bought – have learned what they know from other marketing experts and then adapted it for their own business. The highly successful coaches out there have hired people to teach them how to be successful and grow their businesses to such levels. Even your friend from your coaching course has likely hired someone to help them learn how to build a website or write marketing copy or build a list.

Somewhere along the way, those who are successful have asked for and gotten the help they need.

So what’s stopping you from getting the help you need?

Truly? What’s stopping you?

Is it the cost? Just ask yourself how you expect to make more money all on your own. Can you do it? Well if you can – forget what I’ve said and get to it. But if you can’t then you need to seek out someone who can help you. Failing to do so is actually costing you money in lost opportunity and growth.

I went through this one myself and realized that if I paid a coach (a really good coach) $2000 per month for their help that in a few short months I’d be making enough to cover what I was paying him – meaning I’d be breaking even. And everything after that would be increased profit for me. So I figured, if he can show me how to make back his fee in a few months, then he could show me how to make much more than his fee. And it’s worked.

That’s why I say that if you’re not getting the help you need – it’s costing you money. It’s costing you lost growth

Is time the issue? Well, that’s something that just has to be broken through. Time is an issue for every type of business owner – coaches and healers included. You simply have to make time to work on you business while you’re working in your business. I say it that way on purpose. Working in your business is all the stuff you do to get paid – work with clients, bookkeeping, followup, etc. Working on your business is visioning, planning, developing new products, etc.

You must be working on your business to grow. It’s so vital to your growth that if you don’t, you won’t. Meaning, if you’re not working on developing new parts to your business, then it’ll be very difficult to make more money than you are now.So you need to set aside so many hours each week for doing things to expand your business. And what should those things be? Not to be trite, but that’s why you’re asking someone to help you – so it can be specific for you, your vision and your business.

Whatever is stopping you from getting the help you need, push it out of the way. You can find someone who will help you. Just be sure to find someone you trust, who  you communicate well with, and who you feel you can collaborate best with toward reaching and increasing your business goals.

Can I help you? Possibly. Best that we have a short phone conversation first to see if we’re a good fit for each other. But even if we’re not, keep searching for someone who is. It’s just that important! But if you want to talk with me, here’s how to get a free consultation.

Are you currently getting help from a coach, a business consultant, an advisor, a marketing guru? How’s it been? And if not, why not?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from H4NUM4N on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Do you know that you’re not really marketing your coaching practice to a target audience, that you’re not communicating to a niche market, and that you won’t find your next coaching clients if you ‘engage a marketplace?’

It’s so true. Yet most of the websites that promote life coaches seem to think that’s exactly what they’re doing – talking to a market or an audience.

Is your life coaching website getting you coaching clients?

If you ask a life coach whether their website is getting them coaching clients – most often the answer is no. I know this for a fact because I teach coaches how to use their websites – really their entire web presence – to build a following and get more coaching clients. And most of the life coaches I work with come to me with website copy that is trying to speak to an audience.

So if you’re not speaking to an audience, who are you speaking to?

Now let me clarify for a moment. I do use terms such as target market or target audience all the time. Sometimes I add purposefully add ‘the people in your target audience’ to a statement. And, every single time I say talk about markets or audience you can assume I’m saying ‘people.’ And to be even more specific, I actually mean talking to a single person – one-by-one – over and over so that you’re really talking to thousands of individual people.

And this, it seems, is where life coaches – and business coaches, spiritual coaches, leadership coaches and just about any other type of service provider – get their marketing all wrong. You’re not talking to a market, you’re talking to people.

Your coaching clients are not an audience, they’re people.

Of course you know this. But do you use it in marketing your coaching practice? Do you think about it when  you’re speaking with a new potential coaching client? And do you keep it in the forefront of your thoughts when you’re making decisions about your business?

If not, you need to. You need to remember, all the time, that you’re talking to people.

People aren’t interested in hearing from businesses.

Are you? Do you want to hear from a business or would you rather hear from a person?

Well, you potential coaching clients aren’t any different. They don’t want to hear from a business. They don’t want to talk to a service provider. And seldom do they seek coaching.

Now that’s not to say that don’t want coaching or that they can’t benefit from working with a life coach. That would be like saying that you shouldn’t eat vegetables because the don’t taste good. That’s not true.

But what is true is that you, as a coach promoting how your coaching service can benefit people, want to know what people want. More specifically, you want to know what the people you can best serve through  your coaching practice want, need and even expect.

Show your future coaching clients who you are

The way to do this isn’t by crafting more enticing marketing messages. It’s not by creating some fancy sales materials or producing some slick product. Rather, you meet people by first being a person yourself. Show them your human side. Let them see that you’re not just a coach who runs a business and wants to get more clients. Instead, show them that you’re a human being who cares about people and want to serve them by helping them overcome their problems and concerns.

And there we find the most important point – meet the people you want to serve – the people you can best serve – where they are. They’ve found your coaching website most likely because they’re seeking answers, wanting help, looking for direction or needing to solve a problem in their life. Meet them in it and then show them the way out. This is what makes an effective coaching website.

Just remember, people are seeking answers and direction, not marketing messages and sales pitches. Meet them where they are.

As a life coach, or any other sort of coach, how are you best meeting the people you want to serve with your coaching practice?

Let’s talk about it.

note: image from caruba on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Want To Increase Sales? There’s almost limitless methods for doing so.

Be in front of your audience when they need you.

That’s it. That’s the key to increasing your sales. Think about it, when you’re at a restaurant, do you care with the bathroom is? Not til you need it, right? Or an ATM. You likely pass dozens of them every day and don’t notice them, right? But what happens when you’re out of cash? Every ATM comes into focus. What’s more, you might scurry to find one.

So many small business owners don’t consider this when they market their business. They work hard on their vision and business plan. Then they focus on their offer and how best to communicate that offer to a target market. Ideally, they’re wanting to position themselves as an expert in a select niche market.

But no one cares that you’re an expert until they need an expert. In other words, no one cares that you can solve a set a problems until they are faced with those set of problems. Then, they go out and look for a solution.

As a business owner, you want to find the most effective ways to get your business, your expertise, your solutions in front of people when they need it.

I know what you thinking…how do I know when people need what I have to offer?

The simple answer is, well, you don’t. But you can spend time identifying a clear niche in which to spend your marketing efforts (and budget). And you can use search engines, forums, social media (blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc) and your website to make yourself more visible to people as a whole. The more people know what you do, the more potential for your work to passed on to someone who needs it.

For instance, you can use SEO and SEM to target specific key phrases that people may be searching for when they’re looking to solve their problem. But be specific and highly targeted. If you train poodles, you likely aren’t going to get much return for optimizing your site for dog trainers. But if you optimize your site for poodle trainers in New England, now you have a specfic niche you’re targeting. And when people need their poodle trained, and live in New England, you’ll likely get found.

Same is true with social media. Use your blog and profiles on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, among others, to establish your expertise. Then openly share with people who you are, what you do and who you do it for. If they don’t need your services, they may know someone who does.

And there’s other approaches as well – forums, blog commenting, article submission, etc. The list goes on. Just remember that you want to present your expertise at the time when people most need it. If you allow that to be your guiding light, you won’t be marketing in the dark. And more people will buy – today, even.

Are you targeting your audience at the times they need you most? If so, how’s that working for you? And if not, why not? Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Troy Holden on Flickr)

If you have a small business website it should serve one purpose – generating sales

Sure, it should inform your visitors of your offers and give them social proof of your abilities through testimonials. Without a doubt, your website should generate and capture leads. And most importantly your business website should move your visitors toward buying your offers.

While there’s nearly infinite ways to do generate sales, a few necessary pieces need to be in place on your business website in order to generate more sales effectively. Most of this is really common sense. Yet after the more than 20 Business Website Assessments I’ve done in the past month, these basic elements are consistently being missed on small business websites.

Yet, these basic elements are so fundamental that you want to be sure you’re not missing them on your website.

1. Ineffective use of Page Titles

Page titles are part of the HTML code on your website. Usually you’ll see the page title in the top bar of your web browser window.

While it serves a number of purposes, it has two very primary, and important, functions. First, it is an important piece in keyword optimization for SEO. No effective SEO strategy is complete without including keywords in the page titles. For effective SEO, each of your business website pages should have unique page titles. These page titles should include the keywords that you’ve optimized for each, specific page.

Secondly, and perhaps even more important, your page titles are used as the main, linked text in search engine results. It’s the large blue text you see in the graphic below:

Effective page titles tell people what they’ll find when they click through the search results into your website page. Ideally, your page title will show a benefit the searcher can gain from visiting that page. The best page titles will increase click-through rates from search results, increasing your visitors, your leads and potentially your revenue. Spending any time SEO without optimizing your page titles for conversion is a poor idea.

Of the 26 websites I’ve evaluated in the past month through my Website Business Assessment, every single one of them were not using page titles effectively. If you have a small business website, you may want to look into this.

2. No Clear Business Objectives

Your small business website is nothing more than a marketing tool. On its own, there’s nothing magical it can do. It’s merely a servant to how you want to use it to market and promote your business.

As a marketing tool, your business website needs to be considered as part of your marketing plan. when you create a marketing plan you identify objectives – the things you want to accomplish through your marketing efforts. Then you set out to do the tasks that will accomplish the objectives.

Your business website, as a marketing tool, needs to also have clearly identified business objectives. In other words, you want to be absolutely clear what your goals are with your website. Sure, it could be getting more clients. But there’s a process involved in getting more clients. And your website is a place to implement that process.

But to go a step further, it’s not just enough to state your business objectives and then go about using your business website to accomplish them. You need to prioritize your business objectives. You need to decide that this one objective is the primary mission of my website. Then do everything you can think of to get your primary objective in front of your website visitors, blog post readers and anyone else who will see your website.

After you identify your primary business objective then decide on the second and third most important things you want people to accomplish on your website. Make each of those visible at the most opportune time in your business website. Just make sure they don’t trump the primary objective.

An example that came out of the 30-minute follow-up call I do with every Business Website Assessment came from an alternative healer. She had her signup box for joining her email list on every page of her site. Yet, when we spoke, her primary objective was a free consultation time. The email signup was important – actually her secondary objective – but was not as important as the free consulting time. So we discussed ways that she could adjust her website to make the free consulting time more visible and more appealing. What’s great to here is that after two weeks she’s gotten 6 more inquiries than she usually had.

Be clear, ultra clear, with your business objective, prioritize them and then design your website around them. Doing so, you’ll find much greater success using your business website to promote your business.

3. Few or No Enticing Action Steps for Visitors to Take

In every case in the past month, the websites I’ve evaluated have had few, if any, direct action steps. Action steps, I define, as what you want your visitors to do when they arrive a to a certain point on your website page. Every page of your website needs to have clear, easy-to-do action steps – even your bio page. Actually, especially your bio page.

To have easy-to-do action steps it helps to have clear business objectives. If you know the objectievs of your website, the action steps you want your visitors to take simply become an extension of your primary, secondary and tertiary objectives.

The key here is that the steps are easy for your visitors to complete. Remember, this is the point of conversion. The action you’re asking your visitor to take will directly engage them in your business. So this isn’t the time to get cute with language or too wordy. It’s not the time to explain a bunch of things about what you can do for them. Simple, easy-to-understand, to-the-point content is what you want here.

The best action steps are the ones that combine your business objectives with the wants of your visitor at the moment. When their wants meet your objectives, you’ve got a conversion – a list signup, a consult inquiry, a seminar registration, a product sale, etc. Ultimately, your website’s copy should almost always be about moving people toward an easy-to-do action step.

Now, I keep saying easy-to-do for a reason. On three occasions this past month, I’ve done Business Website Assessments on business sites where the action steps visitors were asked to take were way too complex. In one case, the primary objective was an email list signup in exchange for a free product. The business owner, wanting to get as much from the conversion as they could, insisted that first the visitor signup for a list, then verifiy their email address, then fill-in a “short”, 16 question survey, then verified their email address again, and then they finally got the giveaway product.

All this was explained up front so there was no misdirection. But the business owner wasn’t getting many signups. So I suggested moving the survey in the process to the end and don’t require it. Deliver the product and then offer the survey. I spoke with the business owner yesterday and in the past week he’s tripled his list signups and doubled his survey respondents. Make the process easy.

And…make it easy to find. Don’t hide your action steps like I’ve seen on a number of websites.

Of Course, There’s More…

And there always will be. But when it comes to having an effective business website for your small, service-based business, these are the three most common mistakes I’m seeing during a Business Website Assessment. They also happen to be three of the most critical pieces to having a successful business website.

Perhaps it’s time you find out what’s working and what’s not working on your website. Or what you can do to make your website more effective in reaching your business goals. I’ve got a few slots available still for Business Website Assessments. Signup today.

Are you making these mistakes with your business website? How about your blog? What will you do to change it?

Or do you feel your website is dialed in and performing exactly how you want it to? Tell us how you did it.

Let’s talk about it.

note: image from TopTechWriter.US on Flickr, some rights reserved)

But I’d say one question is asked more than any other – “how do I get (more) traffic to my website?”

So last fall I began mindmapping all the ways I could come up with to get more website traffic. My first goal was to reach 100 ways to get more visitors. I quickly, however, crossed that boundary into 147 ways. Then I stopped listing them and taught a couple of teleclasses from my list.

Some time in January, I picked the list back up and started adding to it. Soon, I was past 200 ways to get more traffic. And I settled on more than 220 different ways to get more website traffic. I’m sure the list will continue to grow, and I’ll definitely continue updating the materials I have.

So now I had this list of all these ways to get more website traffic – the next thought, “what should I do with it?”

Of course, being a blogger I know a list like this would make incredible link bait. I even began a post on the topic. But the more I thought about posting it, the more I felt that just giving it away for free would dilute it’s value. I thought about how many lists you can find in the blogosphere and how often those lists get hot for a couple of days, then dropped.

My business is about helping business owners find hidden profits in their business and exploit them. So I didn’t want something of such value that could help so many people, go to waste.

So I’ve decided to, once again, offer my traffic driving booklet as a teleclass – 220 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website.

What’s great about this format is that I can provide a booklet listing all my website traffic generating ideas AND make myself available to answer questions about how to use them. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Next Wednesday, July 1 I’ll lead a 60 minute teleclass for you that covers (some of) the materials in my booklet, 220 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website. Half the call I’ll speak on some of my most successful tips in the booklet and briefly on topics like qualifying traffic and tracking traffic sources. Then, the second half of the call is yours to ask me any questions you like about any of the methods I list in the booklet.

UPDATE: I have 60 8 copies of the entire course materials, including the 53-page booklet, my series of mindmaps and the 60-minute audio recording available right now for purchase. Click here to buy now for only $69.

Let me be clear here, the 220 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website booklet is not just a list. I’ve included some tips in the beginning and have tips and commentary on every single traffic generation technique I cover. And you get to keep the booklet.

What’s more, I’ve also decided to include the mindmaps that helped me initially create, organize and structure the more than 50 pages that make up the booklet. So you’ll get the booklet and the mindmaps together.

Also, I’ll be recording the call and forwarding the a link to the recording so you can download it. So if you can’t make the live teleclass order right now and you’ll receive the booklet, the mindmaps and the full 60-minute audio.

One last thing – since I want to give ample time for you to ask your questions about driving traffic to your site, I’m limiting the number of copies for sale to 60 8. After 60, I’ll won’t have any more for sale.

Here’s what’s included:

• My 53 page booklet 220 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website & Increase Your Business, with tips and commentary for each method.
• A Series of Mindmaps summarizing each of the traffic driving methods – use as a resource when deciding which methods to use. I used these mindmaps in developing the course materials.
• A 60-minute LIVE teleclass with me, talking about how to find the right traffic for your business.
• Time for you to get your specific questions answered. There will be ample time to take your specific questions. And since conversation often leads to the most interesting teaching, the more questions, the merrier.
• I’ll record the teleclass and send you a link to download it in full.
• Click here to ORDER NOW!

There was so much in the booklet that when I got it before the class, I was overwhelmed. But your calm voice and simple explanations took me from overwhelm to excitement. Can’t wait to launch my website.
- Gillian McDowell: Vancouver, BC

What’s inside?

This isn’t just some random list I’ve come up with that I’m tossing at you. Rather, I painstakingly put together the booklet and the mindmaps over a number of months to give you the most complete resource I know of. Then, I divided the booklet into 13 different categories for building your traffic. Here’s those categories:

• 7 ways to drive website traffic using General Office ideas
• 8 ways to drive website traffic by getting Published Offline
• 22 ways to drive website traffic through Direct Marketing Offline
• 16 ways to drive website traffic through Networking Offline
• 12 ways to drive website traffic through Email Marketing
• 59 ways to drive website traffic through Marketing Online
• 7 ways to drive website traffic through Backlinking
• 28 waysto drive website traffic through Blogging
• 14 ways to drive website traffic through Social Bookmarking
• 22 ways to drive website traffic through Social Media
• 11 ways to drive website traffic through Online Paid Advertising
• 13 ways to drive website traffic through Offline Paid Advertising
• 21 more ways to drive website, my Final Brain Dump

There it is. You can see the breakdown of how many ideas come from which sort of categories. And there’s something there for everyone – offline marketers, social marketers, paid advertising, even email. And if you add up all the ways, there’s actually 240. I just got tired of changing the name of the program.

Here’s the details:

• Teleclass will be Wednesday, July 1 at 1pm eastern / 10am pacific U.S. time I’m making this available for a limited time
  
• There are ONLY 60 8 COPIES of this course available
• The cost is $97 SPECIAL SUMMER PRICE $69!
  
• Click here to ORDER NOW!

Dawud, why haven’t you been teaching more often. I love your way of explaining complex ideas with simple language. The course and your enthusiasm helped me believe I could actually get more people to see my website. Thank you.
Karen Loveland: Seattle, WA

I’ve had more 300 people take this course. All have told me that they would have paid more knowing what they know now. And many are now using my suggestions to actually get more clients.

So if that’s the case, why would I lower the cost to $69? Just like the hundreds of others who have these materials, I know that you’ll get a huge benefit from taking this course. My clients constantly ask me for information about driving traffic to their website. So I’m simply making it easier for more people to get access to this all-important information. After all, no website traffic, no business.

Now, let’s get you registered before you lose your slot.

Now there’s two things left to do:

1. First, order your copy right now.
2. Second, tell 5 people who need to get more traffic to their websites. Send them an email, make a phone call, text message them, Tweet about it on Twitter, Write a blog post – however you can reach the people you want to help.

(note: image from lynac on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Marketing your business is a really good idea, don’t get me wrong. However you choose to do it, marketing is a vital part of your business. As a matter of fact, marketing your services is something I teach my clients to do more effectively every day.

Yet I find that there’s a hole in the thinking that “all you need to do is effectively market your business.”

You also need to sell!

Now I know that for some marketing covers selling just as it covers distribution and delivery. Yet I so often see marketing gurus focusing all their time on the preliminary aspects of marketing – clarity of message, target audience, demographics, psychographics, methodology, etc. Seldom do I see marketing coaches get into the specifics of selling.

But more importantly, so seldom does the average business owner see selling as a part of marketing. More often than not, they believe that if they communicate their offer effectively that people will just buy their service. For instance, the majority of the service providers I’ve run into – either as prospects and clients or through a large network of friends, associates and partners I offer help or advice too – see the importance in communicating their offer. And they understand what systems they want in place once the prospects enters their funnel.

But what they seldom focus on is the conversion process – when the prospective client becomes an actual, paying client. That’s where selling comes in.

What many don’t consider is that while there’s a process for marketing, there’s also a process for converting; for selling. And while there’s numerous, effective processes and methods for both marketing and for sales, neither make a successful business on their own. It’s hard to sell your services if you don’t draw prospective clients in through your marketing. Just as you’re not guaranteed a large number of prospects converting to clients without clearly knowing how you sell to them.

To drive the point home consider if I told you, “An effective marketing campaign should lead to increased sales and more clients.” Without a hitch, you’d agree, right? I mean, that’s the whole point, isn’t it – the better your marketing the more you sell and the more clients you have.

Well, effective marketing is like having a bus drop off thirsty people in your driveway. They’ve searched, they’ve found you and they’ve journeyed to your home because they trust you can satisfy their thirst. But just because they’re standing in your driveway doesn’t mean they’ll get to drink. Some will, sure. But many will just stand there waiting for some guidance. Selling is guiding those thirsty people to the well in your backyard, hoisting the bucket from the well, pouring them a cup of fresh water and handing to them to drink.

In other words, selling is a process as well. It’s the process of guiding the people your marketing brings to your business into becoming clients. So how you sell your business, how you convert your prospects, is something you need to consider in order to get more client, increase your business and generate more money.

So, how does your marketing process differ from your sales process? Does it? And if you’re getting people to engage your business, how could you more effectively sell to them?

Let’s hear your thoughts!

(note: image from Ward_ on Flickr, some rights reserved)

As a blogger, you learn pretty quick how to look at your traffic stats. You see that your traffic goes up the days you write and down the days you don’t. You look at your referring sites regularly to see where all the traffic is coming from and spend more time on the sites that are driving you the most traffic. And hitting the motherload of website traffic is getting to the front page of Digg, Reddit or del.icio.us.

But do your traffic stats mislead you? Is your goal just to get gobs and gobs of traffic to your website?

Maybe it is. If you’re blogging for fun, to make a few bucks on the side or using your blog to sell ad space and affiliate products, it may just be about generating as much traffic as you can.

But if you own a business where you only get paid when you’re clients are buying your service, having tons of traffic may completely mislead you.

Website traffic is great, don’t get me wrong. And it’s certainly an important part of your business strategy on the web. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be teaching a teleclass called 220 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website.

Yet you want to be careful about evaluating the health of your web marketing by only looking at how many visitors and page views your site is getting. You need to also compare your overall traffic stats with stats on solid lead generation, prospecting, conversion and sales.

You can do this pretty simply by tracking all contacts people make with you through your site in a specific period of time – say, a month. An RSS subscription and a comment is a contact. You could consider those soft leads. A newsletter signup is a firmer lead, because now your visitor has given you something of theirs – so track that. And obviously phone calls, emails and form submissions from your website are solid leads also, so track the number of those each month.

Then, you want to follow through with how each of those interactions develop. Do any of your commenters, for instance, contact you directly about your services? Do they then convert into paying clients? The same goes for your newsletter list, phone calls, email and form submissions – any of the ways that people can contact you directly. Do these generate sales?

If they do, it means your website traffic is serving your business. If not, then you need to make some adjustments as to who you’re targeting in your blog posts. For instance, let’s say you’re a life coach and you’re using your blog to promote your coaching services. Inevitably some of your readers will be other life coaches – that’s actually a good thing. But a good portion of your readers need to be potential clients as well. If you’re only getting other life coaches to read you blog, it’s unlikely you’re going to convert many clients. This means, you’d want to look at how you can adjust your content and your promotional efforts to reach your market, rather than your peers.

Generating huge amounts of traffic can be compared to creating a massive newsletter list. If you have a business, it doesn’t really matter how many people you have on your list. What matters is how many of the people on your list will buy your services.

So, how are you using your blog to promote your business? Is it working? If so, why. And if no, what’s one thing you can change to make it work better?

And maybe the most interesting question of all…are you currently, or have you in the past, been too focused on generating as much traffic as you can without really caring about how it affects your bottom line?

Let’s talk about it.

And if you would like to find more ways to generate traffic – specifically traffic that increase your bottom line, take a look at my upcoming teleclass: 220 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website.

(note: image from c0ntr0 on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

But just knowing about the term niche marketing doesn’t mean you know what niche marketing really is. Or how it applies to your business.

Most service-based business professionals I work with and talk to have some idea of niche market. Often, they think of it as the group of people their business serves or the market they target their services for. And while it’s true that your market is who you sell your products and services too, it doesn’t mean you’re selling to a niche market.

There’s a number of ways to define niche marketing or niche marketing. Wikipedia defines it as a focused, targetable portion (or subset) of a larger market. The New Oxford Dictionary defines niche as a specialized but profitable corner of the market. Personally (and professionally) I think of niche market from a point of problem/solution. So for me, I find my niche market in identifying a highly specific problem or set of problems that my service solves in a highly specific way.

A comment in a recent blog post gives me an interesting example to play with here. On my recent post, Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid of The Econimic Crisis, I spoke to how highly niched small businesses will be affected much less during turbulent economic times. One commenter, who identified themselves as CSS Gallery (obviously not their name), made the comment that “One niche market that is growing considerably is SEO.”

As with all comments, I deeply appreciate the thought and sharing. And it’s true that SEO is a growing market. But SEO, in and of itself, is not a niche. SEO is a market. And being a market, you can find all types of focused, targetable portions of the SEO market. So if you’re in SEO, your working in a highly unspecific market and with a little effort you could discover the niche market you best serve within the overall SEO market.

For instance, let’s say you’re an SEO specialist. You’ve worked with a lot of different types of companies in a number of different markets. But you have a perpensity toward graphic designers. You’ve worked with a number of graphic designers and understand the market a bit. You’ve even had some success at getting rankings for the graphic designers you’ve worked with. You could decide that your niche is in SEO for graphics designers. That would be a subset (niche) within a market (SEO).

But you can go further – and I recommend it. You can look at SEO for graphic designers as a market itself. Now I’ve said it’s a niche – and it is a niche of the seach engine optimization market. But you can also find niches within doing SEO for graphic designers. Let’s say, for instance, your SEO track record showed that you got great results working with graphic designers who create logos. You could further niche yourself by providing SEO services for logo designers. And you can go even further with this (and I suggest you do) by defining what type of logo designers you specialize in working with.

You see, the goal is to find the most specific niche you can and market to it. That’s how you can dominate a market. The more specific you are in your defining your niche, the more your marketing message (and SEO, by the way) can target that niche’s specific needs. That way when the logo designer is looking for SEO and finds you, they’ll feel as though you’re speaking right to their needs. And when they see that you specialize at working with their type of business, wouldn’t it only make sense that they’d contact you?

The key to niche marketing is to find a real niche. By real niche, I mean the subset of the market you serve. Sometimes it’ll be the subset of the subset of the market you serve – and so on. The goal here, though, is that you’re speaking only to the specific people whose specific problems your services can solve. Find them and you’ve found your niche.

Are you marketing to a specific niche within a market? Or are you still marketing to everyone?

And if you do have a niche, how have you defined it? And in defining it, how has it changed your business.

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from The Jamoker on Flickr,  some rights reserved)

THIS OFFER HAS ENDED!

You may have heard that we’re expecting our fourth child sometime in the next couple of weeks. My wife, the kids and I are extremely excited and are looking forward to meeting this new little Miracle (sorry, couldn’t resist).

At the same time, I’ve been looking for an interesting and fun thing to do with another birth in my life – one of a website nature. And I think I’ve done it:

Until noon, eastern, on Sunday, August 30th, I’m going to sell my business-ready, template-based websites for the absolutely insane low price of $350. No typo, I mean three hundred and fifty dollars. Sounds pretty good, huh?

And there’s no strings attached, no gimmicks or bait-and-switch. Just business-ready, WordPress-driven websites (and/or blogs). Include a little training and whole heap of bonuses from people like Chris Garrett, Michael Martine, Easton Ellsworth, Pamela Weir, Stephen Smith and a number of others. They’re each offering products throughout the event.

The Grand Prize

Aside from getting a fully-functioning website for $350, you have the opportunity to win a massive Business Quick-Start Package. Every person that buys a $350, business-ready, WordPress-based website between now and noon on Sunday, you’ll be entered into a drawing. One winner will get:

• A membership to Chris Garrett’s Blogger Authority course ($397 value)
• Easton Ellsworth will prepare a Master SEO Keyword List for your business website and give you some pointers in how to use it to generate SEO results. ($497 value)
• Pamela Weir will help you with your copy writing and editing and write and submit press releases to announce your new website. ($400 value)
• Michael Martine’s WordPress SEO Secrets book which walks you step-by-step on how to get the absolute most SEO benefit from WordPress. And, it’s not theory. It’s very much a how-to book. ($47 value)
• Two, one-hour Business Advisory Phone Sessions with me where we’ll discuss the best possible strategies for promoting your business through your new website. ($500 value)

This is an amazing opportunity to get the website you need at a price that you can definitely afford. Oh, and did I mention the best part: If you’re not exactly ready for a new website you can buy now and use it later. We’ll get you all set up – hosting, WordPress, you design, and plugins – and put a ‘coming soon’ page on top of your website until you’re ready to use it.

To find out more, you need to visit The Website Habitat – my new site. There you can see the designs, find out what’s included and make your purchase. But hurry, time is running out.

note: image from Darwin Bell on Flickr, some rights reserved)

You know how it works, you find some amazing product or use some stupendous service and you can’t help but tell people about it. It’s as though you’ve found something unique that you have to share with others.

As a small business owner, word-of-mouth marketing can be your best friend. The cost is low and the affect can be huge.

But on thing that always gets in the way more effectively using word-of-mouth marketing is the idea that you have to create the greatest product or service in the world. If it’s even possible, it’s not necessary.

What is necessary is that you give people a compelling reason to talk about your offer. This is exactly what word-of-mouth marketing guru Andy Sernovitz shared at OSI Rock Stars and eBay Live:

The best thing you can do is make sure people have a reason to talk about you. When they look at your listing, they see what you wrote, there should be some obvious thing where they say, “I’ve gotta tell a friend about this.” If your listing isn’t making people say, “I’ve gotta tell a friend,” add something, change it, spice it up, do something cool so that they absolutely have to forward it.

Here’s the clip:

[youtube 1NP3WdagAek]

Compelling can come in many forms. If you have a great product, do something in the copy or on your website to give people a reason to forward it. As Andy suggests, do something obvious, a little odd or cool just so people want to share it.

People love to share things that are interesting. They love to pass on things that will add value to people’s lives. And they love to share things that are funny, witty, or helpful. Think of all the times you’ve share something with others. Why have you done it? Why have you taken a few minutes to tell someone about the thing you saw, the product you bought or the person you worked with?

What motivates you to share is the same thing that motivates others. We all have different triggers, but we are motivated by the same foundational desire to share interesting and helpful things with people we know.

So what motivates you to share? And, perhaps, more importantly what can you do with your marketing materials, website or blog that would create a compelling reason for people to share you with others?

Let’s talk about it.

(note: image from Paul Mayne on Flickr, some rights reserved)

But to be successful, you’re ultimately not the decision maker. And if you want to be successful, you shouldn’t be.

I know what you’re thinking (other than this Dawud cat is crazy), “Then who makes the decisions if I don’t?”

Your market does, of course.

You can sit back everyday, all day and make decisions about where to steer your business. Sure you decide what emails to respond too, what phone calls to take, and where to put your marketing efforts. You decide to develop this product or refine that service or to build this relationship or that one.

But there’s one thing about your business that you can’t decide – who buys. You simply don’t get to decide who buys what your products or services. While you can choose who you try to market too, you can’t control who actually spends money on your offerings. Each and every individual in your market decides that for themselves.

So many business owners have this backward. They think that all they need to do is create some product, market it to the right people and they just buy. That can work. But it’s like shooting fish in a fast moving river; the audience rushes by as your marketing tries to catch their attention long enough to slow them down, giving you a better shot.

Wouldn’t it just be easier if you knew what the fish wanted and built your products and services around that? Then you could give them what they’re looking for. Do that and some can be into a still pond (think big barrel). In the still pond you let them slow down, relax and rest a bit – all while listening to what you have to offer them. Effectively, you’re now able to take your shots at the fish who are interested in being there.

Smart business owners understand this so they don’t waste their resources and time shooting at the fish rushing by in the river. Instead, they craft their offerings around what their audience actually wants. This changes marketing from yelling to the mass of people rushing by to having a conversation with a small niche who need what you have to offer.

The successful business owner knows that it’s the people who make up the marketplace that ultimately decide. The audience is the decision maker. The only decision you need to make is whether to listen to them or not.

Are you listening to your target audience? What are they telling you they need? And how can you fill that need?

(note: no fish were harmed or injured in any way during the writing of this post. The author (that’s me) does not specifically advocate shooting fish whether in a river, a pond a barrel or any other locale. And if you select to use a firearm for any purpose, please get proper training.)

(note: image from SubyRex on Flickr, some rights reserved)

But one thing is similar between almost every client…they somehow see their blog as their business. I’m not sure where this developed exactly, but I see this all over the web as well. Perhaps there’s a misunderstanding between those who have made money blogging and those who want too.

But a blog is not a business. Blogging, in it’s own right, is no more a business than your gasoline is a car. Sure, the car and gasoline are forever linked, even dependent on each other, but you’re not going to step inside a can of gas and make it to the grocery store.

You can think of your blog in similar terms. Your blog is like gasoline in that it can make your business go. And done well, blogging can make your business grow. But you first need a clearly defined business model before you can attach a successful blog to it.

Even for the problogger, your blog is the method that allows you to make an income – in other words, it’s marketing. But your business is about publishing, sell advertising or affiliate programs or being paid for reviews. The blog is simply the way you accomplish your business model.

I bring this up because I see so many people getting it backward. They think the blog is their business. They see the blog as their car. They expect to just get in and have the blog deliver them to their destination. But it doesn’t work that way. You can blog successfully for years and never make any money. You can have tens of thousands of commenters and no clients.

The answer to making money with your blog isn’t about text-link ads, having more ad space or finding the right affiliate programs. It’s not even about converting clients or selling products. All this can certainly make you money, but your chance of success decreases greatly if you don’t have a plan – a business model to follow.

Here’s some simple points to set you in the right direction toward finding your business model:

• Know thy self – What is it you have to offer. With a service or product this is obvious. For the problogger, it’s still necessary as content will drive your success.
• Know thy market – What is it the people who make up your market need? Solve a problem for them and they’ll become a customer. One help…think of your market as a person.
• Know thy vision – Think about where you want your business to go and what you’d like to accomplish with it. Write down your ideas. And be sure to set goals.
• Know thy plan – Your business is like building construction – you have to have a plan. Your plan is the path� you’ll follow toward accomplishing your goals.
• Track thy success – Tracking is way underutilized by small business owners today. As a blogger, tracking traffic is great. But consider tracking conversions and revenue and tweak things to gain more success.

The bullet points above ideally answer four questions – who are you, what do you do, who do you do it for, and how do you do it? When the answers to these questions are clear, you have the foundation for your business. Now, go get your blog to do the marketing for your business.

And that’s what a blog is – a marketing tool; a method for drawing attention to your business. But first you have to know what your business is about. You have to know who you serve and with what. And to be successful, you need to know how to meet the goals you set for business. Blogging can help with all this. But without a clear vision and solid plan, you’ll likely end up like the tens of thousands of bloggers who are writing their fingers off and making pennies.

So if you’re problogging, what’s your business model? And if you’re blogging to convert clients or customers, how are you using your blog to gain revenue?

More importantly, how well is it working? I’d love to chat about it…

(note: image from B Tal on Flickr)

But what’s the truth? Have we reached a point where we should dump our email lists and find other channels to market through? Or is email marketing still as viable as it always has been?

My own thoughts are that email marketing is still alive and somewhat well. There are lots of business owners today that are making quite a nice living from the revenue they generate from their ezine lists. They continue to get new subscribers weekly, which just reinforces that email marketing is working.

I do think, however, that email marketing is dying – however slowly. And I’m willing to concede that email marketing may just be evolving rather than dying. But of course evolution means a slow death of one so that something new can take its place. And that’s where I feel email marketing is right now.

I mean, let’s face it, we just don’t have the time to read all the stuff that comes to our inbox. So what does come in front of our eyes better either be expected, interesting or useful to my specific needs – whether personal or in business. If I subscribe to an ezine, I’ll likely give it a few issues and if the content isn’t either highly valuable or doesn’t help me solve a specific problem I’m facing, I’ll unsubscribe.

What are your thoughts? Is email marketing dying? Is it evolving? Is it static?

And how effective is your ezine list, if you have one?

(note: image from sean dreilinger on Flickr)

But did you know that word of mouth marketing can be illegal?

According to Andy Sernovitz there’s a new bill (pdf) being introduced in the U.K. which will make some marketing practices illegal. The bill is meant to stop false and misleading marketing practices. Of course, word of mouth marketing could easily fit into that category if marketers were deceptive about their campaigns.

So what makes word of mouth marketing illegal?

In Andy’s post he lists a few examples where the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has made this clear. And from what I read in the U.K.’s new bill (pdf), it seems to agree.

• Asking buzzers to recommend your product with disclosing that they are part of a campaign or are receiving an incentive.
• Falsely representing your employees as consumers.
• Asking buzzers to claim they like your product when they don’t or have never tried it.

Now I, personally, don’t know anyone who’s doing these things purposely to promote their business through word of mouth. Yet to me it seems like there might be a gray area here. Gray in the sense of what we, as business owners feel is deceptive versus what consumers would feel is deceptive.

Please hear me clearly, I’m not talking about lying to yourself so you can scam the public. I’m talking about places where we might not realize we’re bending the truth in order to gain an advantage. When we talk about blogging, one of the things that comes to mind where this could happen is with being paid for posts.

Think about it, if someone wants to pay you either to write a post on a topic or to review a product, couldn’t that skew your judgement a bit? I’d like to think it wouldn’t skew mine. Yet it’s because I know it’s possible that I post very few ads on my blog. And you’ve never seen a product review that I’ve been paid for. It’s likely you won’t – at least not on this site (though I have a secondary blog in development where you may see my wife and I do product reviews, etc).

Do I think that we shouldn’t be paid for our writing? Of course not. I just think it’s important to keep the blogging crede in the forefront of our minds whenever we are paid for writing posts or reviews – be authentic, be transparent.

In Andy’s post he lists a few points from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Ethics Codes that can help us stay honest without ourselves and our consumers:

• Honesty of Relationship: You say who you’re speaking for
• Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe
• Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity

And if you have any questions about the ethics of a campaign you’re either wanting to begin or are being pitched, use the WOMMA’s 20 questions to identify any potential trouble spots.

So what are your thoughts? When do you feel word of mouth marketing crosses into the gray areas of deception?

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a deceptive campaign? What was that like?

(note: image from macmiester on Flickr)