The Top Experts Reveal Small Business Marketing Strategies
That Get Results In This Economy

4 Steps to Ultimate Success with Your Small Business Marketing

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

Beyond more sales and bigger profits, beyond the numbers, what are you really after? Financial security? Of course. Is that all? I doubt it.

The successful small business owners I know are motivated by more than the money, critical as that is. They’re driven by passions of all kinds and looking for satisfaction from all sorts of sources, whether they’re looking for a business challenge, to make a contribution or to afford a particular lifestyle.

One of my clients had an offer to buy her home health care business for millions of dollars. She turned it down and challenged herself to grow her business by another 50% before she sold it.

Another client of mine is cutting back on his lucrative real estate sales so he can build his coaching business. He wants to spend more time working from the comfort of his home office and avoid living his life in LA traffic.

What is it you really want to achieve by being more successful?

Last week I launched the revised 15 Second Marketing in print and audio, consulted with clients and kept my business running at full speed while spending my mornings skiing and my afternoons working from our ski condo in Vermont. And had one of my best week in sales ever.

You see, I love small business marketing but I’m also passionate about skiing. Thanks to laptops, DSL lines and other advances in technology and a wise and supportive wife, I can keep my business growing and still have time for the other things I love to do.

Wouldn’t you like to have a successful business that lets you live the live you want?

You can, if you use this simple formula:

1. Become an Expert in your Field
Whether you’re a sole practitioner or run a company that sell millions of dollars of timber products, your prospects and clients are more likely to buy from you if they see you as the expert(s). Most small business owners already have a high level of knowledge.  Leverage it so that people come to see you as an expert.

In the late ‘90s I became one of the first experts on search engines and built a site that reviewed and ranked search engine performance. Within a year of its launch, I sold it to one of the largest information technology sites. Yes, I used a portion of the proceeds to buy our ski condo.

Paul Figueiredo, one of my clients, is a successful real estate agent in Los Angeles. He’s leveraged his expertise into a new business coaching other realtors.

Want to learn how to use your expertise to grow a successful business? Find out how >>

2. Seek Out Expert Help
A contradiction to #1 above? Not at all. You aren’t an expert at everything, and it’s a waste of your time to try to be. You’ll need expert marketing guidance to grow your business.

If you want to market on the Internet, you’ll need help discovering what works. I’ve detailed the strategy that I’ve used to attract clients and grow my business in Creating Web Sites That Sell. Use this link to claim your copy >>

3. Systematize Your Small Business Marketing
Most small businesses spend time and money marketing when things are slow. When business picks up, they’re busy with day-to-day management and they let their marketing slide. The result is a roller coaster ride of slow and busy times and revenue that dips as fast as it rises.

What you want is a steady stream of new leads and new business coming in every month, whether you’re on vacation or busy with current client projects. You could be taking advantage of available online marketing systems to achieve this and keep business rolling in each month.

For example, I use an email broadcast system and an ecommerce system that lets me automate my business marketing to a high degree. I can access it from anyplace with Internet access. Use this link to get the details on automating your online marketing >>

4. Discover How to Close More Sales
You know that marketing is just the precursor to making a sale. Marketing can find and warm up the prospect, but at some point you need to convert that prospect into a loyal client. What’s the best way to do this?

Business owners and even professional marketers make the same mistake. They assume that the best way to sell a prospect is to talk about their companies and their products.

There is a much better way to close more sales. It’s a system for eliminating the obstacles that block sales and creating a straight path so your prospects become clients. Use this link to discover how to close more sales >>

Want to live the life you dream of?

What are you waiting for? Use the simple strategies I’ve detailed for you in the ‘Insider Secrets’ series and make your dreams a reality.

Gotta go. It’s started snowing and my skis are sitting by the door, waiting for some exercise. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

What Does It Take To Succeed With Your Small Business Marketing?

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

Why is it that some small business owners seem unstoppable, steadily growing their businesses and assets, while others struggle  to stay profitable?

Last week I got a call from Phillip in Oregon, whose two online niche lawn care businesses had hit a wall. In just over three years, he had grown his revenue from the two sites to about $200,000 a year. He was happy with the results, but he wasn’t satisfied. His sites were getting over 1,500 visitors a day but his sales had stagnated. Phillip wasn’t sure where to focus his time — and endless energy —to convert those visitors to customers.

Phillip wanted to increase his total sales from the two sites by a factor of ten. His friends had told him he was crazy, but he was convinced he could do it if he could improve his conversion rates.

When I asked Phillip where he thought he needed my help, he was ready with answers. He knew that he needed help; he was aware that his lead generation system was leaky; he knew that he didn’t have any follow-up strategy in place and needed help implementing one. He also mentioned that his product development process often got bogged down.

Ready to take your business to the next level? Click here to find out how >>

Listening to Phillip describe his business, I heard a business owner who had all the potential to be extremely successful. He had the five characteristics that highly successful small business owners have.

Do the following characteristics describe you as well?

1. Never 100% Satisfied

Very successful business people are aware of their successes but are always looking for a way to improve their products, services and profits. Another of my clients, Julie, who owns a home health care business, is a good example. She built her business to bring in over six million dollars in revenue and turned down an offer to buy it so she could grow revenue to nine million.

The same thing applies regardless of the size of your company. Toyota, for example, is arguably the most successful car company in the world. Rather than taking success for granted, every employee is expected to look for ways to continually improve the corporation’s products and processes whether its making their cars more reliable or more fuel efficient.

You could be applying the same continuous improvement approach to your small business marketing.

2. Create Opportunity Instead of Waiting For It

Some people are looking and waiting for the right opportunity to open up for them. And they keep on looking and waiting. These people are perpetual dreamers.

Truly successful people may dream about success, but they don’t wait for doors to open. They build the doors and then open them themselves. My client Laurie Nadel is great example of this. At one time a destitute, divorced Brooklyn housewife, Laurie built a thriving coaching practice, helping executives and actors alike people overcome performance anxiety. She created her own business opportunity and now is enjoying its benefits.

3. Not Afraid to Make Mistakes

Few entrepreneurs have found a straight road to success. Many have lost significant amounts of money and time before they learn what works. When I launched my first web site almost ten years ago, I couldn’t find my own site in the search engines. This prompted me to become an expert in search engine marketing. The offshoot of this was a site I created that reviewed and ranked search engines, which I sold at the height of the Internet bubble for a small fortune.

Truly successful people aren’t afraid to stumble or even fail and use their failures as the foundation of their best successes.

Ready to build on your successes and failures and reach your goals? Use this link >>

4. Aware of Their Limitations

Phillip could point to at least a handful of areas where he knew he needed help to improve, including his follow-up and product development processes. Julie knew her market penetration was limited in one of her target markets.

Successful business people know that one of their competitive advantages comes from identifying what isn’t working and fixing it.

5. Seek Out Expert Help

Is it even possible to become an expert in every aspect of your business? It’s more likely that you’d be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. This strategy won’t help you rise to the top.

If you own a small business, it’s just not possible to become an expert in product development, operations, personnel management, accounting, fulfillment, small business marketing, sales and customer service. You’re going to need the help of a handful of experts.

Test Yourself – Do you have what it takes to succeed?

1. Do you push yourself and your employees to improve every aspect of your business?

2. Are you actively creating new opportunities for success?

3. Do you use your mistakes to create new ways of working?

4. Are you aware of your biggest business marketing weaknesses?

5. Are you currently working with experts who can help you take your business to the next level? If not, are you seeking the help you need to grow your business?

How many questions did you answer ‘yes’ to? What’s the next step to achieving your goals?

Highly successful entrepreneurs are dreamers and doers, self-confident and self-critical, with expertise in at least one significant area of their business but aware of what they don’t know. They’re people who take action and try new ideas.

Top Business Marketing Ideas Every Small Business Owner Needs to Know

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010


The Secret To Making Money With Your Website Marketing: Hint – You Need More Than Traffic

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

“This past week one of my web pages started getting ten times the usual number of visitors but hasn’t generated a single sale. What do I do?” – Janet

While I was away in Scotland a couple of weeks ago, Janet called from Salt Lake City and she called again the day I returned. It turned out an affiliate partner had given one of her web pages top exposure on their site, and as a result she was getting a ton of traffic to the targeted page. But none of it was making her any money and she was frustrated big time.

Do you own or market a web site? What do you think is the most important factor in making your site a financial success?

If you guessed that the answer is getting more people to your site, you’d have lots of company. The conventional wisdom is that you put up a web site and then try to get a top search engine listing or use your advertising campaign to bring in visitors. The number of visitors you bring in should determine the amount of money you make.

Want to know the truth about internet marketing?

A top search engine position or a link from an affiliate can get a high volume of traffic to your site, but there isn’t a direct correlation between traffic and sales.

Getting visitors to your site is important, but it’s not traffic that ultimately matters. What does matter is how much of that traffic you actually sell to; the percentage of visitors you convert to buyers. The conversion rate of each page on your site determines whether you have a profitable web site or just another internet marketing expense with minimal returns.

Frustrated with the lack of sales from your site? Ready to find out how to start selling more? Discover how to make your site convert more visitors to buyers with this link >>

Want to see a great example of a site that gets tons of traffic but hardly pays its own way? I can pick on this web site because it’s one of my own.

Ten years ago I put up my first site, www.newsletteraccess.com. Today you can find it in the number one or two spot on Google for ‘newsletter’ or ‘newsletters’, and it enjoys top positioning for a whole host of related keywords. As a result, the site gets lots of traffic. That should be good news but…

Actually, I’m embarrassed by this long-neglected site. www.newsletteraccess.com gets 40 to 45,000 visitors each month, but very few are converted to paying clients. The site makes some money but could do much better, given the number of visitors.

The problem? Like all too many sites on the web it was planned and designed without an understanding of how to convert traffic to clients.

If you’re a subscriber to this newsletter, ‘More Business’, you know that my current site is www.marketingforsuccess.com. This site enjoys many top ten search engine listings as well as hundreds of links from other sites. As a result, it gets about the same amount of traffic as www.newsletteraccess.com.

But there is a big difference…

Marketingforsuccess.com generates 40-50 times more revenue because it’s written and designed to convert visitors into clients. These two sites have very similar amounts of traffic, but one makes lots of money and the other doesn’t. Surprised by the difference?

You can sell more, even with the existing traffic your site is getting!

Many web site owners give up on their sites prematurely because they don’t have a top search engine listing. But you can make more sales with the same amount of traffic you’re getting now by converting more site visitors to paying customers. Find out how. Use this link to claim your copy >>

Janet had signed on with me to work on lead conversion on her website earlier this year. I had showed her how to organize the page layout and rewrite the copy to grab visitors’ attention and get them interested in her products and services. I was, to say the least, a little concerned when she left me a message saying that her web page wasn’t converting visitors to clients after the work we’d done.

Turns out that the web page in question was one we hadn’t revised. She went on to tell me that the reason she was so frustrated was that the pages modified with my input had increased their conversion rates by 400%. She knew that the page that was getting a high volume of referral traffic could do the same with the right changes.

Have you been worrying about getting traffic to your site? Stop! This shouldn’t be your first web site marketing priority.

Before you spend another dime on search engine positioning or pay-per-click ads to get visitors to your web site, do yourself a favor and find out how to convert more of the people who come to your site into paying clients and customers.

Once you have a site that turns visitors into cash, you can begin to spend time and money to drive traffic to your website. Of course, when your site converts more visitors to sales, you’ll have more money to spend on online advertising on hiring a top SEO firm.

Ready to turn more visitors to your web site into cash? It’s not going to happen by magic or if you wait another week.

Discover the insider secrets to making your web site convert prospects into buyers, and make your site’s profits grow. Claim your copy >>

The Truth About Attracting Traffic and Top Search Engine Placement

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

“How can I put my site at the top of the search engines?”

If you have a web site or are thinking of building one, this is a question you should be asking yourself every day. If your prospects can’t find your site in the search engine listings your sales will suffer. With the exception of those you attract with your advertising, hardly anyone will find your site, very few people will contact you and only a handful will buy from you.

With a top listing on Google, (twice as popular as Yahoo, the second most popular search engine) you could get one to two thousand visitors a day to your web site, depending on the popularity of the keywords associated with your products or services.

I get requests daily from business owners who want to know how to ensure their search engine marketing improves their search engine listings. They want to know how difficult it is to get a top listing and whether or not they should hire a search engine optimization (SEO) firm.

Some of them, like you, have heard about the importance of keyword use, keyword placement, meta tags, internal and external links and other variables. (Some SEO experts think that Google tracks up to 100 variables in order to rank your site.)

Putting your site at the top of the search engines sounds complex, and it is. I became an SEO expert over ten years ago when I launched my first Internet business, and I can assure you that keeping up with the search engines is enormously time consuming.

You’ve got a business to run. You don’t have the time to become a search engine marketing or an SEO expert. You just want to help your prospects find your site. What’s the answer? Do you need to hire an SEO firm and add another expense to the ongoing cost of your website, or is there an alternative? Which strategies really will work to put your site at the top?

Discover the truth about what matters. Learn how to create a top ranking site and sell more online  >>

Yes, some of these SEO programming experts are reputable, but I’m going to tell you a secret. For the most part you don’t need them, and you don’t need to learn a whole arcane body of knowledge about search engine optimization to have a successful website.

To get your web site to the top of Google listings, understand one thing; Google’s ranking system is designed to reward the sites that people want to visit.

Google gives top ranking to sites that have a lot of useful, relevant content; that add new content regularly and are likely the best resources on the topic. Google gives more weight to the variables that determine whether the site is a valid and accepted resource in its area of business or knowledge. Google looks at the:

  • Amount of content.
  • Frequency of changes,
  • Amount of traffic,
  • Amount of time users spend on your site,
  • Historical ranking of your site pages,
  • Keywords,
  • Internal navigation links,
  • The popularity of your site based on the number of link from other popular sites with relevant content.

How do you put your business site at the top of Google’s search listings? Create a site that your prospects and clients will love!

Don’t waste time on billboard sites that are all about you and your company. Build a site that is so helpful and interesting that your prospects click to it often and stay for a while. The key is to give visitors more and better quality content than your competitors are doing.

Skeptical? Look at the most popular sites on the Internet. 22 of the top 25 that get the most traffic are resource-based sites. The other 3 are ebay.com, amazon.com and apple.com.

Want to get more people to your site? Unless you plan to compete with ebay, or Amazon or Apple, your best strategy is to become the definitive resource in your business.

For example, one of my clients, Peter Keelty, has built a business niche in ski reviews, ski instruction and ski technique. Search under any one of these keyword phrases and you’ll find his site at or near the top of the Google listings. How did he do it?

If you visit his site, https://www.techsupportforskiers.com/, you’ll find more helpful content about skis than you ever imagined existed. Skiers search out this site and spend time there. Related businesses want to have links on their sites to this one.

How can you achieve the same success with your web site marketing and search engine positioning?

First, stop worrying about your search engine positioning and build a site that is the best resource on the planet in your area of business. You can go back later and optimize it for the search engines. Write and then write some more. Include articles, your daily blog, reviews, case studies, testimonials, tips and news on your site. You’ll create a site that will help you sell more online than you thought possible.

Tired of wasting time and money on your web site marketing without getting the results you want? Find out exactly how to create a site that your prospects and the search engines will love.

Get the inside secrets to dramatically increasing your web sales with this link >>

Are Your Prices An Obstacle to Sales?

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

“I’m having trouble selling my business development system. Do you think the price is the problem? Is $500 too much to charge? Should I sell it for less?”
David R., MI

Ever have a potential deal fall apart because your prospect isn’t happy with your price?

You know the situation. You’ve got a qualified prospect on the phone or you’re meeting with them in person and they’ve agreed that your product or services are the perfect fit. Then you mention the price, and they don’t bite. They tell you that they want to think about it or they need to talk to X or they just flat out tell you its too expensive.

But is price really the issue?

In fact, price is rarely the problem. And if your prospect isn’t buying, lowering the price won’t guarantee the sale.

Typically when your prospect objects to price, the real problem is that they don’t understand the value of your products or services. And it’s not their fault; it’s the fault of your marketing strategies. Whether you sell consulting services, hand tools, or chicken legs, the price you can charge is based on your prospect’s perception of its value to them.

Use this link to claim your copy of Eliminating Obstacles to Sales >>

Want to avoid losing clients due to price? Here’s an example of what not to do.

Earlier this fall, I was planning a family reunion at a charming old inn in the Berkshires. As part of the festivities, I wanted to organize a light breakfast buffet for the 50 or so relatives attending. The inn quoted me a price of $29 per person, without giving me any information about what was included. When I got the quote I was shocked. It was much more than I’d anticipated, and I decided to drop the whole idea.

What was the fatal small business marketing mistake the Inn had made?

Without a clear understanding of what I was going to get for $29 per head, I had no means of determining whether it was worth the money. I didn’t know whether the $29 per person charge included just a cup of coffee and a doughnut or a full buffet breakfast with a chef on hand to cook custom omelets.

Either way, the inn lost an opportunity to feed us all another meal and profit from the presence of our large group.

Read your prospects’ objections to price as a signal that your marketing isn’t doing its job. Your business marketing information and process isn’t giving your prospects the information they need to understand what your products or services can do for them. As a result, they don’t buy from you.

The purpose of small business marketing is to minimize the effort needed to close a sale. If you’re still working hard to get prospects to buy, find out how to remove objections so more people will buy from you. Use this link to claim your copy of Eliminating Obstacles to Sales >>

Want to avoid objections to price, sell to more people and even raise your prices?

Since the price a prospect is willing to pay for your products and services is directly related to their understanding of its value to them, then the higher the perceived value, the more you can charge.

One of my clients, Janice, was working way too hard at bringing new clients to her phone coaching business. She helps clients eliminate anxiety and replace it with self-confidence so they can be more productive in their work and lives. She had dozens of prospects, but when she quoted her fees, too many prospects opted not to sign up.

When I asked her to describe the things she does for her clients and the benefits of her services, she gave me a lot of information and many examples of her successes. Then I asked her how much of this information her prospects knew. Very little, she said. Whoops!

The solution was simple. I showed Janice how to structure her sales conversations and how to ask the right questions to get her prospects talking about their goals and needs. This sets the stage so that when she explains the services she provides, it’s clear that they are the perfect solution to her prospects’ problems.

The result? Instead of lowering her prices to get more business, Janice increased her fees. Within a week she was making 50% more money.

Poor understanding of value = High resistance to price

Perception of high value and benefit = Low resistance to price

Wouldn’t you like to have prospects be eager to pay the prices you charge? Sound impossible? It isn’t.

When your prospects fully understand of how much better off they’ll be or how much more successful they’ll be with your products and services, more people will want to work with you and they’ll happily pay more to do so.

You could be closing more sales and making more money, but it’s not going to happen if you keep using the same marketing and sales strategies. Discover what works >>

What’s The Growth Potential For Your Small Business…

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

Do you know how big your potential market is and how much more you can grow your business?

Last week I got a call from Janet, who wanted me to help her grow her Home Health Care business. She told me that her business grossed over six million dollars last year and she thought the potential exists to grow by at least 50% in the next two years.

Janet went on to explain that in one of the three communities she had targeted, she had only a small share of the business. She’d tried increasing spending on advertising, but it hadn’t provided any lead generation.

She knew the clients were there, but her marketing wasn’t reaching them. And she was sure that if she could make her ads and her follow up more effective, she’d have no problem reaching her goal of adding another three million dollars worth of business.

Ever wonder how big your potential market is and how much more you could grow your business?

Wouldn’t you like to know the answer?

People frequently assume that the reason their business isn’t growing is because of the lack of interest or small size of their potential market. But if you’re not getting all the clients you can handle, the problem could be your marketing strategies.

In The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers you’ll find a system guaranteed to help you generate more leads and clients. My customers have used it grow their businesses by 50% to 100%. Claim your copy >>

If you’re only getting a small slice of the business in your target market, it’s not your prospects’ fault. It’s your lead generation that’s to blame. Janet identified one problem with her marketing strategies, the ads she’d written and paid for. Spending more on these wasn’t helping.

How can you tell if you’re getting all the business you could be?

1. You know what your target market is; if you haven’t already, do your homework now and get some hard numbers. Find out how many potential customers you have, where they live, and what their habits are. For example if you’re a home health care provider, find out the number of people between 65 and 100 in the communities you serve. Get as much information as you can on where they live and which media they rely on.

2. Clarify the benefits of the services you provide. No one really wants a nurse, a physical or occupational therapist. They want the benefits these services provide such as elimination of pain and increased mobility so they can get out of bed, enjoy their hobbies and get the most out of life no matter what age they are.

3. Calculate the percentage of your target market you currently serve. Most businesses serve a small percentage of their target market, leaving lots of room for growth.

4. Review each step of your marketing strategy and marketing tools to identify which are getting results and which aren’t.

How to Attract All The Clients You Can Handle
Why do some business owners seem to be so successful, pulling in prospects and profits? I’m sure you know it’s not by magic but because they know the most powerful ways to people who are eager to buy. Isn’t that what you want?

Now you can do the same. Claim your copy with this link >>

Do You Know How to Use Your Ads and Mailings?

Are you trying to sell with your ads, mailings, and cold calls? In general this is a big mistake. Your first objective is to engage your prospects’ interest; then you can build a relationship with them, get them to know you, trust you and buy from you. Start by providing your prospects with helpful information. Follow up with more helpful information and testimonials from happy clients.

What Freebie Do You Use to Generate Leads?

Do you have a free giveaway you use to prompt prospects to contact you? Whether it’s a free report or seminar or even a tea bag, giving something away for free is the most effective way to generate a reciprocal response and get a prospect to give you their contact information.

Are your ads, your mailings and your web site focused on you and your company? If they are, you’re making a fatal mistake. To attract clients and customers, focus your marketing on what customers want.

Are You Trying To Sell Prospects Too Soon?

Once a prospect responds to an ad, a mailing or your website, do you try to sell them? Don’t! Most people spend weeks researching a purchase. If you try to sell them right off the bat, you’ll be wasting your breath and missing the potential of a sale down the road when they’re ready to make a decision.

Prospects don’t care what you have to say until they know you care.

Instead of Selling Are You Helping People Buy?

Remember, people don’t like to be sold but they do like to buy. People love spending money to get what they want.

My daughter is like me; she shops around for good quality and value before she buys, whether it’s art for her new apartment or a pair of winter boots. She then gets great satisfaction from making a purchase.

I do a lot of research before I buy a new computer or a new pair of skis. When I do make my purchase, I’m a happy camper. You want your clients and customers to experience that kind of satisfaction.

Instead of trying to sell people and scaring them away, help them get what they want and your sales will soar.

Are prospective customers falling through holes in your marketing?

Are there holes in your:

  • Ads; are you getting a strong response?
  • Mailings; do prospects read them and call you?
  • Website; is it about you or your prospects? Does it generate hundreds of leads and or sales a week?
  • Follow-up communication; what is your follow up strategy?
  • Your sales script; what’s your conversion rate, could you improve it with a more customer focused script?
  • Other…

Want to discover how many more clients you could get? Find out what is and isn’t working with your marketing. Then find out what actually works to generate more leads and sales.

Take the next step to capture more of your market and get all the clients you can handle. Use this link to claim your copy of The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers>>

The 4 Inside Secrets to Small Business Marketing Success

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

If you think small business marketing is confusing, try driving in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. My wife and I were there last week, visiting our son who is studying at the University of Edinburgh for a semester. We wanted to see him and explore the city.

The Old Town, where we stayed, is a maze of narrow, medieval streets winding up and down a steep ridge. We found our way on foot by consulting a street map at every twist and turn, but then we got ambitious and rented a car to take a day trip out of the city. That’s when we really needed help.

It took directions from the hotel concierge, a city map, instructions from the car hire agent on how to avoid cobblestone re-paving projects, and a road atlas to extricate ourselves from the tangle of one way streets and roundabouts.

What had appeared to be a straightforward route on the map of less than a mile from our hotel to the road out of town involved more than a dozen turns and took 20 minutes of seemingly driving in circles. The map alone wasn’t enough; we needed up to date knowledge and local experience to get where we wanted to go.

Marketing your business is the same. You can waste your time and money going in circles unless you have clear directions and advice. It’s easy to follow others, take wrong turns and end up at a dead end. Has that ever happened to you?

Do you want to find the quickest way to reach your objectives? Some people persist in plunging ahead without a map, a guidebook or the help of inside knowledge. That works if you don’t mind getting lost, but if you have limited time and a limited budget, there’s a better way.

To help you find the most direct path to attracting more clients, I’ve put together four essential small business marketing resources. These will guide you on your way to increased profits:

1. 15 Second Marketing
What’s the one most important thing to do to generate more sales?

If you want to sell more, the first step is to let people know how you can help them. In the New Town section of Edinburgh, we walked past dozens of handsome Georgian buildings with a simple brass plate next to each door. The plates only had the name of the business; Walker Group; Thomson Partners; Clerk & Maxwell; Kevin McAllister, etc. It was impossible to know what business these companies were in.

If your business has been around for hundreds of years like many of the ones we passed and you’re selling products or services in a town where everybody already knows you, this discreet approach may work.

If you’re competing for prospects who don’t already know you, you need a better way to get your prospects’ attention and their business.

When you tell people your name or that you are a sales agent for a real estate firm, you’re only talking about yourself, not what you do for your clients. Ditto when you tell people you’re selling a new, innovative product. Get your prospects’ attention by talking about your products and services in terms of solutions and benefits.

Ready to discover the inside secret to getting attention? Get the details >>

2. Highly Effective Small Business Marketing
Getting attention is the first step, but by itself it won’t get you the sale. Too many business owners and marketers make the mistake of thinking that all they need are leads. The key to business success isn’t the number of leads you generate, but what you do with them. It’s the number of prospects that you convert to clients that matters.

Typically, small business owners spend time and money on marketing strategies and generate a few new clients. Then they focus on helping those clients and forget about marketing. Sound familiar?

The secret to growing your business each month is to establish a system that not only keeps leads flowing in, but automatically converts more prospects to clients. That way you can rely on your marketing strategy to build your business each month.

Discover which marketing system actually works to generate more clients and sales every month  >>

3. Creating A Web Site That Sells
Do you market online? When we stayed in Edinburgh we wanted somewhere to stay that was centrally located and gave us the freedom to do a bit of our own cooking. Thanks to the Internet, my wife found an apartment residence with a kitchen and laundry machines (a feature that our son took immediate advantage of).

Want straightforward information about how to generate a flood of visitors to your web site, and how to convert 4 to 10 times more of them into clients? You’ll find a step-by-step explanation in Creating Web Sites That Sell. Use this link >>

4. Eliminating Obstacles to Sales
Want to close more sales? After visiting other parts of Scotland last year and hearing our son talk about how interesting Edinburgh was, I didn’t need to be sold on visiting the city.

Wouldn’t you like to have your prospects pre-sell themselves on your products and services? You can by using simple marketing strategies.

Discover the advanced marketing strategies that reliably melt prospects’ resistance and sell more of your products and services. Get the details with this link >>

Don’t be confused by marketing and waste time and money. Get the road map, the guide and the inside information you need to navigate your way to success. I’ve included the inside secrets to marketing your business in the 4 guides mentioned above. Use them and you’ll make more money with less effort.

Small Business Marketing Ideas That Every Successful Business Owner and Marketer Needs to Know

By Charlie   |   March 12th, 2010

The #1 Reason Most Small Business Marketing Fails

By Charlie   |   March 12th, 2010

Is there something missing from your marketing? Is your small business marketing on target? Or could you be generating ten times as many sales?

Most small business owners know that to grow their business they need to generate interest and sales. Sounds simple enough. Then why is it often so difficult to do? Why aren’t you selling ten times as much as you are?

Selling is essentially a simple transaction. Your prospects give you money or a credit card to pay you for a product or service that they want to buy. The question is, how to you get more of them to do that?

The answer is simpler than you realize. To convert more prospects into clients, give them the marketing information they want. If you’re not generating a steady stream of sales, it may be for the top reason that most marketing fails; you’re not giving your prospects the information they want and need to become customers.

Do you know what your prospects want? Do you know what information to provide to convert them to clients?

Before a prospect will purchase from you, they need to:

• Want the product or service you sell,

• Know you exist,

• Like you and

• Trust you.

Most small business marketing is focused on getting attention and getting right the sale. This approach doesn’t help prospects determine whether they truly want the product or service or whether it solves their problems. It doesn’t help them get to know you, like you and trust you.

Imagine a determined young man looking for true love and marriage. Looking for immediate success, he decides to stand in the center of the local mall, jumps up and down and yell, “Marry me!”, “Marry me!” at the top of his lungs. Yes, he gets plenty of attention. But no customers (and he only needs one). No woman in her right mind would marry someone they didn’t know, like or trust.

Your clients are making a commitment when they make a purchase, exchanging their hard-earned dollars for your products and services. Before they plunge into this relationship, they’ll want to know you and trust you too.

Ready to find out exactly what to do to get more clients and customers? You could keep marketing the same way you have been, but you’re going to get the same results. If you’re serious about growing your business, discover how. Get the details >

Want more clients? Here’s how to get them:

1. Provide a product or service that people want

If you want more people to buy from you, do a better job of communicating to them through your marketing that you have what they want.

Use your lead generation system, ads, web site and mailings to get more attention by focusing on your prospects’ concerns and interests. Speaking to their needs will motivate them to contact you.

2. Help more people get to know you

Did you assume that sales would start pouring in because you sent out that mailing or took out that ad touting your product or service? If you did, you made the most common mistake made by small business owners.

One time ads or mailings rarely work to generate sales. People need to get to know you before they’ll do business with you.

Fortune 500 companies spend hundreds of millions dollars a year helping their prospects get to know them. If you had a marketing budget of a hundred million dollars, you could do the same.

If you don’t have that kind of cash on hand, focusing on building your brand image is a waste of time and money. There are other ways to help your prospects get to know you and buy from you that cost little or nothing and will get you the results you’re looking for.

Use your lead generation system to prompt prospects to contact you for your expertise, a free consultation or report. Then build on this first contact by continuing to provide your prospects with helpful ideas that will help them get to know you and like you.

3. Help more prospects trust you

The two best ways to help your prospects learn to trust you are to regularly help them by giving them information they want and have others vouch for you by using testimonials.

What’s the key to helping prospects trust you? Follow up! More than 80% of sales are lost due to lack of simple follow-up, calls, emails, and letters.

To get the clients you want, start by giving them the marketing information they want. Once you do, you’ll see your sales increase by two to four times or more.

How You Could Have All The Clients You Want
Selling more isn’t about luck. Truly successful business owners don’t turn prospects into sales by magic. They understand – and apply – a few simple marketing principles and techniques to pull in hungry prospects and convert them to clients.

Discover how you can get all the clients you want >>

« Previous Posts
Newer Posts »