Your Business Wisdom

GOOGLE FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES FREE SEARCH TOOLS

The Google Local Business Center is a must visit for business in general, but certainly for businesses attempting to attract customer in their local community. As you may know, Google allows you to add your business to a directory and then enhance your profile with all kinds of information about your business, products, and services. This is a free listing and every small business should take advantage of it.

Google shows these listings when someone makes what is obviously a geographic search for a product or service. The results show in what is called the Google 10 box above other listings. When someone clicks on one of these results they are taken to the profile through Google Maps.

Recently Google has added and integrated a couple of useful tools.

Now your Local Business Center account shows you analytics. You can see how many people are clicking on your profile, what search terms got them there and, for folks looking to find your business locally, where they came from based on their requests for driving directions. This is some pretty cool data, particularly for retail locations. It could help inform where you might spend some direct mail focus, for instance, and how you might optimize some of your web pages.

AdWords now allows you to connect your Google Local Profile to your AdWords account and, by doing so, you can ask Google to show your address, based on the location of the ad visitor, when someone views your ad. Google has dubbed this add-on Local Extensions. Once extensions are set up, Google will dynamically match your business locations to a user’s location or search terms and show the address with your text ads.

This could be useful for a business with multiple locations. Now, instead of having to set up multiple local ads you simply assign extensions to all your ads and Google will show the address of the best location based on where the user is located.

Good Luck and Happy Marketing

UNDERSTAND: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU!

In less than 2 short minutes this video summarizes on-line marketing vs. traditional advertising. A short video that requires long thought

Good Luck and Happy Marketing

WHAT IS A GREAT IDEA?

There is one question I seemed to be asked almost daily, and it always starts with a preface;

. . .“I have a 'great' idea for a business.…and

No one has ever done it before…and,

I know it will be a complete 110% success….

Next, they ask their question....Is my business idea good enough”?

Now, depending  where I am, and my mood I first provide my perceptive on the word " Great ", which is:

I firmly believe “great” is the most overstated and misunderstood adjective in the English language. Alexander The Great was great (no pun intended); and according to pop culture so is the irreverent Sponge Bob!

One conquered the Known World, and was honored and revered. And one is a cartoon cult figure on cable TV who lives in a pineapple under the sea 

Great does become relative to a thinking mind vs. an emotional mind. Not to mention the time in which we live. Edison invented the light bulb it changed the world, if today you worked on a business plan to develop the light bulb, well you get my drift!

I am certain if you consider this type of analysis you can also cast your own spectrums on the word  (TERM) "great".

 

Back to their original question;

Next, “No one has ever done it before !!!”

Do you mean - Done it successfully, tried it unsuccessfully, thought about it and realized it was doomed to failure, considered the risk vs. reward and said no way…. What is it and how do you know this?

If they are still talking to me after I provided the above information I go a little further -

Finally, as we all know, “good enough” is VERY relative, but I will provide some ideas for you to think through in answering that question for yourself.

Ask the Question Another Way

Not, “Do you think my idea is good enough to start a business?”…what people truly mean is “do you think I’ll make money doing this?”. And in most cases they dream of a lot of money!

The short answer is- most ideas you can think of are good enough to start a business around –truth be told- - - you can probably make some money doing almost anything. Notice I said some, enough to cover startup costs, running expenses and of course profit!

The real question is whether or not your business idea is worth the risk, and will provide adequate reward if it works out. For sake of argument let’s say adequate return is enough money for you to live on, at least replacing your current income.

So now the question changes once again, this time to “given my idea, what is the potential?” We’ll talk about potential in a minute, but first let’s dispel some myths about what your business idea should be.

Business Idea Myths

To make an adequate return, your business idea doesn’t need to be:

• Revolutionary
• Totally unique
• Game changing
• Competition free

Now, you’ll make a heck of a lot more money if your idea happens to be one of the above – but the honest truth is very few of us will invent the new wheel, or be so unique we become our own category.

You can make your adequate return, and then some, if within your business idea you can see your unique selling proposition.

Unique Selling Proposition

Simply put your unique selling proposition (USP) is the reason I’d buy from you and not a competitor. What makes you special, why do you deserve a share of the market?

For example let’s say you want to start a lawn care business. You know lawns, your tomato plants are huge, and the azalea's in your yard are the envy of the neighborhood.

Great – you’d probably make a very good lawn care person, and make money doing it. But, will you make an adequate return? 

Probably not if just doing lawn care is eh extent of your idea.

Take for example: Where I live there are literally 1000’s of lawn care people. Why am I buying from you, what’s your USP?

Your potential USP’s may be:

• Creativity
• Service
• Convenience
• Price

HINT – Best not build your USP around price. It’s a very hard way to compete, and only a matter of time before somebody bigger and more efficient comes in a does it cheaper than you. Don’t believe me? Try selling toilet paper cheaper than Costco.

Okay, so you tell me “Matt, my Lawn Care business will focus on organic lawn care that is pesticide free. I offer free same day quotes for service, and tailor my schedule around the homeowners.”

Hey, now we’re on to something. You’ve taken your idea which 1000’s of people do and turned it into a special offering. If I’m into pesticide free gardening, I’m using you and not your competition who killed my cat with chemicals last spring.

The Market Potential

Once you have your business idea, and understand what your USP is, the last piece of the puzzle in deciding whether your idea is good enough is to look at the market potential and assess if it will provide your adequate return.

Three questions to ask when assessing market potential.

1) How big is the market?

2) What share can I get?

3) Is that enough?

Back to your lawn care business.

You know your area has 10,000 homeowners. There are only 2 people in your area providing organic lawn care, and you’ve heard they aren’t very shall we say “customer orientated” – given that you think you can get between 2-5% of the lawn contracts in your neighborhood (a small amount, but you are offering a very specialized service).

That means you can get around 300 contracts from your market. You also know that each lawn is worth about $200/month in profit, which works out to a profit of  $60,000/month or $720,000/ year. Is that enough?  Is your business idea “good enough”? That’s for you to decide when you run the numbers yourself.

I know, I know, you couldn’t do 300 lawns a month yourself so you’d have to hire people which would cut your profit, but that’s a blog post for another day.

I Summarize

You can see that deciding whether an idea is good enough to start a business around is a VERY relative question.

The good news is most ideas have the potential to make some money, they don’t need to be revolutionary, and quite often you won’t be the “game changer”. If you know your USP, and your market well enough I’m sure you can see how an “ordinary” idea could turn into extra-ordinary profits.

Put into another frame:

What is your product or service / how much will it cost (total cost) you to deliver?

Who are my customers and how and how much will it cost me to reach them?

Simply do the math, but base your answers in this frame with unbiased facts you gather, not simply numbers of hope.

Your job is:

• To decide how much you need for an adequate return,
• Do you have a USP, and
• Do the market dynamics offer enough potential to pursue it?

Good Luck and Happy Marketing-

NOW, GET STATS FOR YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEOS

When you upload a video to YouTube, you get access to YouTube Insight, a FREE powerful analytics tool that shows you a bunch of interesting metrics about your video: who’s watching it, where, its ratings, total number of views and the like.

This info, however, was – until now – hidden from the rest of the general population, but not any more. By switching it on in the the privacy settings for your videos (located under “My Account”) you can now share this data with everyone. It’ll become visible in the “Statistics & Data” section, located under the video.

So, what can the viewers see? Besides the number of total views, comments, ratings and average ratings, one can also find out a list of top ten referrals, gender/age audience distribution, and popularity of the video in various parts of the world. Not bad for a free tool, especially for journalists and analysts who will now be able to gather some more data about a particular video (if the option is switched on, of course).

See an introductory video for YouTube Insight below; and see how it works in practice

Good Luck and Happy Marketing

THINK WRONG & YOUR FISH WILL STINK!

You have probably seen it. The fish store owner sees a decline in business, so they have less money to spend on upkeep and inventory, so they keep the fish a bit longer and don't clean up as often, so of course, business declines and then they have even less money... Eventually, you have an empty, smelly fish store that is out of business. In the end all people will remember is the stink of the store, a bitter memory.

The local doctor has fewer patients so he does not invest as much in training or staff and so some other patients choose to leave which means that there are even fewer patients...

The newspaper has fewer advertisers, so they cannot invest as much in running stories, so people stop reading it, which means advertisers have less reason to advertise which leaves less money for stories...

As Tom Peters says, "You can't shrink your way to greatness", and yet that is what so many dying businesses try to do. They hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they do not. This isn't a dip; it's a cul de sac. It's over.

Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum... Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Buy a new platform. Move. Find new products for the customers that still trust you.

Find new ways to attract new customers, develop short-term market focus, not short term accounting preparations.

"Staying in Business People" -

Think Sales and Marketing - Doing More with Le$$ - Looking for A Way to Succeed, Looking for New Ways to Grow

"Failing in Business People" -

Think Accounting - Doing Less and Saving More -Looking for a Way to Fail Safely, Looking for Ways to Keep Saving and Cutting Costs

Do nothing, and sooner or later your fish store will "stink" !

FACEBOOK FOR BUSINESS, SETUP GUIDE

Facebook is no longer just a social media site for college age users. Now users of all ages are on Facebook and businesses are realizing the value in having a presence on there as well. Whether your business plans on using Facebook to sell products or to just create brand recognition, Facebook is a powerful tool to reach a wide audience. There are two main ways that you can introduce your business to the world through Facebook. You can create an actual Business Page or establish a Group around your company or brand. Here are the step by step instructions you will need to get your business noticed on Facebook:

Facebook Business Page

Approximate time to set-up: 30 minutes
A Business Page allows other users to become fans of your business, contribute to your page, and receive updates that you send. Let’s get started:

Sign in to your existing account and from your home page click on “Advertising” on the bottom. Then click on the “Pages” tab at the top and hit the “Create Page” button. Then follow these steps:

1. Pick a category
   Remember that this cannot be changed later so make sure you select the best industry available for your business.
2. Enter your company’s name
   Make sure that it is exactly as you use it on your site to maximize return.
3. Upload a profile picture
   We suggest you use your logo, a picture of your products or location, etc.
4. Add your location information
   If you do not have a physical address and are solely an ecommerce site enter general information like “Texas” instead of a full address.
5. Add content
   You will want to put in as much information about your business as you can- pictures, notes, videos, etc. Make it personal to attract the maximum number of viewers.
6. Look for networks and applications that may be applicable to your business
7. Publish the page
8. Edit settings to target users and establish privileges
   Decide whether you want to have complete control over the page or if you would like those familiar with your business or brand to contribute also.
9. Update your page regularly

Facebook Group

Approximate time to set-up 5-10 minutes
A Group allows people to join and participate alongside your business as a member of the group. This is best for encouraging a personal connection with viewers. Let’s get started:

When signed in to your personal profile go to your groups by using the search bar in the top right hand corner to find the groups application. Then click on “Create New Group.” Then follow these steps:

1. Enter your business’ name
2. Set your network
   We recommend making the group available to all users to reach the widest audience.
3. Enter a description for your group
   This can either be a description of what your company provides or what you hope to accomplish through creating this group. For instance, instead of saying something like “Volusion’s user-friendly ecommerce software gives you the power to start, grow and manage your online business with ease,” you might say “Volusion wants to hear your feedback about our software’s scalability.”
4. Select group type
   Most likely you will choose “business.”
5. Select the sub-category that best suits your business
6. Enter some “recent news” that viewers may want to hear about
7. Enter your location information
8. Upload a picture
9. Enter your URL
10. Set your options
11. Set access for your group
12. Save
    It will ask you if you want to publish the story on your profile, which you should do so that all your friends can see that the group was recently created.
13. Invite your friends to join your newly created group
14. (Optional) You can create an advertisement to announce your group’s creation by clicking “Promote Group with an Ad”
    After designing the ad, setting the targeting (which gives you the approximate reach of your ad depending on your selections) and setting the budget your ad will be ready to go.

The Internal Sale a New Method

How do you get your boss to approve something,  the customer service people to understand the pain a system is causing or the folks in engineering to see things your way?

Powerpoint was invented for this precise function, and we all know what's become of that.

Here's a new way that's extraordinarily effective: Make a video.

Take a Flip or cheap video camera and interview your customers. Ask them questions and show the answers to your team. Ji Lee at Google masterminded this man on the street interview:

Invest an hour and suddenly, it's not you who's talking, asking, complaining or being ignorant. It's your customers. By the Way some of these REAL Answers may make you sit back and wonder!

Why Brand Matters!

 

Building a Brand

Regardless if you’ve been in business for years or are just getting started, building a brand for your company is critical for your business success. When we think of a brand the first thing that comes to mind for many of us are large, well known companies like Target®, Starbucks® or Home Depot®. These companies have done very well at cultivating their brand, and although you may not be a huge operation like one of these, there is still a lot you can learn and apply to your own businesses by gaining a better understanding of these brands.

So what is a brand?A brand is more than just your logo, company name or tagline. Simply put, a brand is a promise - a collection of perceptions in the mind of the customer that must be delivered upon consistently. A brand is different than a product or service; it is intangible and delicate. Just like a reputation you need to guard your brand carefully and listen closely to what others are saying so you can begin to influence their thoughts.

The logos of a strong brand can elicit an emotional response. For example, when you think of Target the image of a red and white bull’s-eye most likely comes to mind. Not only that, but you probably think of clean and friendly stores, shopping convenience, and helpful customer service. You’ll also notice that your experience at different Target stores will be consistent. This isn’t just by chance. Companies spend a lot of time and effort assuring that the customer experience will be consistent across stores, sales channels and within the marketing plan.

To begin building a strong brand you’ll first need to identify your brand characteristics and values. These are guiding principles for your company. Think of the adjectives, attributes, or emotions that you want your customers to say or think of when they mention your company or share a recommendation with a friend. Make sure these guiding principles align with your mission and goals. By taking the time to define your core brand characteristics you will be able to build a stronger business identity. For example, many people associate Home Depot with empowerment and helpfulness. Starbucks customers loyally return for more coffee because of the feeling of luxury and the high standards of service.  After you have your core brand values determined, only then can you think about what your brand should visually look like.

Your brand is the foundation for your business including operations, service, and products and of course, all marketing activities. Bringing your brand to life means embodying the brand in everything you do. The brand should be reflected whenever you talk to a customer or develop new products. If you are truly living your brand you’ll see your core brand values reflected in the way you attack problems, work with vendors and suppliers and even how you choose to communicate to any employees within your company. How can you be sure your brand is reflected in everything you do? Continually think about your customers. Always ask yourself, will my customers view this interaction as a reflection of my core values? Regardless if it is a support phone call, a purchase experience, or a simple interaction with an employee, every interaction will influence a customer’s perception of your brand.

We mentioned that consistency is important when refining your brand perceptions. Here are a few tools to help guide your brand.

Customer Personas
This tool will help you to understand your audience. If you take the time to really get to know your base of potential buyers you’ll be able to narrow down your audience (if necessary) and find the niche that suits your business. Here are a few steps towards building out your buyer personas.

• Read everything they read. This includes magazines, blogs, and YouTube® videos, anything relevant to your target audience.
• Attend seminars and monitor conference topics.
• Talk with sales people, suppliers and vendors.
• Gain information by talking with customers who have and have not purchased your product or service.
• Capture data through your website. For example, how did they find your website, through a Google® search or a link on a partner site?
• Conduct interviews formally or casually.

The bottom line - get to know your audience inside and out. Understand their needs, wants, and frustrations along with their habits, likes, and dislikes. Learn how they digest information, gain insight into preferred communication vehicles, and most importantly listen to what they say. Your core values, and thus your brand, should align with the behaviors and expectations of your customers.

Style Guide
A style guide is helpful in delivering consistency across your brand. It is a handbook that can be distributed through the company and even shared with vendors or contractors who are doing design work for you. Included in your style guide are guidelines for color, logo, and typography usage. You can include copy guidelines and legal requirements as well. It may seem like extra work but choosing specific colors and fonts and ensuring that those assets are used across all customer facing materials can make a difference in the level of professionalism and output of your creative elements. Additionally, if you decide to hire someone to create or update a website, flyers, or other brochure ware you’ll ensure a consistent look and feel across your marketing materials.

Elevator Pitch
This is one of the most essential elements of your brand – your elevator pitch. Also referred to as a cocktail party pitch, this tool is your 10-30 second brief on your company. We’ve all been there; someone asks you what you do or what your company does and then you are presented with an opportunity to make a lasting impression on a potential customer. You need to convey who you are, what you do, and why you do it, all within a sentence or two. It’s best to have this prepared, practiced and refined for different audiences. This is your opportunity to shine while talking about your business. If there are multiple people in your office take the time to discuss your elevator pitches with each other. The more consistent they are the better – remember every interaction with any of your employees is a chance to influence prospective buyers.

Now that we have taken a deeper look into what a brand is and how to develop it, here are some tools to help influence your brand. It is important to remember that your brand isn’t just about your company it’s about your customers and the relationship you have with them. Engage your customers in your brand marketing.

• Use testimonials and customer success stories in your marketing materials.
• Collect feedback from your customers and directly address questions, concerns, and thank them for any praise.
• Leverage a variety of marketing channels, including forums or a blog. Invite your customers to join in a conversation.
• Talk about your customers, not yourself or your company, in marketing communications; address their needs and share solutions for their problems.

It’s important to remember a brand is more than a name. It's the entire essence of your business -- who you are, what you stand for, and how you back up your promises.

Your brand lives in the perceptions of your customers and you and others can influence that perception.