Go ahead and check it out and leave a comment if you are so inclined. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkSxn99uc4E

Thxs

My initial response to the question, selling is twisting arms while smiling. The iconic definition of this process is the “used car salesperson.”

Sales occur naturally when a customer or clients needs are met. A skilled sales person is able to quickly identify concerns or objections. Provide answers and most importantly demonstrate a level of value greater than the competition.

Relationship Selling is an on going process of proactively identifying the needs and offering solutions. 

Relationship management is the ability to track all communications and activities one has with an individual or organization. In times past, the ability to manage a relationship required good notes and a photographic memory. The relationship was individually based, since there was no easy method or singular repository.

Technology has enabled individuals and organizations to implement the relationship management throughout their company. This allows the potential for sales from all points of contact.

What this means for contractors and other small business owners is:

• Companies must approach their customers as valued members of their organizations.
• Engagement is no longer on a singular basis, all persons responsible for completing a project or providing a service must be able to add value for your client.
• Passing it off to the “Sales Guy” is no longer an option.
• Successful marketing campaigns are personalized and segmented.

What is Social Media?

Social media essentially is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online. Most social media services encourage discussion, feedback, voting, comments, and sharing of information from all interested parties.

It’s more of a two-way conversation, rather than a one-way broadcast like traditional media. Another unique aspect of social media is the idea of staying connected or linked to other sites, resources, and people. – Ron Jones, SearchEngineWatch.com

Why do you care?

FaceBook is the internet’s number one most visited website, exceeding Google Search. It’s rapid growth is explosive. Started in 2004 in a dorm room at Harvard, it was a way for a group of college kids to interact. Today, FaceBook is the definition of how customers are interacting with companies. It’s real time, and social. Companies can no longer dismiss it as just another time suck! Yes, I did say that Let’s face it, we all want results without wasting our time. How would you like to grow your business like this?

FaceBook allows people to connect with friends and associates on a professional and personal level.
On a personal level, you create a profile for all to see for the purposes of:

• sharing with family and friends*
• with members of special interest groups
  (small business owners, religious, hobby, sports, political, etc.)

This information can be shared with a select group of friends or everyone who stumbles upon your profile.
On a professional level, FaceBook is used to promote your company. Through advertisements, company updates, photos of your work and ongoing conversations to your connected fans.** Most importantly, it’s a tool to drive visitors to your company’s website.

3 Major Componets of FaceBook

Personal Profile – Your FaceBook Account
Groups - Network of like minded individuals sharing a common interest
Pages – Your company’s profile.

Implementation

1. Setup a FaceBook account
   • Personal email and password
   • Add a photo of yourself
   • A brief bio
   • Add info about where you went to school, your work, hobbies, etc.
   • Do you want to share this information publically or privately?
   • Do you want to be updated via email, text messaging, or when you are online?
   • Send out invites to people in your address book.
2. Setup a FaceBook Page
   • Create a business profile complete with logos, photos, contact information, etc.
   • Invite all who will help you to spread the word about your company.
   • Invite customers and associates to interact with your company by offering special discounts, event invitations, cross promotions, etc.
     Cross promotions – is a non traditional approach to expanding your company’s reach. As an example, let’s say you have a favorite hair salon or barber you frequent. Tell your friends and colleagues about their wonderful service. In turn, they will do the same.
3. Connect with Groups
   • Join other groups, this can be both professional and personal.
Note: This is not necessary to get started.

Conclusion

It’s time to embrace social media as a means to gain credibility and authority for you and your business. With active participation, you will be able to promote your company and gain new customers. Additionally, you will be able to increase your sales to existing customers by offering additional products and services that they might be aware you offer. Lastly, you will be able to expand your network to industries and other companies who’s customers would benefit from your products and services.

WARNING: Don’t let this scare you, by thinking it will take time away from your busy schedule. There are tools available to integrate with your company’s website and cell phone to make this as painless and non-techie as possible.

FaceBook is a necessary ingredient to business survival. Having a business website will not get you customers without promotion.

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Unlike the thousands of other website out there, this series of articles will give you a layman’s overview of traffic generating principals without getting too technical. Working with contractors, I try to encapsulate information regarding online marketing, simplifing it to easily understood discussions and checklists.

What are some of the sources for you website to gain new visitors?

By clicking on the image, it will open to a larger view that is easier to read. At the end of this brief article, you can download a copy in Adobe Acrobat’s pdf format.

In this example, the shaded area is what we are all used to when it comes to marketing our small businesses. If you continue to market your company with only these, you won’t be as successful. To survive in business today, one must embrace all of the tools in our online toolbox.

In the next article. Small Business Owner’s Overview of FaceBook, we will start introducing you to individual items shown in the chart above.  Real world examples and simple steps to increasing your online presence and gaining new customers.

Signup with your email to be updated when new articles are posted and a lot of FREE Tools. If you think other friends and associates will gain valuable insights on marketing, please let them know about us.

Download your copy of the Website Traffic blueprint. FREE – no signups required. (Requires Adobe Reader)

The combination of various factors attribute to your website’s decreased visibility.

• Fresh content
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Saturation

While these terms may seem “Greek” to most small business owners, once explained they are really quite simple to comprehend.

To understand, you must first have an idea of the basic concept of how customers find your company on the internet. One of these methods is called Direct Traffic. This is where one of your customers enters your website into the address bar of their browser.

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to related resources. Wikipedia
Common Browsers – Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, Blackberry

A second method of web site traffic is Referring Sites. A good example, is any internet Yellow Page site. A customer will search for your company and will be directed back to your website via a link.
And the third most common way is via the search engines, Organic. This method by far has the greatest potential for new clients. The 5 biggest search engines are (listed by percentage of users): Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, & AOL.

To rank highly on these sites, a website must be optimized. Optimization in a nutshell, is the process of catering your web pages’s information for it to be found vial the search terms commonly used by your audience (clients).
Books are written on just this topic alone. Let me give you a quick example. If you were selling “spark plugs”, a web page devoted to spark plugs would have to compete with all the major brands – Bosch, Champion, AC Delco, etc. That is only the beginning! Add to that, all of the major auto parts stores – Napa, Kraegen, Pep Boys, etc. The likelihood that your website will be on page one of the search engines is ZERO!
On the other hand, if you had a page that discussed the benefits of “Bosch BMW Spark Plugs” your chances of ranking increase. Taken one step further, what if you had a page listing all of your brands and wrote specifically about “Spark Plugs in Reno Nevada”? A number one page ranking for consumers looking to purchase a spark plug in Reno, NV would now be within reach. (This practice of targeting longer phrases to drive traffic is commonly referred to Longtail Marketing)

Search Engine Optimization allows your potential clients to find you.

Another factor that has been responsible for decreased traffic to your website is saturation. The percentage of your competitors with websites has been exponentially increasing. Added to this is the number of competitors who were once called associates. Many companies struggling to survive have added services and products that were once outsourced to companies like your own.

Critical Things You Must Do To Generate Traffic To Your Website

1. Provide Fresh Content - Every time you update your website, the search engines have a reason to come back and visit. With increased visits, you will have more pages from your website listed on the search engines. Quick question, how likely will your website be found if you are only listed once for a given search term? Versus, having 10 or more pages for an equivalent search?
   Contractors and other small businesses that work with a consistent flow of new clients have an easy means of adding multiple pages for a given search. This is accomplished by blogging or discussing a completed job in one or two paragraphs. You can read more about this tactic in the article WordPress Revolution for Small Business Owners.
   To emphasize my point, let’s just say you bought a brand new home. You move in and do nothing! The landscape quickly overgrows, the dirt and debris accumulate and very quickly your new home looks like manure.
   Are you expecting different results with your website?
2. Authority - To gain the status of an authority in any market, there must be others willing to recommend and promote your products and services. Newspaper articles, television appearances, referrals and the likes, help establish you and/or your company as an authority.
In today’s market we can not overlook the authority given by user review (Yelp, Angies List, Google reviews, etc.) and social media site (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Take a moment to look at any local search business listing on Google. Those companies with the most user reviews, consistently rank the highest (are displayed at the top of the list.)
3. Get your site listed!

When working with clients, I have found many to have a pretty website that is showing up on one of the major search engines, but not the others. What about all of those other potential clients that aren’t using the search engine that your website is listed?

And that is just a start! You need to have your company listed in not just the search engines, but social media sites, internet yellow directories, business directories, and with mobile search GPS and local directories.

Why is this important? Imagine for a moment, you have a stunning billboard offering a $100 dollars to anyone that calls. You’d be overwhelmed with phone calls! But is that really true? What if your billboard was on some dusty one lane road in the middle of the Arizona desert?

Same scenario, you now have 50 of the same billboards in all 50 of the top cities in the US (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, …) What do you think your phone traffic will be like now?

Listing your company and website in multiple locations in the internet is like having those 50 billboards!
The downside, is this can be time consuming and expensive to accomplish. I know too well the time it takes to just list in one directory. For me, it takes about 5 minutes per site. And I have all the tools to get it done quickly via copy and paste, etc.

Good news, you can accomplish this yourself with patience and time. Or you can have our construction marketing agency do the work for you for an incredibly low price.
Enough of the self promotion…

Let’s recap: Your website’s traffic is constantly being eroded by increased number of competitors (Saturation)
More importantly, smarter competitors who understand the value and necessity of a holistic approach to on and off line marketing.

3 of the most important things you can do to ensure your website is being found by your potential clients

• Update your site often
• Capture reviews from your clients
• List your website in as many quality locations as possible
  WARNING: If you are selling water heaters, listing your site on a kitchen gadget sales page, won’t get you noticed BUT it will hurt you.

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I will introduce to you a technology that’s easy to use, maintain and gets results! But before we get into the details let me give you a little history.

Gone are the days, when business owners would belly up to the bar and pay a web designer to build a website.

Why? Because pretty websites don’t get you noticed!

The way business advertise and market has radically changed. Yellow pages simply don’t work. Can I hear an Amen, bothers and sisters?

Brochure sites are dead. What do I mean by a “brochure site?”  Most websites built are ones that I consider to be a brochure site. Nice layout, good content and pretty pictures. But like a brochure, it’s rare we redesign our company’s brochures. We see this with our suppliers, some come out with a new catalog annually, while others simply add sales sheets when a new products are added. Keeping their same ole catalog for  multiple years. We only wish the prices would remain that constant.

At least with pricing, you can print in black and white with 100s of line items per page.

The dirty little secret that seems to get no attention is…

Most websites are built by web designers with expensive programs like DreamWeaver and the likes. Any changes you would like to make requires a call back to your web design company. Which always takes time and money.

In the end, we all have heard stories from business owners that have a website and not traffic!

No traffic is a direct result of not providing fresh content for your site. Mind you there are other way’s of driving traffic to your site. PPC(Pay Per Click) advertising, article marketing, social media(FaceBook and Twitter come to mind) and others.

Which brings me to the point of this article…

The WordPress Revolution

WordPress is a widely known in the blogosphere as the number one blogging software.

WordPress has grown from a blogging platform into a fully functional CMS(Content Management System) Briefly, CMS’s separate the presentation from the content of your website. Website pages consist of a design elements such as graphics and layouts(presentation),and content: headlines, paragraphs, links and such. With CMS, you can change the entire look of a website without changing the content. CMS’s are database driven. Information is stored in a database and combined with the template or presentation layer by the CMS.

In contrast, using the services of a web designer and their high-end programs creates individual, static web pages. Each web page is a single file. Adding new pages creates more files. This has been sufficient for small “brochure type sites(< 20 pages.) Remember, brochure sites don’t get you traffic! No traffic = no new clients.

With the rapid transfer of business advertising from traditional methods(print, media, direct, etc.) to web or internet based advertising and marketing. The competition is exponentially greater than it had been even last year.

If you are not constantly updating our website you will be buried by the sandstorm of competitors and websites that do.

WordPress not only allows you to easily make changes, WordPress also allows you to automate the traffic generation to your website.

Why WordPress?

• Easy to update
• Over 8,000 plugins to extend and automate your website
• It’s search engine friendly, out of the box
• Thousands of competent developers, designers and a huge community of active members willing to help
• It’s FREE

WordPress is revolutionizing the way websites are built. With WordPress, you too can easily update and add content to your website. I like to tell my clients, many of whom are contractors who spend the majority of the time working in the field and not on a computer…

If you can type a Word document or send an email, you too can update your website.

Why is this important? When you post new content on your website, it is possible to automate notification to 100’s of websites. But, most importantly, it tells the major search engines(Google, Yahoo, Bing and others) to come back and visit your site because, you have something new to show.

And that my friends is why the brochure type site is dead! If you are not updating your site regularly, the search engines stop visiting. When they stop visiting, your site is destined to disappear into the abyss.

WordPress has revolutionized the internet and the way websites are built. If you would like to learn more about our design services, please visit us SiteDesign.HomeBuildR.net

Did you know that your business is listed on Google Maps?

Did you know that unscrupulous people can hijack you map listing and Steal your customers if you don’t protect your listing? Practically every small business is listed on Google Maps. This is great. Millions of people use Google everyday and they can now use it to search for local businesses. Google has become the digital answer to the printed yellow pages for many consumers. It’s easier, faster, and can provide more information for the consumer and it also offers the merchant a very inexpensive way to promote their business. Among other things, merchants can add photos and videos. It’s almost like getting a free full page ad in the telephone book or a free commercial on TV. Sounds great! The only problem is that it is possible for anybody to hijack your Google Map Business listing if you don’t take the necessary steps to protect it. Look How Easy it is to steal your Google Map Listing For those not familiar with Google Maps, navigate to Google. (You will need to be logged into a Google account to do this) Then pick a business type and city, for example “dog grooming + your city”. Click search and the top ten listings will appear beside a Google Map at the top of the page.  If you are one of these businesses in the top ten search results you are in a very enviable position. These are the businesses that will get the most attention from potential customers. These are the businesses that customers are going to call first or investigate further to learn more about the merchant. And since these businesses are in such an enviable position, these businesses are key targets for sabotage, hijacking, or both. Here’s how the bad guys do it

Go back to your results for the above search “dog grooming + your city”. Pick a listing toward the bottom of the list that doesn’t have an associated website and click on it. To make sure you pick an appropriate listing for this demonstration click on listing that has maps.google.com to the right of it instead of a web url. When you click on the business listing, an info page for the business will launch, if not click on more info. On this info page, right beneath the phone numbers are some links. One of the links says Edit. If you click on the Edit link a new page launches and there is a white balloon with another menu for the type of edits. They are:·          Move marker·          Edit Details·          Remove place·          Flag as inappropriate The malicious editing of any one of these details could severely harm your business. If somebody moved your map place marker customers might not be able to find you. If somebody flagged your listing as inappropriate it could turn into a real nuisance. And if somebody edited your details and changed your phone number or completely remove your business listing from the map, that could be catastrophic. Stealing Your Customers

Let’s say you have a local flower shop. You have an optimized business listing and you are in the top ten search results. Now let’s assume that there is an unscrupulous florist on page 2 of the Google Map listings and nobody is calling him. All he would have to do is click on the Edit Details of your Google Map listing and change your telephone number to his. Customers would think they are calling you, but they would be calling your competition and you would be losing business.  Or a malicious competitor could just remove your listing from the map. To do this, all they would have to do is click on Remove Place and have your listing removed from the map. One might think that nobody would do this because it would be so easy to catch the culprit. After all, if they hijack a listing, there information is now on the listing and they would be easy to catch. But this isn’t the case. Peruse the Google Maps Support Group forum and you will see that this kind of behavior is rampant. So What Can You Do to Protect Yourself

Before answering that question, another question might be why does Google allows this? I can’t really speak for Google but it is my guess that Google allows this to help the public at large. Maybe there is a school or store that is closed or has moved or changed phone numbers. A good person could edit the listing and update the information for to make the map more accurate. Google probably hopes there are more good people than bad people. Google might also permit this editing because it is relatively easy to prevent the problem. All you have to do to prevent somebody from tampering with your business listing on Google Maps is claim your business. Follow the same steps described above to edit your business listing, but instead of editing, click on Claim your Business and follow the steps.  When a business map listing has been claimed, if somebody tries to hijack it they will get a message: “This listing has been claimed in Local Business Center and can only be edited by the owner”. This should prevent most hijackings and other digital vandalism. So if you haven’t claimed your business do it now. Don’t delay. Do it before somebody else claims your business listing and prevents you from claiming it. The consequences of failing to act could be dire. Also, if you claim your business you can take the steps to optimize your Google Map listing so that it appears in the top ten Google Map search results, if it isn’t already there. More information on do this can be found at my website.

Is your Google Map Listing in the top ten search results?It could be. We can help.

Al Remetch
website: http://www.MyMapInfo.com
blog: http://www.MyMapInfo.wordpress.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Al_Remetch
http://EzineArticles.com/?Small-Business-Owners—Is-Somebody-Stealing-Your-Customers?&id=2147798

Here is just a short list of “marketing culprits” that are likely keeping your business from
reaching its full potential:

• Unclear Target Market.
  It absolutely makes my marketing blood boil when I hear “our service can help
  everyone”. How on Earth do you find everyone?

• Confusing, Self-Centered
  Marketing Message. Since the early 1900 marketing geniuses like Claude
  Hopkins have been telling us that shouting “we are the best, come buy from us”
  doesn’t work – no matter how loud you scream! Amazingly, over 90% of all
  marketing materials out there are doing exactly that!
  
• ‘Hop-And-Drop’ Approach.
  Any worthwhile skill takes practice. Yet most small business owners abandon each
  marketing tactic after just one try, without giving themselves a chance to get
  good at it. It’s like a running rabbit – switching direction with every hop!

• On and Off Approach.
  Spending a lot of time and effort on marketing when the business is slow, but
  then giving up on almost all promotional activities when business gains
  momentum!

• Not Preaching To The Choir.
  Most businesses make the mistake of chasing new markets all the time instead of
  maximizing profits using their existing database of current and prospective
  clients.

If you can put a “yes, guilty as charged” checkmark next to any of those statements, chances are you are not profiting from your business as much as you could. To help unleash the extra profits currently hidden in your business or practice here is a simple Six Step Marketing Model.

1. Create a MAP!

You don’t need to kill a tree to create an effective Marketing Action Plan. Simply describe
your target market, their problem, and the benefits your service or product offers. Identify five to ten ways in which you can get visibility and generate new leads. Finally, list all the action steps
you need to take daily, weekly and monthly and assign specific deadlines and outcomes to each step.

2. Craft Your Magnetic
Marketing Message!

Potential clients don’t give a hoot about your titles, awards, and prestigious office location! All they want to know is that you understand their problem and have an effective solution to it. Communicate those two things clearly and new clients will flock to you like bees to honey!

3. Develop Attraction
Tools!

Forget about the self-focused brochures! You need promotional materials that intrigue interest and generate response. Today’s technology allows to easily and inexpensively assemble and distribute information products – like special reports or CDs – that illustrate your capabilities and effortlessly promote your services.

4. Generate Leads.

Getting all the visibility in the world will not do any good if you are not giving your potential client an irresistible reason to contact you. Try and test several marketing messages and media to see what promotional strategies bring in the biggest bang for the buck.

The key here is testing - tweak your approach multiple times before you decide to completely abandon it. What might have been a big flop at first, with a bit of tweaking can turn into a total goldmine!

5. Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up!

Studies show that over 80% of all sales are made on or after five contacts with the prospect. However, more than 80% of follow-up ends after just three attempts! Creating and automating a systematic follow-up process is a must to maximizing your marketing ROI.

Develop a series of 12 to 24 meaningful communications each addressing something of relevance to your prospects and find a way to periodically distribute them to prospects and clients.

6. Learn To Sell!

The thought of selling causes most professionals to cringe. Fact is, effective selling is not about memorizing hundreds of closings tactics or becoming an attack dog that corners prospects into saying “yes”. Instead, study a consultative approach model and become a master of asking powerful questions that compel others to action!

(c) 2004 Adam M. Urbanski

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Urbanski, the Marketing Mentor, helps Independent Service
Professionals and Small Business Owners attract more clients. For more
promotional tips and a FREE 32-page marketing guide go to

http://www.themarketingmentors.com