Archive for February, 2009

Many businesspeople find networking a daunting prospect. Yes, it’s great for making new contacts and starting to build relationships and promoting your business but it’s still scary! How can you feel the fear and do it anyway? Use the secrets revealed by networking experts… They say successful networking continue

Would you like to meet Bruce King, sales expert, this evening?‏ If you hate the idea of selling (but know you should be better at it) – this is for you! Tonight at 7pm, I’m interviewing sales expert Bruce King and you can listen! continue

How do you keep staff motivated when times are tough? How do you maintain any sense of morale amongst your workers when you’re all surrounded with grim economic forecasts? Experts says you should think seriously before laying off any staff and consider the consequences it will have continue

Tonight at 7pm I am interviewing UK marketing expert Nathan Tarrant. This guy really knows his stuff. You can listen, free of charge; I don’t have permission to record this call so this will be ‘live’ only. Details and registration here: Special ‘one off’ Armchair Seminar continue

You can attract or ‘catch’ more clients by collecting testimonials from your customers and using them in your marketing materials (both online and offline). It lets your customers do the talking, convincing and persuading for you and your business. If possible, include the customer’s photograph, their real name, position within continue

McGraw-Hill calls Bob Bly “America’s top copywriter” and his Copywriter’s Handbook is known as a classic. With three decades of writing experience for companies like IBM and Forbes, Bob Bly knows how to use words for maximum persuasive impact. SuccessTrack: How can business owners increase the response rate to their direct marketing offers? Bob Bly: The simplest and the easiest way is to offer a premium – a free gift given as an incentive to respond. For example, if you’re selling enterprise software to IT professionals, you can say ‘sign up for our online demonstration of our software today and you can get a free UBS drive’. People love free gifts. It can work for any type of business. There’s a famous guy – Joe Polish – who was a carpet cleaner and to generate leads for his carpet cleaning business, he put together a little booklet called A Consumer’s Guide To Carpet Cleaning which educated consumers about what to look for when hiring a carpet cleaning company. He built his business and became very successful through that appeal. As a rule of thumb, offering a premium as a way continue

Last night I answered marketing questions from Members and recorded the whole lot! There were some brilliant questions about pricing, writing advertisements and how to get more customers. You can access the download here: Armchair Seminar Download Why not join the new SuccessTrack Business continue

Tonight, Monday February 23rd, I’m answering questions on marketing on a free ‘Armchair Seminar’ – you don’t have to leave your home, office or car, just call in at 7pm this evening and hear me answering dozens of questions from business owners on all aspects of marketing. continue

1. Treat recruitment and hiring as seriously as you would any other aspect of your business. 2. Create a company that people want to work for. Put energy into areas like employee retention, motivation, accountability, reward, promotion, recognition, and involvement. That way your existing employees will spread continue

Drayton Bird has been described (by a competitor) as “the greatest living direct marketing expert” and has nearly 50 years experience in marketing, PR, advertising, research, and direct marketing. He reveals what it really takes to make a business stand out in a crowded marketplace. SuccessTrack: What factors will make the most difference to a business owner’s success in this market? Drayton Bird: There are three crucial factors. The first would be to study. If you want to get to the top in marketing, in business, study. Spend a lot of time reading, learning, watching what other people are doing and stealing ideas. I’m not particularly intelligent but I’ve studied all the time. The second thing that would make a massive difference is measurement. Someone once said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The third thing is remembering where the money comes from – which is the ‘customer’. Therefore the one thing you must study more than anything else is your customer. Unless you can climb into your customers’ minds, unless you understand what your customers think, what motivates them, you cannot possibly succeed. Too often, people don’t start with the one thing they really need and that’s an understanding of their customers. SuccessTrack: What do you study? Drayton Bird: I study everything. I started by reading about business generally. I read everything I could get on advertising because that seemed so obvious. More importantly, all success, all ingenuity, depends upon ideas. Where do ideas come from? They come from knowing lots of things and then putting them together in surprising and unexpected ways. That’s where ideas come from. Don’t confine yourself to your field – study other people’s businesses. If you’re interested in communicating with people and persuading them, don’t just study the obvious – study other ways of communicating. I’ve learnt a tremendous amount from studying very good writers. There are no boundaries to knowledge. If all you’re interested in is how to run a fish and chip shop, good luck. But you will do a better job if you have a broader mind. SuccessTrack: So success is about bringing your product and your customers together? Drayton Bird: That’s all you are trying to do. If you want to succeed in persuading people to buy what you want then you have to study these two things: the person you’re trying to sell to and how to relate your product or service to that person. Be aware that when you’re selling something, nobody wants to read what you’ve written or to listen to what you’re saying. They don’t. They’ve got better things to do. So your challenge is – how the hell can you get them interested? The other thing you have to do is answer the question “Why should anyone choose your product?” Can you do something that no one else can do? Can you do something better than anyone else?