TGID 7 Must-Do Business Success Steps
Back To Business
With only 12 business days left in 2011, it is time to start planning. January kicks off a new season of business management, sales and marketing initiatives. I am a believer that the basics of these business areas are fundemental to a business’s success. They are also quantitatively tied to the level of success. The basics needed are: 1) a product or service that people want, a business plan, marketing plans, an employee handbook (task-checklist), point of sale and/or CRM software, employee training in customer service, sales, and communication skills (starting with the owner). They can start as outlines but need to grow and be maintained. These make up the vehicle that is your business. Sales revenue is the fuel needed to keep your engine running.
Various forms of marketing are like the pistons of an engine, the engine that power your business forward. Too few pistons running with out attention or maintenance and the vehicle may move, but probably while sputtering and running slow. If you have the maximum number of pistons firing and make sure they are maintained at their optimum efficiency? Now you have a race car! And the best part is, you don’t have to be a mechanic! Just know the basics, keep your business tuned-up and be an aware, smart driver.
Real Success Statistics
The negative statistics on failure rates for small business and start-ups are well publicized and quite scary. BUT of course what is not publicized nearly as much are the success rates on franchises and businesses that follow sound business fundamentals. They are very positive and extremely comforting. The above business necessities, software and items are available for very affordable prices and in some cases free.
Your Best Chances For Success
If you do nothing else, follow these most important revenue oriented basics and your chances of survival will increase dramatically. These will also allow you to find support for time management, updating a business plan, tracking expenses and professionally measuring your marketing dollars.
1) Get (or update) your website immediately. If you can’t afford one, make a free one (or see Yellowbook bundles above). Buy your name at GoDaddy and fill out the form and POOF you have your own website. It is easy to rank high in searches especially locally. How? Update it weekly, optimize it with keywords, good paragraph titles, add your own home- made business (or relevant YouTube videos, testimonials, customer pictures and then copy and paste lots of articles on your area of expertise and supplier materials. You will rank on the first page of google in no time! If you are busy and have the money… PAY SOMEBODY TO DO IT RIGHT! PS: Keep away from “Supplier sites and/or “Shared” YourTown.com- local newsletter sites, they’re useless)
2) Capture as much information on every customer and every visitor that comes into your business. No excuses. Include purchase info, email address, mailing address, and Facebook if you have a Facebook Fanpage (see below). This will become your businesses most valuable asset. Cost? FREE
3) Email is still the ultimate tool. There are free email platforms out there, starting with your own web host. As you grow to larger lists or if you need an easy picture and layout program, get Constant Contact. Email your customers as much as they will tolerate! It is free and if you are not doing it someone else will be. It should be you! Cost? Free
4) Use the IYP’s (Internet Yellow Pages)! Most allow free enhancements and rating/comments. Claim your Google Places and Yahoo Local address. Add pictures, coupons, business profile, comments and ratings (just ask!) FYI- Most local businesses still do need and should be in the yellow pages but more imortantly their “Online Directories”. (NOTE: Yellowbook’s print, website, and Internet-SEO-SEM marketing bundles are easily the most effective and cost-effective packages available. And they guarantee an R.O.I.!) Now I may be biased, as I’ve been working with and consulting with YB for 4 years now, but I also know my stuff! Look at the “non-search engine” statistics: Most buyers are not there because of your website’s google ranking! Heaven help us all (myself included) if that were the case! Remember, do not give up your local advertising, add to it. Believe me, the yellow pages are affordable and easily the best value going and you still need that balance. IYP’s Cost- FREE Google / Yahoo Maps- Cost: FREE Print and Enhanced Directories- Cost: Minimal
5) Facebook, Google+, Tweet and LinkedIn as many of your customers as you can. Do this as much as you can. Start with 10 if you have to, but do it and grow it! (Yes you must have an appropriate social media presence! Remember, there is a new social order in marketing today: gratitude, information sharing, personal/customer fun, and then an occasional but “compelling” offer is the way to use social media. Don’t ALWAYS sell, that is just annoying. Cost? Free
6) Advertise in your particular “appropriate” media. Do not cut back on your local advertising in slower times. Think about adding to it! Cut something else! Keep your marketing as high (uncomfortably so) as fiscally possible. It is better to be smaller and consistant, than trying big one time ads. Find out what paper your current customers read most. Ask your “successful” business neighbors and window shoppers! Local- weekly papers usually do the trick, especially if you are pulling from a local demographic. The daily papers will cost you more but see if you can get a smaller regional run. You say you can’t afford it? Well I’m saying you can’t afford not to. Cutting back on advertising and marketing in slower times is a mathematical equation that equals (=) double whammy disaster!
7) Network, network, network! (And I don’t mean just attending a quarterly happy hour-card swap! By all means Go but truely network every day) Meet your business neighbors, refer your doctor, dentist, hair salon, cleaning service, carpenters, painters, etc… If you know people (and you do know people), helping them find contacts is gold in the currency of business contacts. And you simultaneously build your, Facebook, email, regular mail, comments and ratings (just ask), web links and your word of mouth business buzz! Cost? FREE
Follow these and you will dramatically increase you awareness and prospects for success. – Jamie Siracusa, Executive Director
Categories: Business Growth, Marketing Magic, Social Media - Local Web, Start-Up Tips Tags: atlantic city county southjersey networking, Atlantic city-south jersey- sales-marketing tips, business excellence center, google seo atlantic south jersey, jamie siracusa, marketing magic, southjersey social media, yellow-page advertising, yellowbook
Updated- 3 Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes
Of the 3 most common mistakes I see in local South Jersey Social Media Marketing…
The worst is small business owners handing over these important tasks to inexperienced staff, spouses, and nieces. Yes they may know how to post and add pictures, but don’t have a clue about business marketing or more importantly Social Media Marketing (an even more fickle genre unto its own).
Jamie Siracusa on Social Media Business Mistakes
Second is they just stop after a few weeks or months and say “That Facebook stuff doesn’t work. We tried it and didn’t get any new business.”
My question always is: tried what and to who? Knowing how to post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Yelp is one thing, turning your pages into effective money making marketing channels, is another! Please do not hold it against these helpful, well-intentioned friends. For one, these platforms are very new. Two, they were never intended for commercial sales use and people these days are smarter and very jaded. And three, even seasoned marketing experts are struggling with conversions on old dependable ad techniques that just don’t seem to work on these new platforms. BUT, the good news is people are having great success with Social Media!
Your social media strategy just like your advertising, sales letters, sales presentations, signs, image and customer service, need to be smart, have value and quality. Crappy, one run ads or sales letters will not work. Hand written, ugly, boring signs will not work. Non-interested(ing), unhelpful, non-engaging, rude employees will not work. Boring, non-descript storefronts or offices will not work. Make your pages stand out, make your messages, offers and responses interesting and friendly. Make people want to “stop in” look, read, tell a friend, write back and remember you. Give things of real value away, something free, things with a Wow Factor.
Keep it going, open it back up tomorrow (if you stopped your posts, or haven’t been active). Tell everyone to join, have it on your website, on receipts, signs at POS, letters, thank you notes, coupons etc… I think you get my drift!
And another very common mistake, and not just a social media one; but a big money missing opportunity, is marketing or advertising in a silo approach. Many businesses are only using one or two forms of marketing and advertising. I.e., just newspaper ads, or radio spots, only a facebook pages or just a website. Make sure you are reaching as much of your demographic in the ways they will see you! Yes, the internet is growing, it is killing the Yellow pages and local print newspapers. But are ALL your customers and prospects looking for your product and services there? Probably not.
New platforms are coming like Quora, Gowalla and Aardvark!
Think about where and how you can reach your target audience. You need to do a variety of mediums. They all work but you need your own- targeted “reach”. Do not be “seduced” by the number of households watching, ears driving, readers reading, emails delivered, letters and val-packs delivered, Google searchers, and growing Internet users.
How many “actual” seekers of your product or services are sitting and watching at your exact run time, actually driving (and listening) at your exact time, opening that days paper to and seeing your page and then your ad, opening an unsolicited mail or valpack/coupon book, reading the emails beyond your subject line and THEN clicking into your website, OR finding you on Google, Yahoo, Bing or AOL? (I still see a lot of AOL email addresses don’t you?)? If your smart and can do a little math, add up all those realistic fraction and you get a significant percentage. BUT, you don’t have the budget of a McDonalds, Nike, Bed Bath & Beyond, or US Life Insurance.
Now here is the trick. If in fact you know where YOUR buyers and prospects are in YOUR local demographic, (and how they get their buying information…) THEN you can be their Pepsi, Nike, Bed Bath and Beyond, or US Life Insurance at an affordable cost. A few letters or post cards a year, some emails (free), with social media (free), a good website with first page Google and Yahoo search results, local well- placed targeted print ads… You can reach them affordably, be “top of mind” within your budget, with a measurable return on your dollars.
It isn’t magic, it isn’t luck. It’s work, it’s commitment, it’s math, it’s smart and most important it is profitable!
To Your Success- Jamie Siracusa, Author
Check out the new About.Me profiles by AOL!
Categories: Marketing Magic, Social Media - Local Web, Start-Up Tips Tags: Atlantic city-south jersey- sales-marketing tips, business excellence center, free sales opportunities, google seo atlantic south jersey, jamie siracusa, marketing magic, south jersey small business training success workshops, South-Jersey-Facebook-SEO-Socialmedia-experts, southjersey social media
Starting An Excellent Business
This is why I love following BT! This is an email from his weekly newsletter that I had to share with all of my BEC members!
Starting Small
By: Brian Tracy
How and why you can start your own business with little or no money by using sweat equity.
Everyone Starts Off Broke
I used to feel sorry for myself because I came from a limited background and I had no money. Then I found that nobody has any money. Everyone starts off broke. In fact, most successful people go broke or nearly broke several times during their lives. Don’t let this hold you back.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Transformational leaders empower others by keeping them “in the know,” by keeping them fully informed on everything that effects their jobs. People want and need to feel that they are “insiders,” that they are aware of everything that is going on. There is nothing so demoralizing to a staff member than to be kept in the dark about their work and what is going on in the company.
But if you are willing to put in the time to learn, remember about 95 percent of the working population in America have the ability to start and build their own businesses if they would only do it. Multi-level marketing is an excellent second income opportunity where you can learn vital business skills at low cost. Especially selling, organizing, making presentations, accounting, team building, negotiating, persuading, and communicating. 85 percent of what you need to learn to be successful in business you can learn from running a successful multi-level marketing business.
Roll Up Your Sleeves
Remember this, though. Leaders are always willing to do what is called dog work. They’re willing to render humble service. They’re willing to roll up their sleeves and plunge in. They never think of themselves as being too good for a job. There are an enormous number of people who are presented with second income opportunities who turn them down because they think that they’re too good to do something like that. But the people who are thinking that they are too good are the people who retire poor. You’ll find that leaders of all organizations are always willing to roll up their sleeves and to get in there.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do to put these ideas into action immediately:
First, remember that buying and selling things is the essence of all business. Look for opportunities to buy and sell things on your own account. Visit garage sales or hold a garage sale of your own. Visit swap meets and negotiate with people with things for sale. Make it a game to learn these skills.
Second, start in a small business of some kind. Look for a second income or multi level marketing opportunity where you can buy and sell on a small scale. Many people become wealthy starting off with virtually nothing in this way.
Follow and join Brian Tracy at www.briantracy.com – To your success! Jamie Siracusa
Categories: Business Growth, Start-Up Tips Tags: business excellence center, do it now one day business launch, Entrepreneur, google seo atlantic south jersey, jamie siracusa, jpsmarketingresults.com, small business economic stimulus plan, south jersey small business training success workshops, South-Jersey-Facebook-SEO-Socialmedia-experts
New BEC Members
For Immediate Release
Atlantic City, NJ (May 2011): The Business Excellence Center announced today its quarterly update of new members. Jamie Siracusa will be releasing additional ownership, industry services and consulting with each company for PR, marketing, and training program opportunities.
Yell 360 Ltd (Formerly Yellowbook US Sales)
Dependable Power
Joanne Kurek, MSW, EMDR
Kelvin Troy Johnson- Professional Speaker
Categories: Networking Events, Start-Up Tips Tags:
Free Google Apps- Verizon Podcast
As small business owners we are always looking for value and Google apps are incredible. Under used, not well understood.