A Holiday Wish

Well, the holiday season really snuck up fast this year. But then, the years are flying by for me these days…how about for you? All of the favorite Christmas movies and programs are on TV and, the house smells like sweet potato pie and peach cobbler. There are fruit baskets, candy dishes and assorted nuts all over the house…yup, the holidays have arrived!

My wish for this holiday season is a really outstanding 2010. I am hopeful and I really believe that a great recovery is just around the corner. I think about the law of attraction and I wonder what effect positive thinking by the masses would make? I really think that it can make a big difference. How about we turn off the cable news, avoid the nightly news broadcasts and stop reading the news blogs for just a month. If people would suspend their daily diets of bad news then perhaps, just perhaps, positive thinking would create real recovery and change.

Well, that’s my holiday wish how about yours? I’d love to read your comments!

Exellent tips on how to use selling skills as a way of life

I remember my sales trainer days like they were yesterday. Whenever I think about the anatomy of a sale I think about how it has application value for all aspects of life. Using salesmanship and selling skills in all areas makes a lot of sense and, it can get buy in for projects, goals and relationships. It can be used at work or home in all types of settings. The anatomy of sales is as follows: 

• Establishing Rapport (building relationship)
• Needs Probe (discovering motivation, wants needs and desires)
• Presentation (presenting the features and benefits with the emphasis on the benefits)
• Trial Closing (asking for a commitment)
• Overcoming Objections (refining rephrasing and offering new information)
• Reaching Agreement

Each of these stages can be modified to work in almost all situations.

Establishing Rapport

Whether you are meeting someone new or dealing with a person familiar to you developing rapport and relationship is an important skill to hone and use. Social media marketing shows the importance of building relationship and rapport. In fact, nothing is ever accomplished between co-operating parties without first establishing some kind of rapport. The old cliché that you get more flies with honey than with vinegar is a testimony of the utility of establishing and building rapport.  Therefore, in all things you do keep this in mind and keep your demeanor words and, actions geared toward building rapport and relationship. Think about how you are appearing to others and gauge the effect that you have on building relationship.

Needs Probe

I am full of clichés today so forgive me…smile. I have heard it said that we have two ears and one mouth for a specific reason. It is to make it possible to listen twice as much as we talk. In using selling skills as a way of life this step is important indeed. The more you can know about what makes others the way they are, the more you are armed to appeal to them to get the compromises you want. As I think back to the dating days, I remember that the needs probe, discovery or, whatever you call it was a very important part of the relationship process. Understand that the more you can know about the needs, wants and, desires of other people the more able you are to relate to them and the more you can relate to them the greater are the chances of getting them to do what you want or to compromise in ways beneficial for each of you.

Presenting the Benefits

Only after you have established rapport, relationship and, have done a thorough job of discovery can you begin to present ideas and benefits that will elicit a desired response and action. Whenever you are presenting an idea or asking for a person to do something, it is important to stress the benefits. In other words explain the benefit to the person. I think that it is wise to use the word benefit in the presentation. I can remember as a sales manager for Color Tile, I would ask my sales force to use the word benefit in their presentation. They were making fairly high dollar complicated sales and a lot of selling skills went into a successful sale. It was important to convince the prospect of the benefits they would receive from making a purchase. This can be translated into day to day interaction and will work very well in all situations. Whether you are trying to get an employee, loved one, friend to do something, it makes sense to point out the benefit. It may be a benefit to them or it could be a benefit to someone else or even yourself but, explaining the benefit is important.

Trial Closing

After steps one, two and three have been utilized it is time to ask a closing question. It may be that you are asking your teenager to do something. You have already established rapport, you understand the motivation, wants needs and desires of your teenage child, and you have presented the benefits as best you can. You still may find that you get push back. Whenever you get push back in any situation it is time to try overcoming objection techniques.

Overcoming Objections

Once you have push back now is the time to refine, rephrase and offer new information. Many times it just means that you have not done one of the other steps correctly or thoroughly. So when you get push back ask a question. “You don’t want to do this?”…”can I ask why?”

Once you get the answer rephrase it. Show that you are listening. In the teenager example it could go like this.

“So you don’t want to go with us to grandmas because you will miss Sean’s

Christmas party is that right?”

“Well, what about if we don’t leave until the next day would you be willing to go then?”

The answer will likely be yes and you have overcome the objection through compromise. If that is impossible it may be that you have to explain that leaving before Sean’s party will benefit the family and ask them to make a sacrifice for the good of the family and offer a benefit for doing that. It is just good negotiations. The overcoming objection stage should always have a closing question attached to the new information stage. In the above case the new information was postponing the trip a day but it could be anything. The new information answers the objection.

I hope this will give some food for thought and as always I appreciate feed back so feel free to comment. 

How to Write Marketing Email Copy That Gets Results

People are busy and they jealously guard their time; especially with the economic downturn. People have been laid off and, jobs have been eliminated which makes the remaining work force busier; more time strapped. So, when someone receives an email they want to be sure that it is worth their time. This makes email copywriting all the more important.

In most of the jobs that I have worked over the years, much of the email writing was left up to the sales person or business opportunity development person to do. You may reach a contact on the phone only to have them tell you to send them an email and then… if they are interested after reading it, they will set up a meeting. This puts a lot of pressure on writing the email. It is imperative that it communicates the value proposition in a clear and concise way and, that it spurs the person on to action.

Give it a compelling subject title

It is important that you promise an important benefit in the title. This has to be an obvious benefit that you are certain the prospect will be interested in. I recently read an article that explained that small businesses were trying to save money by outsourcing their IT networking services. Here is the subject title that resulted in action from the recipients. “Many companies are outsourcing IT services to save money; We can help you take advantage of this trend.” The article cited a study that showed that there was a forty percent increase in IT outsourcing to save money. The email was targeted toward small business that provided IT services and, it was designed to encourage them to take advantage of this trend in a marketing campaign.

Make the body of the email clear and concise

Again, remember that you are emailing people who are busy so you should respect their time. They will appreciate it. Make the writing conversational. Write it as though you were carrying on a conversation with them and make it as simple and short as you can while still getting your message across. Use a bulleted list to break up the copy. Here is the example of how the email went forward:

Example:
"An AMI Partners study shows that there is a 40% increase in companies seeking to outsource IT to save money.

You can increase your clients and revenue even in a slow economy. There are many ways that you can effectively and affordably market your company and, sometimes all you need is a little help. Let us see if we can help you maximize your marketing efforts and spend. Free thirty minute marketing consultation; there is absolutely no obligation. rijMarketing Offer

• Be found on local search through local search engine optimization
• Be listed in 70+ directories
• Get positive reviews on local directories
• Enjoy the benefit of Pay Per Click marketing

I can assure you this will be a beneficial thirty minutes. Call today (Phone Number) or reply to this email for a no obligation evaluation."

Call to action

It is very important that you include several opportunities for the prospect to act. There should be a link to a landing page that calls for action. There should be a phone number that calls for action. Do not take anything for granted. You should be directing the prospect at every turn. If you do this you will craft emails that will end in results.

I appreciate any feedback so be sure to comment!

3 Compelling Reasons Small Businesses and Non Profit Organizations Should Blog

With social media marketing increasing in importance, blogging is taking on the same importance for small businesses, small non-profit organizations and, churches. In fact, blogging is an important component of social media marketing for the following three reasons:

• It helps establish thought leadership and expertise

• It helps to build a brand

• It drives traffic to the business or organizations website over time

This becomes especially important to businesses and organizations that do not have large budgets to build brand recognition and awareness with other types of media advertising. Over a period of time, blogging will achieve each of the above mentioned outcomes at a much lower cost.

Establishing thought leadership

Blogging regularly, by this I mean at least six times per month, will provide content that can and will gain a following, if the content is well written, interesting and, of benefit to the readership. This is the way in which the business or organization establishes though leadership and expert status. This is true of any business or organization that offers a product or service that is in demand. It could be anything from a computer networking company, a small accountancy and, a medical practice, to a food bank, homeless shelter or community active church. The target customer, participant or member will dictate the nature of the content. For example, a community outreach church would provide content that would interest community members who would like to become an active participant in the outreach. An IT computer networking company would provide content that would help a small business or organization understand the basics of maintaining their computer network and server system. Or, a food bank would provide content that would educate people in the community about the effects of hunger.

Brand Building

Good content will develop loyal readership over time and, loyal readership will translate to brand awareness. This is a very economical way to build brand awareness. You can use the social media sites, twitter, face book and LinkedIn to promote the blog content. This is where social media and blogging become productive partners. I use the term over time often to emphasize that this is a strategy and tactic that does take time. It will not yield fruit overnight but, it will yield great results with patience. So many of the social media marketing guru’s are promising a quick result and while that can happen when something remarkable goes viral it is not the rule. The rule is that it builds slowly over time but, it also builds steadily and build is the important term.

Driving Traffic

The more interesting and remarkable the content, the faster you will drive traffic to your business or organizations website. The search engines respond well to new content, updated often and, when a blog is a link in your website it gives added importance to your website in the view of search engines. Likewise, great content will be tweeted, re-tweeted and linked to from other websites... which will provide back links to your website and, in turn, will raise the authority of your website in the view of the search engines and will drive more and more traffic to your website.

Hopefully you have seen that you should begin blogging today. I appreciate comments and interaction with my posts so feel free to comment on this blog post.

I’m looking for bloggers to join me in a mini-blog posting project?

I am interested in putting together a collaborative blog project about experience with various social media. I would like you to write a 200 – 300 word mini post explaining how you have used twitter, face book or, LinkedIn. If you email me these mini posts I will display them on my blog three at a time. I will credit you as the author and will put a link to your blog or website in your post.

Your post should tell a story of how you have used one of the three social media sites mentioned above. This will end up being a collection of mini-blog posts of 200 – 300 words. I will try to include three posts with every entry and will post them as long as I have posts submitted.  I will also send you a copy of the blog post with the three mini posts when it is posted and, you can post it on your blog also. Please give credit to the other authors, their blogs and, my blog just as you receive it. I think that 250 words would be ideal and I would ask you to not go beyond 300 words.

Let me repeat; this mini-post should give a detailed description of how you have used either twitter, face book or, LinkedIn. You can let the readers know what results you have experienced, etc. Make sure it is informative. I will select the blog posts sent to me and, if they meet the criteria, I will post them. Then, if you blog the same posts on your blog, please give credit to the authors and my blog. I think this could be a very exciting experiment and I am looking forward to lots of input.

Please send your mini blog post to jmachuta@rijenterprises.com with the subject line referring to the mini blog posting project. Thank you in advance for your participation. When you have participated and have the blog posts back to post on your blog be sure to share it with your contacts. Tweet it and, promote it in the same way you promote your blog

How To Make Sure Your Blog Posts Get Read; 4 Suggestions

I have recently read a couple of excellent books. One is Content Rich by Jon Wuebben and the other is The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert Bly. They have helped me think about blogging from the point of view of copywriting. This is a good strategy with any blog that you want to increase your readership for but, it is especially important for a business blog that is designed to generate traffic to your website. Using good copywriting techniques makes a big difference in blogging results.

Does the title grab attention?

Like the envelop and headline of a direct mail letter, the headline in a news article or, the subject line of an email, the title is one of the most important aspects of your blog article. Make sure that it grabs attention. People are interested in how to’s, lists of things that will bring a known benefit and, promises of knowledge that will be learned. Early on in my blogging I was more concerned about literary concerns and I have to admit that I did not grab as many readers as I could have. I am even considering changing the titles of some of my blog posts and trying them over again. I will probably do that as I have the time and I will be happy to report back my findings. Therefore, I suggest that you either think of a great title and write to it or, write an article without a title and after it is finished spend some time with the title. Let me repeat; use titles that grab!

Do not make it too long!

I try to hold my blog posts at or about five hundred (500) words. Busy people want to be able to glean information quickly. I know for a fact that when I see a blog post that is long I do not read it all unless it is something that I have to know about. However, I will read blogs of five hundred words or less much more often.

Make it keyword rich!

If you want to receive the benefit of the search engines make sure that you are using words and phrases that have large search engine results. You can become aware of these keywords from sources like wordtracker.com or, you can use the program I have called Traffic Travis. This is a program that sits on your hard drive and will give you results on popular keywords. It also gives a large variety of SEO benefits, but it is worth the price; FREE…smile. Actually, I have paid for a version that gives a little more bang but either way it is a great resource and it will help you with keywords. Don’t use them just because they are keywords…use them as they fit your subject.

Make them specific!

The more valuable information you can pack into a post the better. You don’t have to go on and on but, it is important that you are able to offer valuable information. It does not have to be original information, there is nothing new under the sun, but, if you remind people of things or state something in a new and unique way, or give a different perspective than most you will have gone a long long way down the road to great content, and that will lead to more readers.

I would appreciate any comments and observations so feel free to interact!

4 Important Steps to Ensure Success with Online and Social Media Marketing for the Small Business Owner

Contrary to popular belief social media marketing takes time. This is especially true for the small business owner and, even truer for the small B2B owner but, that should not be the reason for not doing it. So many of the articles written do not emphasize this time element and end up making it sound like you can be a social network success overnight. Of course that has happened and will continue to happen from time to time but, it is not the rule; it is an exception. The reasons for overnight success are varied but, they involve one or more of the following conditions: The entrepreneur has found something to offer so unique that no one else is offering it or anything like it; they have made a unique video that goes viral overnight; they have developed a product or system that many people need that is not readily available any where else and so on. Let’s face it. Most of us will not do that.

So, for the rest of us, here are some important points to consider in web marketing in general, AKA web 2.0, and social media specifically. These suggestions are tailored for the small business owner:

1. The easiest way, not the most efficient way but, none the less, the easiest way to get immediate returns from the internet is pay per click (PPC). You can do this with a rather modest budget in the beginning but you will only reap the benefit of what you can afford to pay for. There are other important factors to consider however. You must be certain that you have a compelling website that has powerful web copy/content that will ensure that many people who click take another step and execute your call to action. You will only be successful if you offer something that people need and want and the benefits have to be communicated precisely and clearly.
2. Your website acts as a sales person for you and it is the online customer’s first impression of your business. Therefore it must be appealing to that potential customer and it must tell a story about your business that will get the prospect to act. But, you also must make it appealing for the search engines so that eventually you can drive the traffic to your site by rating high in Google, Yahoo and the other search engines. Always remember that your web copy needs to be optimized for search engines.
3. Utilize social media marketing to get yourself known by as many people as possible. The more exposure you have on the social media sites the better but, it must be quality exposure. And, as I began this article quality exposure takes time. It must be pursued methodically with a strategic plan executed over time. It is all about networking with the right people and becoming established as a thought leader with them. On social media you want a nice mix of personal and business sharing. The business sharing should be subtle like posting your blog.
4. Blogging is the best way to establish yourself as a thought leader and it is also the best way to add lots of good content to your site over time. Each blog post ends up being a page in the view of the search engines. Blogging will also help build you links over time which will add to your ranking in the search engines. One good thing to remember is that you don’t have to write all of this yourself. You can hire people with skill in this area that will help you out a lot.

Following this plan will surely result in marketing success. I would appreciate your feedback on this article.