Moving Homes; Need Two Crews

I have been spending the last three months packing and planning the move into our new home and all was going well. Then days before the move people started backing out or offering only a few hours to help with our move. In a normal move this is not generally a problem because if you are like me I always have more help than I actually need. But this time we did something different. We went with what we thought would be a less stressful move. We rented a trailer (U-Move) from AMJ Campbell which I still believe is a great concept at a great price but remember this; you will need two crews to move your home.

The idea was that we would have the trailer dropped off at our present home on early Thursday morning and then take our time loading all day and into the evening if needed. The next morning, Friday, AMJ would pick up the trailer and deliver it to our new home. Then we would have all Friday to unload. Sounds very doable and less stressful than having to load a truck and be out by 1:00 pm and based on my previous experiences, unloading the truck late into night. And there have been many moves over the years as we spent the 80's and 90's buying and selling homes to build equity quicker.

However, in the U-Move scenario not everyone, in fact nobody, could do both days. This meant two crews. As they started dropping like flies, filling the crews up again and doing some juggling to ensure I had an appropriate amount of muscle on each day was a challenge. We did it, we hope, and all that remains to be seen is the move itself.

The U-Move is a great idea, just think more about doing it over a weekend.

Wish me luck and I will be back on my Blog next week.

SEO - Put Yourself In Your Customers Shoes

Too often I see websites that are marketing to their customers in the words that they believe makes sense to the customer. In other words, they are not asking themselves how would the customer ask the question when searching for our product or service. For example;

An Airline Company website promotes Low Fares and what the
customer is searching for on the internet is Cheap Flights. In a one month study I saw at a recent SEO seminar I attended that compared both of these two keyword/phrases, searches done online during September of 2006, Low Fares had 629 searches and Cheap Flights
had over 1,500,000.

I learned the 6 Steps of building a Successful SEO strategy and how to keep from being black listed by the Search Engines. Yes, they have rules and if you break them they will stop crawling you up their pages. The most significant thing to remember is that Google and Yahoo are always changing their algorithms and you need to be on top of these changes to move up to the top of the searches and to stay at the top. Right now, for example, Google is cleaning house of any and all web sites that are nothing more than an Advertising or "Spam" site. The biggest component of your site that moves you up the page rankings is Content, Content, and Content. So make sure your site is loaded with great and lots of content. Down loadable white papers, frequently updated articles, press release and links to blogs are huge.

This was a 2 day seminar so I can't give you everything I learned but what I can tell you is if you are not using an internet marketing professional or consultant who has the latest and up to date SEO information at any given time then you are probably not being found on the internet. Seek professional advice and do it right...'Put Yourself In The Customers Shoes'.

Family Support

If you are considering business ownership ask yourself if this is your dream and everyone else is just along for the ride or, you share your dream with your spouse. If you are single and young you have your life ahead of you and risk is minimized by the attitude that every failure makes us stronger. When you are older and have to support a family, business ownership becomes a greater risk. To minimize this risk you need the support of your spouse.

He or she should be an active partner in the research into your future business opportunity. They don't necessarily have to be a working partner in the business but if you are planning on spending your family nest egg then they need to go into this with their eyes open. In fact, in Canada, if you are applying for a business loan or line of credit for your business your spouse will be expected to get an ILA (Independent legal Advice). This is a form to be completed and signed that she has spoken to her own lawyer who explained the consequences if you fail to meet your debt obligations. This is less frightening if he or she has been involved in the research from the beginning with you and has agreed to this new business in advance of meeting with the lawyer.

The biggest advantage of having your spouse be involved early in your research of a business is that they always see and hear different things than you see and hear. As a result, different questions are asked and of course answered giving you a deeper perspective on your buying decision.

When you both come to the same conclusion and move forward with the business you generally have a great back up and positive support person in your corner making sure you see everything on a frequent basis and can be there to boost your morale and celebrate your victories. Remember that if you both came to the same conclusion this becomes your spouses dream and passion as well, even if it is only to see you happy, successful, and proud for your family.

Family support in business is powerful if it is done correctly.

"I Am Canadian Blogroll"

I am proud to be Canadian with many friends and readers from around the world. To help further the success of other Canadian Bloggers I have added my blog, Entrepreneurs Seek Advice, to the "I Am Canadian Blogroll". Thanks to Tricia for her instructions found at her blog; Tricia's Musings and, for helping me get this properly set up on my blog. Great work Tricia and we appreciate your efforts and time required to manage this with the intent to keep it current with active blogs that are also civil in nature.

I see from some of the comments Tricia has received about this blogroll that we are the envy of others from other countries. Always glad to be part of the leading edge of innovation and creativity.

My QR Code

I wrote about the Xenophobic North American Marketer and QR Codes and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Kaywa - Feed2Mobile had created a QR Code for a feed from my blog. If you have a QR Code Reader on your mobile phone you can now scan my blog code. Let's promote this more and more as this is a great idea waiting for it's entry into the North American Marketing.

Entrepreneurs Seek Advice Mobile Feed - QR Code

Differentiation Can Be a Niche Market

I remember starting may career in the late 1970's with an automotive jobber selling car parts. I enjoyed the job more for the discount on parts to work on my 1973 Camaro which was my money pit at the time. A money pit that I was very okay with...what a great looking and sounding car with the chrome side pipes that provided my peers with a great parking lot show at night spitting fire with every quick gear change. Ahh, the days of our youth. The jobber I worked for at the time was a family owned business and they were very successful for 25 years and most of the money they made went back to the family. I was just an employee but that was okay because of my Camaro.

Looking back on this company today, 30 years later, I remembered something unique and special about this two store operation, they had parts for cars that nobody else had. So many times I spoke to customers over the counter who travelled miles to our store for the rare part for that rare car that no one else had. Or because they knew from experience that no one else would have the part they started with us first. This small but successful automotive aftermarket parts business built a reputation on having in stock, sometimes with an inch of dust on it, the part you just can't get anywhere else. The company was known as Radex Automotive and at the time Radex was the jobber to beat. Even the big brand competitors could not take their market away because of customer loyalty. Radex found that their differentiation was the hard to find part. There was no science as to what unique part to stock, they just did it from 25 years of parts business experience and they were very good at it.

The question I have for you is; What are you doing to make your business unique or different or rare amongst your competition? Let me know your Unique Selling Point Proposition and how you are getting the word out to your prospects and customers?

I just added a link under this post title (or click here) to a great article published in Entrepreneur.com on Niche Marketing with some tips to follow for success.

Customer Referrals Can Be Automated

Every good sales person or business person knows the value of asking for a referral from your existing clients. But why not ask for a referral from your prospects. If you have read my previous posts you know that 'any prospect worth calling on once is worth calling on again'. In other words you build a relationship with a prospect until you are in the right place at the right time for business to be conducted. During this phase of building a relationship, why not ask your prospect, "Can you see how my services may help any of your business contacts?" What have you got to lose. Referrals are great, because this prospect is listening more to you than normal because of the referral who has called them on your behalf if you got the best kind of referral. Now imagine this referral process being automated...

The internet brings to a business much more than an online presence or e-commerce. The internet can automate many business processes and this includes sales techniques. When someone visits your site today they are generally researching for a buy. If your site fails to convert them to a customer, which if this happens frequently you may need to look at a new site, then why not have a pop up window that occurs when they click to leave your site that asks them questions. One question could be; 'Would you recommend our site or product or service to someone else? If so, please enter their contact information for the site link to be emailed to them with an introduction letter from the visitor to your site'. Why not entice the visitor with some credits to future business if the referral actually takes the call to action.

This automated approach to referrals when compared to traditional methods of lead generation is very inexpensive and will provide you further business marketing intelligence depending on the tool you use and the questions you ask.

What are you doing in your business today to automate your business processes?

Build It And They Will NOT Come

It is a very risky business person who believes that the product will create the need. We may argue that IBM and Microsoft with the desktop PC and DOS and then Windows is the exception and, the internet is certainly in many cases creating a need. However, it could be argued that the need was waiting patiently dormant for the innovators to play catch up. In other words, Sci-fiction movies from the 50's through the 60's and TV shows like Star Trek had already created the need for high tech tools and toys. In my mind, only a fool would risk everything on passion alone. Any amount of marketing intelligence, no matter how little, is better than no marketing intelligence at all.

When I first entered into the world of Custom Home Building I took a course which started in the States which upon completion provided me with more letters after my name. CSP, Certified New Home Sales Professional. One of the trainers, a large home development builder in Dallas, Texas, left me with the best advice; don't build the home you want to live in, build the home your market will buy.

From that point on I tried as often as possible to get some information, any information, that would protect my investment. I have found over the years that informal and formal surveys work very well. The informal survey is when you are asking the same questions to your customers and prospects over their desk, over coffee, over lunch or over dinner. I would ask questions that try and get a sense of where their future needs may be coming from and would also be a mix of finding out what problems they are experiencing and "what do you think of this idea that I'm kicking around in my head?" The informal survey takes longer so it is generally used for long term plans.

The formal survey is when you actually create specific questions to identify if a need exists in a target market you are considering entering into or to identify how to improve sales by identifying the needs of the prospects which in turn will be used later for marketing by addressing their needs with the benefits of the product or, of course, the services offered. There are many online survey tools you can use, for example; I use Survey Monkey, which is very user friendly and inexpensive. For larger ventures you may want to consider using a Third Party company which can also provide great analytics with the reports. The internet of course, with a properly built web solution can be a great resource for ongoing analytics. Any way you do it, just do it.

Build it and they will come is in most cases...build it and they will NOT come.

Personal Emails For Business Information Can Be A Winner

Chart: Use of Business Email Address vs Personal Email Address When Registering for Content Copyright 2007: KnowledgeStorm Inc. All rights reserved

The first of these two charts should comfort vendors who use a content marketing strategy: 72% of users said they always provide a valid name when registering for content, and 68% said they always give a valid email address.But look at the types of email address being submitted: 44% said they use a personal email account, such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail. Vendors often view such addresses as less qualified when analyzing responses to their content registrations, yet a business exec may want to use a personal account for several reasons, such as the desire to reduce clutter in their business inbox. Since more than two-thirds of users said they always give a valid email address, don’t automatically discount those Hotmail or Yahoo! accounts.

Check out this Marketing Sherpa article in its entirety for some other illuminating data which might make you rethink how you look at lead generation.

Price/Quality/Service Equals Value

A friend asked me to lunch on Friday and kept it a secret where we were going right up to the moment we arrived in the parking areas of this industrial mall. Up to this point he spoke of how delicious the food is and how it has become his favorite place. Up to this point I was thinking we were going to a 5 star restaurant given the build up delivered to me on his favorite place. I was not disappointed.

We walked into a hole in the wall industrial space that can not be more than 1000 square feet in total space but the line that went out to the door moved fast with Greek family efficiency. The restaurant is The Pita Grill in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, on Maingate and Eglinton. I would love to include a web link but they don't see a need for website at this time.

The efficiency of service was carried out by what appeared as the sons cooking and warming on vertical spits large pieces of roast beef, chicken, and lamb. The father/owner was taking the orders and the daughter, it would seem as they all had a family resemblance, would prepare the order with an abundance of choices for the pita pocket. The pita which is very large and stuffed to perfection and then rolled and toasted for that uniqueness that can only be found in a small out of the way place that the locals are no longer keeping a secret.

When we sat down with our two large chicken pita's and drinks the bill was less than $15.00. Price, Quality, and Service, converged and made the lunch with my friend next to a big screen TV better than my anticipated 5 star lunch. My friend is a Marketing Professional and in his subtle way he demonstrated how simple marketing can be for a small business. Word of mouth advertising is still the number one way to generate business. Of course, I like to think big so just imagine what this Greek family could do if they decided to create a website that furthered growth with delivery to the many offices in their area who can't get away but would like their lunch catered. Ahh, a combination made in Marketing Heaven.

North American Marketers Are Xenophobic

In Japan, consumers have access to data or marketing information at the click of their mobile phone camera. With a picture taking a read of an image found in most places in Japan from billboards to magazines to products the Japanese consumer can get product information and even the company website URL stored into their phone for access later at home or in the office. This image is called the QR Code. The reason I'm writing about this is I just read an article by Lane Michel titled Mobile Advertising: Your Phone Is About To Ring. North American Marketers are looking at our mobile phones as a way to get to us even deeper through our mobile internet accessed and GPS located phones. Don't they get it? WE HATE THIS INTRUSION.

If they took the time and looked at how marketing is done outside their xenophobic bubbles they might see that countries like Japan are light years ahead of us here in North America. The QR Code is not intrusive and has the same desired result including collecting consumer habit information. WAKE UP MARKETERS AND LOOK OUTSIDE OUR WORLD!

Cold Calling B2B May Be A Thing Of The Past

As many of you know, who read my blog, I train on occassion new Internet Consultants who are working with Small and Medium Size Businesses Globally. They are all WSI franchise Owners and as a result I hear many great success stories. I heard one the other day from a WSI consultant last week in Canada which got me to think about the future of Cold Calling in Sales. His story had to do with helping a client not only save her Jewelry Store business but actually made her rethink how she does business.

The cost to set up a store front jewelry store business for her was over $250,000 cdn and her market share was being eroded by the big name stores located in big shopping mall locations. For $35,000 the consultant set her up on the internet with a virtual jewelry store business. His strategy included Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click and within a few months she was selling more product through her online store than she ever sold in a year at her store front business. But here is the real savings, the consultant suggested and worked into the solution that all the product orders would be shipped by all her suppliers. With her set-up costs lowered and her operating costs practically eliminated her profits went through the roof and landing right into her hip pocket.

With a clear online marketing strategy implemented with her WSI Internet Consultant she is now thinking of closing up her storefront and growing her online presence further. The world is changing. More and more, the customer is shopping online for all their product and service needs. I foresee in the not too distant future where we will no longer get cold calls at home because the smart businesses will be marketing if not entirely at least close to 100% over the internet.

What are you doing today to market yourself on the internet to capture this growing customer/buyer base? Let me know your thoughts!

Soaring With Eagles

I wear a yellow gold ring on my right hand shaped like the American Eagle head resting on a deep black onyx bed to remind me to Soar With The Eagles and Not to Run With The Turkeys. When I was younger I ran with turkeys as some teenagers do and although I thought of myself as a leader I was really following my chosen peer group. This was a group that saw fun in being rebellious and breaking the law. On one sunny and warm summer morning my closest friend and I spoke of breaking away from this group while sipping our hot fresh coffee in the parking lot of the local hangout. In agreement, we drove away in his white 69 VW Bug and never looked back.

Today we can look back at all the people we knew then and some are dead, some are in prison, and some are in homes. For the lucky few who broke away we raised families, grew businesses and live a rich life surround by love ones. We have no regrets and we count ourselves lucky to recognize the fork in the road and then choose the right path.

This path for me has been winding yet forward moving because I chose to remind myself daily to Soar with Eagles and not run with Turkeys. What do you use to motivate yourself to succeed and keep moving forward everyday in business and life?

I would be very curious to know how entrepreneurs keep themselves motivated to strive and thrive in life and business. Let me know.

Leaders Lead, Great Leaders Have Followers

I was just reading an email I received from Mac Anderson, Founder of The Simple Truths, and he was talking about his book The Essence of Leadership. Mac is an inspirational speaker so of course his book talks about how Great Leaders focus on how others feel; “The really hard stuff is the soft stuff…it’s building a culture around the feelings of your customers and your employees.”

I happen to agree with him on this point. Great leaders do get us to follow with our emotions. They inspire us to follow with great words that paints a picture in our mind and triggers emotions. In addition, they demonstrate that they are prepared to act on their words. John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were great orators who were also prepared to back up their words with actions. But most of all, they used words that fit our times and our collective feelings. They knew that what they said is what we truly wanted in our hearts. That is why they were great, they answered the question of 'what's in it for me'. For me this makes the difference between a Leader and a Leader with Followers.

Let me explain this in another way, you can be a leader who leads by fear and intimidation. Perhaps General Patton of World War Two and his Command of the US Army Tank Division, is the best example of a leader without followers. His troops did as they were trained and commanded to do. They may have respected him for his toughness and successes but I suspect they also hated him as much or more. Whereas a great leader does not need to command, we will follow that person to the ends of the earth because we love and respect them so much.

As you build your business ask yourself what kind of leader you are and what kind of leader you want to be. Both can create significant results but one might allow you to sleep better at night.

What Would You Wear For A Client Presentation?

I participate in a UK Trainer Base that just asked me an interesting rhetorical question on the following:

"I'd like to ask a question (again rhetorical), what constitutes 'well dressed' in the training environment? I was at a training assessment day some time ago where potential associates, myself included were asked to deliver a short management training workshop on a topic of their choice. The range of attire of the delegates was quite interesting (another term for varied and questionable), especially as the sole objective of the day was to impress the potential recruiter. One or two were definitely on the 'bit casual' side. So, given the topic was Management and the person watching was a potential client: what would you have turned up in and would it have helped or hindered? Just a thought:)

Peter
AKA Ed"

I believe at all times you should dress for success but also match the role you want to convey. In Ed's example I would have been dressed in a suit. When I started my Construction Company I started in a suit for all clients but soon realized that I was over dressed for home renovations. So I changed my approach and began to dress in business casual for my industrial clients and in jeans and a company golf shirt for my residential clients.

The thinking was that if I was in a suit for the home owner I must charge too much. For the industrial clients I had to present success but not too much or they will also think I will charge them too much. It may seem like a trivial detail but don't underestimate the decisions made by others based on your image. Most people translate information into pictures and the first picture they see is how you are dressed. I want to present myself as successful and professional but at the same level of the person I'm speaking with at that time. A suit to match a suit and dressed down for the person who does not wear a suit.

What is your opinion on this subject?