Help Customers Buy WordPress blog now on HostGator

Problems in my blog at Yahoo! complicated getting a current backup. That’s history now. However, moving from one hosting company to another is not for the faint hearted. There were lots of lessons along the way. For one, once you do upload your blog database onto the new host, your password and login are from the old host, not whatever login and password you set up when you installed the new WordPress blog on your new hosting company. Another lesson learned today from Michael Wa at HostGator is that if you don’t have the same theme installed on your new host’s blog installation, you’ll get a white screen.

I’m grateful to Yahoo! for a couple years of hosting my website and this blog. If you want a standard website, I think Yahoo! is a good hosting company. However, if you want a WordPress blog on your own hosted site, as opposed to the free ones, then I encourage you to look into HostGator or someone else who plays nice with WordPress. If you do want to look into HostGator, please check out my HostGator Affiliate Link.

There are several problems in my experience with running WordPress on Yahoo! One of them is that Yahoo’s server security is so tight that you can’t use a permalinks plugin without it causing serious problems. I learned that a little over a week ago. You have to stick with the Yahoo Permalinks plugin. Once I learned that I finally figured out why I couldn’t change the custom permalink to give just the name of the article posted. It always insisted on the date then the name.

Should you be looking to change your website or blog hosting company, I believe HostGator shines as a host for WordPress blogs. I have severely tested their Live Chat online support during the past couple of weeks. HostGator must hire their support people because they love digging into problems and solving them. I’m thrilled with how persistent and courteous they were. Several even apologized for keeping me waiting while they researched and tried different things to fix my upload problems with a backup off another host. I hope you can understand why I eagerly became a HostGator affiliate. It’s easy to get excited about recommending service like that.

Just like your email inbox, spammers attack blog sites too.

How to spot spam comments

Interestingly, it’s easy. First, look at what spammers who put comments on blogs do. While some are obvious, the challenging calls about whether or not it’s spam come from the spammers who play to our egos by telling us how great we are and how much they love our posts.

Typical tactics are to say something like, “I love your post so much. I’ve bookmarked it and will be back often.” Sunday I got an email notice that I have “A new comment to approve” or throw out. The comment was “Very useful website. Hope it will continually be alive!”

Now if you got a post like this wouldn’t your feel a bit proud? Wouldn’t you be tempted to leave it up for everyone in the world to see how good you are? The problem is, comments like this are not compliments. They are clever attempts to manipulate the blogger into posting their comments so that their websites will show up on yours. By using a generic compliment they can have software automatically post the comment without ever reading the site themselves.

Why do people put up comments that are spam?

They do this for a couple reasons, such as wanting people to see their website URL and click on it. Their other intent is for the search engines to find the link back to their sites so as to give them a better placement in organic searches.

To connect through a comment, add value

If you really want to become part of the Internet community by joining a discussion, give a sincere compliment or even a sincere objection. You do this by actually adding to the specific discussion in that post or by explaining what it is you liked – and why.

When I comment, sometimes I agree. For instance, I might describe how it applied to my experience. Sometimes I expand on the other writer’s idea by taking it further or giving a slightly different viewpoint. I might even politely disagree. This isn’t the place to vent your anger or rant as you’ll lose from other readers, a lesson I had to learn when I allowed some article to punch one of my buttons.

The point of this is, avoid looking like a spammer by giving specific feedback that demonstrates you actually read the article. Add a comment to explain what you liked or didn’t like. Aim to contribute to a discussion. You’ll then be involved in the Internet community and participating in social networking. I find it fun to connect with people this way. I think you will too when you find someone you respect.

For some examples of how I apply what I’ve described here, check out my Comments on these blog posts: Judith & Jim’s “Soft Sell Marketing Misconceptions – A Dime a Dozen”

and Bob Poole’s “We All Want To Be Respected – Then We’ll Trust.”

Are you hearing what I'm meaning?

It seems with Internet marketing there is always something to learn. Earlier this week I got another of those lessons. I was feeling really good about finishing my 8th lesson of the 9 lessons I’m giving people who join my community by opting onto mailing list. Then I noticed that not everyone on my list had received all of the lessons. And some lessons seemed to be missing – bummer.

So I started to make up the missing lessons. In the course of trying to create an autoresponder campaign to ensure this wouldn’t happen again, I discovered my error. I forgot that MailChimp sets up campaigns and autoresponder emails under separate tabs. Other than when the get sent, everything about setting up an autoresponder email and a campaign email is the same. I found that most of my lessons I had, in fact, already set up on the autoresponder, having only missed #7.

The lesson – double check your terminology

So what was the lesson here? It was a reminder of the problem with communications that all salespeople and marketers experience with customers: terminology. We often use terms, expressions, and words to mean slightly different things. This is why it’s so important to ask how people mean what they just said and to periodically during the conversation repeat back in your own words what you heard or read.

In this Internet marketing experience of mine today, I learned that MailChimp uses “Campaign” for what others call blast or broadcast. I actually like MailChimp’s term better than “blast,” which has a very war-like and unfriendly sound. To me, campaign applied to any marketing effort so I thought it covered both emails sent out “all at once” and autoresponder emails, which go out individually based on time since some event, like joining my community. I have no problem with MailChimp’s use of campaign to mean a broadcast to everyone. It merely meant a learning curve for me and a lesson I hope to recall the next time I decide to send an email to my community.

So while email marketing terminology tripped me up briefly, it was a great reminder of the importance of making the effort to be sure we are communicating in our marketplaces. Words and phrases have different meanings depending on our experiences. Salespeople have it slightly easier than marketers because they can ask their prospects what they meant and state it back to ensure they understand each other correctly. Marketers will have to take the extra step of contacting customers and prospects to talk with them to see if their product or service messages are coming across as what they mean for them to say. The effort is worth is it because you will find you’ve improved the level of trust with your potential customers. And trust means long term relationships, helping customers buy, and enjoying sales as fun, fulfilling, and mutually rewarding.

Slater’s 50/50 added this picture Sunday, January 10, 2010 to their Facebook fan page

Although many Internet marketers recommend making your blog the hub of your Internet marketing, I know of no brick and mortar companies that would go that far. Nevertheless, maintaining a blog is one of the most powerful tools you can use to promote your business. After all, a static website merely gives you an address. Now you need to attract visitors. Probably the most popular dream of most businesses with websites is to find themselves on the first page of the generic search for their most important keywords because it costs them nothing.

Frequent updates get you better placement in generic search results

To do that, though, takes effort and understanding how search engines rank websites. One of the primary things search engines want to find is frequent updates. Due to the nature of blogs which typically get new articles posted to them weekly or even daily in some cases, the search engines return more frequently to blogs to check on updates. Additionally, blogs are easy to add to or to fix while websites often take a webmaster to make changes. Besides, once uploaded, most people forget about their websites so the sites never get updated.

Slater’s 50/50 blog is presently just another unchanging page

Continuing to use Slater’s 50/50 to demonstrate a real business, in this article, I’m looking at their blog. As Scott Slater is a very sharp marketer, I’m surprised to find his current blog is simply a place holder which he does with a “Blog” tab on the nav bar (navigation bar). Unfortunately, the blog appears to be ignored. I suspect it’s because this page doesn’t link to true blogging software. If they install blog software, like the free WordPress.org, on their site, it will be easy to upload posts. Then by including the blog on their Sitemap, the search engines will find it and index it as part of the Slater’s 50/50 website.

Plugins and apps enable your blog to update Twitter and Facebook

Admittedly blogs take a effort to maintain with frequent posts. However, for a restaurant that is otherwise very savvy about Internet marketing, it seems a glaring missed opportunity. Particularly since Slater’s 50/50 uses Twitter and a Facebook fan page, they could use the blog as the originator of their posts. This is how it becomes the hub for their Internet marketing. Interestingly, you can also send your Twitter post further by sending them to LinkedIn and other social networking connection sites. The advantage to you, or to Slater’s 50/50, from using a blog to post your updates is that the blog affects your site’s search engine rankings while Twitter and Facebook do not.

As the hub to your Internet marketing efforts, you build your community while improving your search engine rankings

Once you set everything up, using your blog as the hub for your Internet marketing increases your marketing effectiveness with little or no extra effort. For instance, instead of posting directly to Twitter or Facebook, Slater’s 50/50 could post to their blog, which, thanks to plugins and apps, could do the posting to Twitter and Facebook or even to other sites. In this way, posts do double duty resulting with better positions in the organic (not paid) search results for their most important keywords and keep their followers and fans tied in automatically.

Have your say

Please comment with any additional ideas you have for how to make a blog more effective. Or, I’d also love to hear your success stories with blogging.

Search engines spiders look at what you don’t see behind the pictures on your website.

What you don’t see on the website still affects you

Although the first impression is critical when it comes to websites, there’s more to an effective website than meets the eye. For marketing purposes, what you don’t see can have a major impact on the ability of your site to be found by people who want the products and services you provide. It would be like locating your business on a busy highway then erecting a wall between your company and the road so nobody could see it as you drove by.

So what can you do to help your website be found? This critique will focus on Internet marketing. Typically, good graphic designers lack the marketing background to maximize the effectiveness of your site for you.

Obviously there are a lot of Internet marketing activities you can do to have your website found, including pay-per-click advertising and social networking. You can also use traditional marketing, such as mailing postcards and purchasing newspaper inserts. This article focuses instead on the things you can do in your website design to become more attractive to the Internet search engines.

Meta tags and alternate text

Although it takes a programmer or web designer to explain the differences and purposes of meta tags versus alternate text, from a marketing viewpoint, the important thing is that these are areas visible in the source code of your website that the search engine’s software, called spiders because they “crawl” the “web” looking for information they need to catalog the sites on the Internet.

Some of the things which the spiders see that we normally don’t are the following:

• Title: This one does show up in the tab for that page in your browser as well as what the search engines display in organic searches.
• Body Title: Seems to be the same as body title in my WordPress blog theme
• Meta Title: This is a more detailed title for the search engines. If your software posts a meta title, it supersedes the Title on search engine organic searches.
• Meta Description: This shows up in your source code as meta name=”Description.” Google displayed this from a website for their result in the organic search though it did not use it for my blog post when it showed up. Nevertheless, it uses this information when ranking your page.
• Categories: This is used in blogs and some other programs. Categories are more universal groupings, like “restaurants.”
• Keywords (also called tags in some programs, like WordPress blogs – keywords show up in your site’s website as meta name=”Keywords”):
o These are the main words that people would search on to find your page, like “gourmet hamburger, gourmet burger, design your own burger, 50/50 burger, 50/50, Anaheim restaurants, Anaheim gourmet burger, sports bar”
• Alternate text or alt text for pictures: Use this to label the picture for the search engines and for people whose Internet connection is slow at loading graphics and pictures.
• Captions for pictures: While picture captions will typically appear below the picture in blogs and on web pages, they are additional content that needs to reinforce the theme of that page.

Keywords

Here are some main points to remember about keywords:
• Be sure to include keywords in the meta information on your web page.
o This is one of the few areas that Slater’s seems to have missed as I found no keywords in the Landing Page or the Home Page.
o Search engines look for keywords to help rank the site for organic searches, i.e. those searches that you do not pay for, as opposed to pay-per-click where you do pay to show up.
• Content keywords: The search engines look for a match between the content and the keywords so your keywords need to show up in your documents.
• For more impact, strive to get your main keywords into the document title.
o I usually make sure I have some keyword or keyword phrase at the start of my meta title if it did not fit into the page title that I want readers to see.
• Use keywords in your alt text or, at least, in your captions for pictures

Alternate text missing for Slater’s Home page images collage

This screen print is for the picture I used at the top of this article from Slater’s 50/50’s Home Page.

There is no alternate text for the images collage on Slater’s 50/50 Home page.

Note that there is no “Alternate text” here. When you put pictures on your website, it’s important to use alternate text for at least two reasons:
1. Search engines can’t yet read pictures and graphics. They read the alternate text instead. Used properly the alternate text will contain keywords to reinforce your content and improving your organic search ranking.
2. If people visiting your site are looking at the text only display or if they have a slow connection, what they will see instead of a picture is the alternate text.

The lack of alternate text with the pictures on pages I checked is another of the few examples where Slater’s 50/50 fails to take full advantage of Internet marketing secrets.

Web design skills and marketing copywriting need to be a team for best results

Developing a website takes two skills to get the most from it. The first is website design. This designer has the first impact on whether visitors stay to read your headlines and content or click off immediately. The second skill is Internet marketing. It requires an understanding of keywords and copywriting but also the hidden side of a web page. A significant amount of the marketing impact is made behind the scenes with meta tags and alternate text as well as with using keywords to match your content and, vice versa, including these keywords in your content. The benefit of this effort comes when you turn up on the first few pages in organic searches. This saves you the money needed otherwise to show up using pay-per-click advertising.

To keep updated on my latest posts and activities, please Follow me on Twitter.

Slater’s 50/550 landing page provides three gateways into the site.

Do you remember the last time you met someone and took an instant like or dislike to them? Have you ever bought a book because your first impression was so strongly positive? Regardless of what decisions you’ve made based on first impressions, we all do it. In sales and marketing, it’s long been known that we make our first impression on a prospect in the first 20 seconds. If it’s not positive, we may never get to make a second impression.

First impressions are more critical in Internet marketing than they are in business because people can click off your site and onto another almost instantly. In fact, research shows that you have 1/20th of a second to make that first impression. Nobody makes a decision that fast on the content. The first impression your website makes depends all on the appearance, which includes pictures, white space, and graphics. I personally find examples help me understand concepts better so I’m going to analyze Slater’s 50/50’s website to show how this works. With his website, Scott Slater continues to demonstrate a good understanding of marketing. For my purposes, it’s instructive that he misses a few more subtle points, which I’ll mention as we go along. Overall, Slater’s 50/50’s is a good example of what a small business can do to promote itself.

Strong first impression graphically

Their landing page (the page where you first enter the site) comes before you get to their Home page. This is different from most websites. I find it is both positive and negative.

What I like about it is that the landing page loads fast. He uses this instead of a flash video as the gateway to Slater’s 50/50 website. It loads immediately (compared to flash video landing pages); plus it has good graphics and lots of white space. Thus, it serves up a strong positive initial impression based on appearance.

Slater’s 50/50 landing page lets you choose area you are interested in viewing.

Slater’s makes clever use of pictures to link to the area the visitor wants to see:
1. Restaurant
2. Order Now
3. Sports Bar

Headlines and content are the basis for staying longer

It’s in the second area where people make the decision to stay or leave, content, that this landing page shows up weak. As there is no content on this page, it might cost them some visitors. Nevertheless, people are largely visual so I feel the lack of content works all right on this page because the pictures and underlined words make it obvious to anyone used to the Internet that they can choose where they want to go. And two of the three choices have good, simple content. The third one is obviously an order form or shopping cart.

The downside to no content on the landing page

There are, however, two other considerations here. They provide a definite downside to having no content on the landing page. First, the search engines rank pages using content or written descriptions and discussions. Thus, I suspect this landing page adversely affects the site’s page rank in generic searches. The second issue is that I could find no alternate text on the pictures. If someone is surfing the web without graphics capability – and some people still do, they will see nothing where the pictures are. Additionally, if you are using dial up, alternate text shows while the pictures are loading. Finally, the search engines see nothing where the pictures are. For these reasons, when you load pictures onto your website or your blog, it’s wise to invest the time to fill in the Alternate Text.

Slater’s 50/50 has a really attractive website that is proving popular and contributing to their business. I suspect that they are not losing any visitors due to lack of content on their landing page because the overall look is so clean and attractive and because the three pictures provide links to pages the images present. On the other hand, search engines “crawl” the Internet reading the content on web pages. Also, those people who do not use pictures so as to get better speed would see nothing due to the lack of alternate text to represent replace the pictures.

What do you think?

Because this is such an attractive and interesting site, I’m going to continue my analysis by discussing other aspects of Internet marketing with your website later this week. Please come back to read my next post. If you follow me on Twitter, you will be able to also tell when I’ve posted again. I would also like your comments on whether you agree or disagree with what I’ve presented here.

Communicating back and forth is part of what builds a community.

The first time I heard about the concept of viral marketing was in Malcolm Gladwell’s fascinating book, The Tipping Point. He described the elements necessary for a product to take off and catch the public’s imagination like a virus. The impression I got was that while you can know what elements are necessary, you can’t guarantee that you can get the mix right when you deliberately try to make a product go viral.

The marketer’s dream is to have a product go viral.

This remains true about social networking. Some things are so well done that they capture the imagination of a few people who are influencers, and those people spread the word. If they’re respected and their followers or audience agrees, they too tell their friends. Suddenly your product or service goes viral. At least that is every marketer’s dream.

What you have to say should be entertaining or informative. Though important, video is not the key. Slater’s 50/50 is an example of a business doing well in its first months thanks to raving fans who use the Internet to tell others about their restaurant. Most of us get excited when someone has made it possible for us to have a fantastic experience. That’s what’s essential for most people to talk up your business to their community. Implied in my statement is that you need exceptional products and service. A clever new idea helps.

People love to give their opinions and are doing so eagerly.

Never before in the history of the world has it been possible for the average person to state his or her opinion and be able to reach literally millions of people with their opinion. But some very observant people have created thriving businesses on the Internet thanks to the desire of people to share their opinions and to connect with others, to create communities. In this case, the keys to Scott Slater unusually well established goes in large measure to several of those Internet companies.

Thanks to Yelp reviewers, Slater’s 50/50 develops lots of loyal fans

I asked Scott Slater yesterday what he did to get people started reviewing his restaurant on Yelp. Other than participating in the Yelp OC Bacon Elite event held in Orange County California, Slater said that people just started reviewing Slater’s 50/50. It caught on and spread like wild fire.

Four powerful social networking activities

While my other articles admire his marketing skills in general, Slater pulls ahead of others in his use of social networking to make people aware of his business. Social media enables him to break into the public’s awareness with little capital invested, a real boon thanks to the Internet.
a.    User review sites
The powerful thing about user review sites is that people voluntarily describe their personal experiences with the merchant, in this case, a restaurant. A wise business person will review the comments to see what’s working and what needs adjusting. To show you how effective these sites can be, as of Thursday, December 24, 2009, Yelp shows 152 reviews giving Slater’s an overall 4 star rating out of five possible. Urbanspoon has 157 votes with 85% liking Slater’s 50/50.
b.    Facebook
Slater’s also using a Facebook Fans Page with 621 fans (as of December 24, 2009) who get updates on promotions and specials, like his announcement today, “Need a last minute gift? Come in today, Christmas Eve, and get that special someone a Slater’s 50/50 gift certificate at 10% off!” One fan wrote me that she likes reading about these specials.
c.    Twitter
From the looks of Slater’s posts on both Twitter and his Facebook Fan Page, he has them linked so that he can efficiently post to Twitter and have it show up on Facebook. This is a smart way to maximize your time and reach friend and followers, everyone connected with you with less effort. I personally have Twitter updates also go to my LinkedIn account.
d.    Restaurant.com coupons
This is an online coupon service that several people mentioned being the reason they tried Slater’s 50/50, though many of them had first come across the restaurant at the Yelp OC Bacon Elite event.

The social networking landscape changes by the minute. No one I know can keep up with it. However, you can pick one, two or three sites to monitor and contribute to on a regular basis. While nobody can force something to go viral, you can, however, use social networking to give yourself a stronger position in the marketplace. Like Scott Slater, pay attention to your customer’s comments on sites like Yelp and UrbanSpoon.com, use Twitter to update your followers as well as link it to your Facebook account or page. Finally, if you’re a restaurant or a merchant, consider the value of putting coupons or discounted gift certificates on a site like Restaurant.com. When you help people get to know, like and trust you, selling becomes fun, fulfilling and mutually rewarding.

This is the fourth in a series of seven articles looking at how a real business combines both standard or more traditional marketing and Internet marketing with social networking to get a strong launch. Please check out my earlier posts and watch for the final two.

If the motivation is strong enough, the sales dog will learn new tricks.

People Once Considered Too Old to Learn New Skills Are Excelling at Internet Marketing

However valid that once was, in Internet marketing the leaders I like to follow are within five to ten years of my age. In some cases, like Judith & Jim, I know how old they are because they’ve told us. I turned 62 in June, by the way. I don’t recall how old Cathy Perkins, the WordPress Wizard, is; but I know from things she’s said she’s done that she’s around my age, maybe a little younger. Alex Mandossian, from what I know of him, fits in this group as do Jeff Herring, the Article Guy, and Tom Justin. One of the women in Soft Sell Marketers Association has told us she’s 74 and just getting a handle on Internet marketing.

While Alex has been at Internet marketing the longest of this group, most of them have come into Internet marketing in the past four to five years. Although I had a website seven ago, I didn’t have any traffic because I didn’t know how to get it. I’ve only been actively pursuing (reading, listening, learning about then applying) Internet marketing for two and a half years. This past year, thanks to instruction from all of the above people and so many more, I finally started to make money at this business.

How I Determined I’m “Old”

By the way, I’m using two standards to establish that I’m “old” for purposes of this article. First off, I’m finally old enough to collect Social Security, albeit the early retirement version. I always believed that that retirement meant “old.” And secondly, as a kid, my grandfather seemed “old.” As I have the pleasure of being a grandfather twice over thanks to Ian and Courtney, I rest my case. While I’m committed to lifelong learning, it’s obvious I’m not alone.

Curiosity &Motivation Trump Age on Whether Too Old to Learn New Tricks

The important factors are, therefore, not chronological age, i.e. how many birthdays you’ve had, but rather how curious you are and how strong your motivation to learn is. Do you feel you have a mission you still want to accomplish before you cross through the veil? Or does the thought of atrophying on the couch watching daytime television just curdle the juices in your stomach? Or do you just want to prove that you can still amass a fortune if you work smarter and harder? Whatever it takes, find something to inspire and motivate you. I assure you, you’ll continue to learn throughout your life. And you’ll have a richer life in more ways than money alone can ever give you.

Are You Still Young Enough to Learn How to Make the Internet Work for You?

So, you can teach old sales and marketing dogs new tricks. You just need to find the right treats to inspire them to make the effort. If you’ve found your own motivation and now want to learn how to create your own online business, I encourage you to check out Judith & Jim and Tom Justin’s outstanding course, First Step Internet Marketing . It’s organized for learning and is incredibly complete with step-by-step instruction on everything you need to know, as they say, “to go from your first step to your first dollar.” May your sales be fun, fulfilling and mutually rewarding.

I Love Giving Testimonials for Outstanding Service

There’s a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Ask for a Testimonial

Charles H. Green got me thinking the other day about the right way and the wrong way to ask for testimonials. He was actually talking about how to do customer service surveys but his point applies to asking for testimonials as well. In Trust-Based Selling, Green wrote, “It’s manipulative to ask customers point blank if you have given them excellent service; it is embarrassing, self-serving, and highly self-oriented.” (p. 201) Having been on the receiving end of just such a manipulation seven years ago when I bought a new car, I agree completely with Green.

Bribes and Guilt Trips Can Backfire

The interesting thing is that the sales rep’s effort to control my survey backfired. I got quietly furious about their attempted bribe, a free initial tuneup in exchange for giving them an outstanding report card – whether they had earned one or not. The manufacturer eventually had a customer service rep do a telephonefollow up. I dumped my frustration on her. Need I say that this dealership practiced hard sell techniques rather than soft sell?

So How Does a Heart-based, Soft Sell Salesperson Ask for Testimonials?

The reason I’m writing about this is because it relates also to requesting referrals and testimonials. One of the criticisms Charles Green made of these on-the-spot pleas for outstanding customer service ratings is that they are totally self-serving instead of being customer focused. So how does a heart-based, soft sell salesperson get testimonials?

Earn the Right by Caring for the Customer’s Concerns First then Produce the Desire Results

I think it’s a bit of a tightrope walk to do it right without losing the trust you worked so hard to develop. First, you need to be sensitive to your customers’ degree of comfort with you and with your sincere efforts at putting their interests first. I listen too to their comments. If they are really excited about what I have done for them, then I ask if they would mind my putting it in writing for their review and editting then they can it back to me with their approval to use. The point is, everyone knows I’m a salesperson. The key to heart-based, soft sell sales lies in which has priority, my prospects’ challenges and desires or my profit. Assuming I have earned their trust and delivered what they need, I have found customers very willing to give me a testimonial.

After You Delivered What They Desired Then Ask

So, skip manipulating your customers into giving you an outstanding on your customer service report card, if you want to retain their trust. On the other hand, truly outstanding service warrants an outstanding report card. The same is true for testimonials. Follow the practices of heart-based, soft sell sales and marketing. Listen to their needs first. Even if it isn’t your product this time that they need, tell the truth. Help them out. Show by actions, not words, that you care. Then you can in all integrity ask permission to use what they told you about how thrilled they are as a testimonial.

Dave’s Testimonial Describes What He’s Gotten from MY Opt-In Bonus

Speaking of which, I just posted a testimonial from a member of my community. You’ll find it right below “Search” and “Invitation to Opt-in for Free Subscription.” Dave’s comments appear as “Testimonial for Bonus ‘9 Steps to Finding Prospects’.” I’m excited and grateful to Dave for stating that he’s gotten the very benefits from this course that I hope all my community members get who read it. I invite you too to sign up for this bonus.

A Rule of Thumb Can Be a Lie Because It Is Misleading

When running ads, in magazines and newspapers, you would normally expect to run for seven days or seven monthly issues and get seven impressions. Wrong. Perhaps because my first sales job when I left the Air Force was in radio advertising, I immediately got a different slant on the seven impressions. Someone has to hear your spot or see — and actually notice — your ad for it to count as an impression. So immediately one has a challenge getting seven impressions.

How many people do you know who actually read every article and every ad in every issue for seven issues. That means that they might notice your ad every third or fourth one.

The other issue is that it needs to be frequent enough that the last impression hasn’t faded from memory. This is why in Internet marketing, the experts tend to email the members of their lists from once or twice a week to six or seven times a week. The objective, especially for soft sell salespeople and soft sell marketers is to maintain the connection.

So the hidden lie about seven impressions in advertising is a lie of omission. Being a rule of thumb, the novice would expect that seven ads or seven emails should start to produce sales. In reality, it’s more involved.
• First off, your reader must have a need and the ability to buy now.
• Secondly, your prospect has to have noticed the article or email, radio spot or podcast for it to make an impression.

Those of us who follow soft sell sales and marketing are comfortable with this. We build and maintain our relationship with the people on our lists, giving them value and striving to attract their interest every time. Because we work with them to know, like and trust us, we know they will buy when it’s right for them. When you help customers buy — whether it’s seven impressions or seventeen or seventy — you get so much more than just a commission or profit. You have a connection that makes selling fun, fulfilling, and mutually rewarding.

P.S. To ensure that you get every article as soon as I post it, sign up for my free RSS feed here or by clicking on the tiny orange with white waves RSS Icon at the top right corner of my page banner. Thank you in advance.

Affiliate sales can come 24 hours a day; like rain, they come unexpectedly.

This is a way to add a sales organization of commission-only salespeople! Affiliate marketing offers a solution that small manufacturers are looking for. How do you get sales help when your average sale is so small that you can’t attract an independent rep, and you’re too small to afford a sales team of your own? Turn to Internet marketing and specifically to affiliate marketing.

Initially, I thought of affiliate marketing was only for digital products. After all, Clickbank specializes in digital product sales. Also, the first money I earned on the Internet came as a result of promoting First Step Internet Marketing to my friends and business associates. However, as I thought about it, I saw that the system to do affiliate marketing applies wonderfully to any manufacturer and to any small business.

As I looked deeper, I found affiliate programs selling products like Sony electronics, Dell computers, and other tangible products — just look at the variety Amazon sells. The beauty of it is that if you have a shopping cart program, like 1ShoppingCart (http://tinyurl.com/mxcl3x), that offers affiliate marketing, it’s fairly easy to set up and manage. Yes, you will have things to learn to do it right, and you will have to develop your network. The upside is that once you put it in place, it works for you 24 hours a day every day of the year. It becomes one more tool in your sales and marketing bag.

Small businesses need to add customers, especially small manufacturers. The challenge is how to do so with the most efficient use of your time. I believe in Internet marketing because of its ability to target you ideal customer. And one of the most powerful Internet marketing tools is affiliate marketing. It offers an ideal sales option for small businesses, especially small manufacturers. You reward people for letting them know about your products and services, no matter how small the individual sale because the effort is minimal and the sales are ongoing — and you pay only for a sale, not for every click. Try it. I think you’ll like it.

Speaking of things to learn about affiliate marketing, I’m thrilled to be able to offer a free Affiliate Training session by Judith Sherven & Jim Sniechowski and Tom Justin on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 6:00 PM PST. If you’re interested but can’t attend, register anyway so that you can get the free download to listen to later.

Even Chicago's immense business district is tiny compared to the Internet marketplace

For instance, in October 2008, Netcraft reported 182,226,259 sites from their web server survey. That number has surged to 235,890,526 sites in their May 2009 survey. Given that volume of competition for attention, I would say that the odds of being “found” by chance are slim to none. You need to actively market your business like you would any “brick and mortar” business, i.e. a company with a physical storefront or office space.

Avoid panicking at these numbers. Only a fraction of that number provides competition to you. Instead use this information to motivate yourself to actively market your business.

The great news is that at no time in history has it been easier for a small business to reach people looking specifically for the products and services it sells. Internet marketing makes niche sales incredibly effective. Additionally, the associated tools ideally suit a soft sell marketer and soft sell salesperson because they enable you to build a community of people interested in what you have to offer, people who can come to know, like, and trust you. Then, based on your relationship with them, they will come to buy from you or to buy from companies you recommend.

Here are some points to consider:
• Read my other blog posts first about identifying your ideal customer profile then figuring out their problems or desires and their wants and needs — as they see them. Write out your benefits based on your prospects’ concerns.
• Revise your website to speak to their interests.
o My favorite marketing cliché is that “nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
o In other words, stop bragging about how great you are. It’s irrelevant until they become interested in what you are saying to address their problems or desires.
• Develop an Internet marketing campaign with social networking.
o Be sure that your website has a place to sign up for your ezine (electronic newsletter) — provide a free bonus when someone opts-in, i.e. signs up for your mailing list.
o Post a comment on someone else’s blog when they write about a topic you can contribute to.
o Answer a question posted on a forum that you find relevant to your business.
o Create your own newsletter
o Create a blog of your own
o Submit articles to Ezine Articles or other article directories where people can reprint your articles in exchange for including your author’s resource box.
o Post videos to YouTube.com or other video sites
o Add them also to your website and/or blog
o Post audio to your website and/or blog too or to an audio directory like PodBean.com
• Use physical marketing to support your Internet marketing, like your business cards and postcards,.

No matter how gorgeous your website, it’s only an address on an overcrowded virtual marketplace. Proactive marketing like the ideas above enable you to attract people looking for what you offer. These soft sell sales & marketing activities enable you to develop trust by showing that you care about their challenges and dreams. You are giving them a taste for what you can do to help them. And when they are ready, you help customers buy through guiding them and by describing the benefits instead of manipulating and pressuring.

Sign up for my free article on soft sell sales techniques, “Easier Sales: 7 Steps to Winning Customers.” We care about your privacy so we will not sell or give out your email address to others.

Seth Godin’s blog today asked, “Why aren’t you (really) good at graphic design?” He makes an important point for anyone in sales and marketing and anyone in Internet marketing. You can’t afford to be anything less than really good at design. Everyone these days wants to cut expenses as much as possible so businesses do most of their design in-house. And it shows. One of the reasons I love my blog site and put so much more attention on it than I do on my website is that thanks to themes I feel I have an attractive blog, which allows me to focus on the content. My website needs design help. I admit it. But it’s up. And the content is customer-focused.

Like so most small businesses I know, I’m doing what I can to control expenses and grow my consulting/coaching/speaking practice to reach the point where I have the budget to use professionals on the areas where their skills will have maximum impact.

But Seth’s article reminded me of the simple tips I received in high school from a corporate newsletter photographer about how to frame a picture with the objects in the scene. These suggestions have given me a lifetime of pleasure as I look for the best angle, the most photographically interesting viewpoint. But even at that sometimes a picture is just a picture, shot to record the event and the people present.

So while you are growing your small business or practice to the point that a professional designer makes sense, check out Seth’s blog post and then also look at his article on Squidoo, “Become a really good graphic designer” for resources on design. A few tips will greatly improve the quality of your own work, making it look more professional. And it should help you when you are ready to recognize exceptional professional work from people who have no design sense – and perhaps more damaging to your business’s goals, no marketing sense.

P.S. Seth Godin is the best selling author of ten books on marketing. He has a unique perspective that challenges how we normally see things – which when it comes to sales and marketing is crucial to differentiating ourselves.

Yet, I’ve been puzzling over using them myself. In fact, I have one set up on my Smart Money Websites site. After all, they apparently work. Despite that, something has bothered me about them. I teach that a salesperson should help the customer buy through selling as a service. Sales can be done without controlling prospects, manipulating them or pressuring them. I’ve done it throughout my career. This approach makes for better relationships after the sale if you follow through.

So what is the problem? Why the quandary? It’s because few things in life are really black and white. After all, even when using a soft sell approach to sales – or selling as a spiritual service, you need to do the same things that a hard sell sales person must, like prospecting, qualifying, presenting, quoting, closing – which I think of as confirming the order, and follow up. The difference is in attitude and in how they approach the prospect. My question was how to apply these values to my newsletter sign up.

I can’t begin to describe how thrilled I was when I read Judith & Jim’s blog post “Soft Sell Squeeze Pages? A Contradiction?” They shed light on my inner turmoil. They stated the issue clearly. It comes down to power, “their intention is to assure that choice will be obedience to their command,” versus respect.

And yes, the attitude behind your use of the squeeze pages will determine your approach. If you come from the position of service and respect for your prospect, you’ll use invitation pages instead and do away with any effort to pressure. An interesting point here is that how we treat others has a major impact on how we view ourselves. I can tell you that 17 years ago when I cut my dealer out of a sale because I believed it was the only way to get the order, I lost his respect. Worse, I lost my own. And I’ve lived with that regret for all this time.

This means that it really is possible to invite someone to join your mailing list without squeezing them. By giving them the freedom to choose, you show that you care about your relationship with them, a better way to develop trust than to start by manipulating.

May your sales (and marketing) be fun and mutually rewarding!

NOTE: I tried to post this article a couple weeks ago but it never showed up so I’m submitting it again.

Because I find podcasts so helpful, it came as a shock when I read something on Paul Colligan’s Business of Podcasting and New Media blog post, 1/28/09, “Podcasting Is Dead?” http://www.paulcolligan.com/. Apparently some authorities claim podcasting is dead. Yet Paul showed a Google Trends graph that clearly indicates an incredible interest level in podcasts compared to social media, new media, and online media. Obviously the public still thinks podcasts are vital and important. You can find my comment at http://www.paulcolligan.com/2009/01/28/podcasting-is-dead/#comments.

What do you thinK about podcasts? What do you like or not like about them?

I have four reasons for loving Thanksgiving so:
* I love turkey and in my family I usually get it only on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
* Our family gathers together to share time and food and to celebrate our blessings.
* The pressure of getting the right gifts or enough gifts is still a month off.
* Most of all, I love putting my attention on the good things, the blessings of the year. It helps me feel
upbeat.

Particularly this year when the media is filled with scary news from the financial industry and government topped by news of natural disasters affecting so many people, it may seem especially hard to be grateful. The interesting thing is that life is filled with both good and bad, always.

When I was dating Dorothy almost 20 years ago, I was fired from a job where I thought I had at least six months more to go to get results in. I learned the hard way that, for sales people, employment contracts don’t mean much if your numbers aren’t there.

Dorothy taught me about reframing my experience, which means she showed me how to change the way I looked at something. For the first time in my life, we celebrated my getting fired. As she said, this made space for me to find a better opportunity. And it did, though the new experience wasn’t always an obvious gift. One thing that came out of that event is it gave me empathy with my employees when, in future jobs, I found it necessary to let them go. Not everybody makes a good fit on your team.

So as I reflect back on an exciting and challenging year, I find I have many lessons and blessings to be grateful for.

Most of all, I am grateful for a loving family. Even though many of them are spread out around the United States, the bond of love still connects us.

I’ve come to terms with having Type 2 Diabetes. This has encouraged me to make changes in diet and activity that will result in a healthier lifestyle, like my hour walks four times a week – when I get to listen to podcasts from some really great individuals.

But the blessings go beyond family and my health to friends and business associates. In particular, I want to thank Bob Williams and his team of consultants at CMTC (Dennis Trusty, Paula Bahamón, Jon Trusty, and Ron Wilsbach) for the jobs they subcontracted to me this past year. This work has enabled me to pursue research and product development, especially on Internet marketing and social networking.

I also want to thank the CMTC clients I had the pleasure of helping with sales and marketing. Their challenges enabled me to grow and expand my knowledge as well as to define my thinking on how to train sales people to sell in a way that “Helps Customers Buy.”

I had a great learning experience and made many new friends who share a love for transformational training and coaching at the Master Trainer Camp in May. It’s not often that a business conference becomes truly life changing. As a result of what I learned there, I have made many changes including replacing my primary business name John Aberle Consulting with HelpCustomersBuy.com so to put emphasis on my approach to sales and marketing. Following the camp, DeBorah Beatty helped me refine my “elevator speech.” We also enjoyed several discussions about social networking and Internet marketing. There are so many people that I have special memories of, from speakers to participants. I don’t have room here to thank them all.

As you celebrate Thanksgiving, assuming you are American, focus on your reasons to be thankful. I think you will find that your heart opens, and you feel happier.

So, regardless of what country you live in, Happy Thanksgiving!

John