One of our sites, NetHackz.com, was mentioned on BBC World News!

So what did we do? We started promoting that BBC article through the social media circuit - namely Digg.com.

The result was over 8000 unique visitors coming through BBC to check out NetHackz yesterday alone! It doesn’t take a branding expert to figure out that you can’t buy that kind of promotion.

http://traffickd.com/capitalizing-on-social-media-for-maximum-traffic/

And to learn how to do social media promotion yourself - check out Traffick’d!

To Your Success!

Jason

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Gotta love his hair too!

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The bottom line is this: do something…

It isn’t hard to understand or to follow through on, but there can’t be any excuses…

Step 1 - Brainstorm

Do a quick goal brainstormiing session. Noting complex, just take out a piece of paper, get into the visionary mindset, and start writing for 15 or so minutes.

Step 2 - Define your goals

After you do your goal brainstorming, do the following:

1. Circle the ones you can achieve in less than 6 months
2. Box the goals that you can get to in less than a year
3. Circle and box the ones achievable in 3 years or less.

Step 3 - Make a good version

write out a good copy of your goals with any descriptions accompanying them. The descriptions need to be as detailed as possible, such as “But a house - 4 bedrooms, three baths, finished basement, hardwood floors, big back deck, etc.

The more real your goals are in your head - the more likely you will be able to achieve them. And make sure to date it!

Step 4 - Define action steps

Figure out what next steps need to be taken to achieve your goals. For instance, in the above example of buying a house - the next steps would be:

• Save for a down payment
• Reduce credit card debt
• Find a Realtor
• Find an area you want to live in
• etc.

Step 5 - Schedule something

Put your next actions in your schedule. For example, schedule a couple hours to find a realtor or schedule an automatic transfer from your bank account on payday to a savings account.

Step 6 - Follow through

Make sure you keep good to your schedule. Don’t make excuses on how you will get to it next week or why your schedule doesn’t fit. Remember, it isn’t that you are directly achieving your goal - it’s that you are actively working toward it!

Step 7 - Evaluate, Review and Reschedule

Evaluate what you have done and what you still have to do. Schedule the next step in the process and repeat steps 5 through 7!

Goal Planning At A Glance

Remember, the biggest challenge people have with goals is most of them just seem unachievable. They’re daunting to think about. The reason they are is really very simple - excuses.

People have an excuse for everything. Why they can’t get to something or why they haven’t taken care of a certain problem. The bottom line is excuses are the reason you aren’t where you want to be! The one constant in everyone’s life is time. Bill Gates has just as much of it as you do. Take a minute and think about that… If Bill Gates can make billions in the same amount of time that’s allotted to you, why are there so many differences?

If you don’t take anything else away from this article, remember this:

“Take small steps and anything is possible.”

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Well, today was one of those days…

One of my clients needed work done - as always. I have been trying desperately to get out of the center of Tech Solution for some time now. I’ve needed to put the business on autopilot so I can work on some of my other projects. So, I decided to trust an outside person in helping us out.

Needless to say, today was the day that everything blew up in my face. So, I get stuck coding all day to fill an order that should have been complete weeks ago. And that’s about all there is to it. Two bottles of Diet Pepsi, a pot of coffee, and a few empty pizza boxes…

(And I was doing really well with watching what I was eating.)

So, for you independent and small business owners out there… Make sure you be careful when trusting your work (and your business and your brand) with someone else. I am not saying be paranoid… but be extremely careful.

Unfortunately, for as long and hard as you worked in building your business - it can be run under in a fraction of the time…

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How about this: “I only attend business meetings that will positively affect me or my companies…”

I like that one much better. The rest of these informational meetings will have an invoice attached to them!

–

I feel better. Rant over.

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When starting a new business, many entrepreneurs self-finance. That is, they pay for things out of their own pocket. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but it can cause some difficulties, usually with tracking expenses or income. Sure, you can go back through your bank records, but how do you know what is business and what is personal for that day you deposited your spouse’s paycheck (they have a corporate job — poor fool), and that $50 your friend finally paid you back, AND the check that small client you just did the one job for sent you?

This tip won’t help you with keeping your income records, but it can help with your expenses. First off, the IRS wants to make sure you aren’t deducting regular expenses as business expenses. For this reason, they look harder at small business tax returns, particularly those with Schedule C. Second, if you happen to forget to keep a receipt or jot down a note, you need a way to remind you and your accountant that this was a business expense.

The easy way to kill two birds with one stone? Use that second address field on order forms for your business name. For example, this morning I ordered two memory cards for me and my spouse (who is also my business partner on one of my ventures) for our phones. Why? Because I needed her to do a review of something I wrote up for a client (it was Legal-ish and she is an attorney), but she had trouble because the memory that came with the phone isn’t enough to hold all the stuff and download and edit and keep a copy, and etc., and hold the new stuff. Now, there could be some question to the IRS or my accountant about whether or not this was for personal use. I keep good records, but as an added form of proof, I put the business name on the shipping information. So, now despite using a personal credit card (and collecting more points, thank you very much), I have written proof that it was for the business.

(Another tip, only do this on the “Shipping Information” section, or your credit card company might deny the charge as part of its automated fraud protection)

As an added bonus, if I ever need credit from the supplier and I want it in my business’ name, I can refer them to all the orders I’ve made that have already been for the business. They’ll see the business name on all those orders in their own system. This won’t always work, but it can definitely help, especially if you’ve done a lot of business with them in the past.

There you go. Easiest thing you’ll have to do today.

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I had an interesting experience yesterday. After lunch with a friend, I went back to his company who I have estimated some work for. The estimate that I wrote up went to the marketing director, so I just wanted to see if there was anything else he needed from me. Keep in mind, Tech Solution has helped this company through a couple tech related situations and didn’t expect payment because we knew that sooner or later a big project would come our way.

Well, that time has come. After negotiating the price down twice (taking almost $4,000 off the bottom line), the marketing director said he would get back to me within just a few days. There is no reason why the project shouldn’t get approved, so I started allocating resources (employees) and turning away some of the smaller work, or redirecting it to some of the referral companies I work with. Well, it’s been almost 4 weeks, so I stopped by to see if they needed anything else to move the project along…

When I walked in this guys office, I got a ‘deer in the headlights’ look. I barely said hi before he started saying he has been busy and he would have an answer for me soon. Then, after I left, he proceeded to climb all over his employee (my friend) about how I am a vendor and inexperienced and ‘wet behind the ears’ and on and on.

Guess what. They came to me. They asked me to solve their problems - and I would have loved to have them as a client but I hate bullshit. The client that eats away at time with maybe’s is one you and I don’t want to have.

Tech Solution’s project pipeline just got full - and this guys work isn’t included. I don’t care how much that estimate was. Tech Solution provides web services that help small businesses expand their presence.

The moral of the story is really pretty simple. The world of business is not run by older, complacent executives who are too busy running around barking orders at everyone to realize that the people who live and breathe technology are the ones who will help the company grow. And for as much money as this job is worth, I would rather accept 5 smaller, great clients who I can do direct referral campaigns through.

What about you? Ever had any clients that just pissed you off to the point of no end?

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For those of you not reading MarketingHackz, you have missed out on a very frantic business owner. :0) Frantic because at the start of the week, we launched NetHackz.com which proceeded to succumb to the digg effect and crash only 13 hours into it… 18,800 uniques in a little over a half a day!

The frantic part was that I had to find hosting in a hurry and push all my client’s work aside so that I could get the site moved over to MediaTemple servers.

With that crisis behind us, it’s time to move on to bigger and brighter things!

Originally, I had planned on putting out a new Hackz site every three or so months. But as word traveled around the blogosphere and in my local area that the Hackz network would be expanding into new areas - writers all of a sudden started popping out of the woodwork. I have a tech investment writer (who is funny as shit and makes a ton of cash in tech stocks), a leadership blogger, a computer blogger, and another couple marketing bloggers…

Aside from making me extremely happy, that means I have a lot of work to do to get these sites set up, draw up contracts, and get the whole thing profitable before I start really paying people to write. Not to mention get advertising in place once some of the sites get ranked!

Other than that, things have been going well. Tech Solution is still pretty busy. I have implemented a referral program of sorts where the referrer gets $250 cash when we close a deal, be it web design or Internet marketing. I haven’t done any formal marketing of it, but plan to in the next couple weeks. If any of you are looking to make some quick cash - send some clients my way and you get paid! Just make sure that they mention your name!

By the way, anyone have any thoughts on writing for the Hackz network? You name the topic, and we can probably accommodate you :0)

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Yesterday, I got a call from a college friend who was all excited about his new project. It is a web based application that will ultimately help students establish portfolios, past work, etc for colleges. As he is telling me about all the bells and whistles, I couldn’t help by think - “Yes, but how are you going to make money?”

The bottom line is if you aren’t making money on your project, or mini-business, than how is it going to be sustainable? How are you going to be able to afford to continue dumping time into it?

Here are some things that caught my ear… And what I didn’t like about them.

Standards based coding is for proven applications - not startups

Standards based coding is great, and essential to any web-type business. You want to be as cross-browser compliant as possible, but you can’t sacrifice time in the initial stages of development. This is especially true of one and two person shops that are trying to get out the door and make some money.

Quickest path to cash is always, and will always be, the number one priority.

Web hosting should be done off-site, not in your office

I don’t care if you have all the money in the world - unless you have someone who is extremely well versed in network architecture, you shouldn’t be hosting web servers yourself. Especially in the early stages. I understand that you want your data to be secure and you want maximum uptime - but for all the time that my office Internet connection is down due to bugs running around in Time Warner’s wires I am glad I pay someone to do my hosting.

Government and small business grants won’t come

I have gotten accustomed to not relying on relief from anyone else when it comes to my business’ money. It doesn’t matter how many economic development agencies say they will help - money doesn’t come too readily. And if someone is pushing you to get into a business and you realistically can’t afford it without a grant of some kind - think long and hard about how bad you want to be a small business owner…

Business is about cash. It’s about revenue. And it’s about sustainability.

The rule of the day is this - if what you are doing isn’t directly related to your ‘Quickest path to cash’ then it’s a waste of time. If you find yourself caught up perfecting something that you plan on launching at a later time - STOP IT. In order for you to have a future in business, you need money. Which means you need to figure out how the best way to make it is. Forget that future product launch or future revision if the next one isn’t out the door yet!

With that being said, anyone have any small business grant horror stories? I am particularly jaded when it comes to that issue. I have been working with three different companies who are falling apart - and their angel in the sky is a development agency promising money.. I am seeing these people’s business crumble right before my eyes.

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One of the cardinal rules for bloggers is to never apologize. Well, I am going to break it. I’m sorry for being away for the better part of a month. It’s been a hectic time in my life for a number or reasons, which I am going to go through shortly.

But before I do, I want to mention that JDsBlog is going to be taking a new twist. We have always written about building businesses - but we are taking it to a new level. We are going to do case studies about my businesses (as well as anyone else who wants to share their experiences). We are going to talk about profit margins, hourly rates, hiring employees, economic development agencies and everything else. We won’t be talking about cuddly bullshit that business books would have you believe where everyone wants everyone to succeed… It’s not that way. Business is about profit and sustainability. Not hoping that you will be around in a year.

As far as JDsBlog goes… JDsBlog is returning to its roots - being a personal, business blog. Blogging is about the person - not the concept. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that and I apologize.

So, as far as what I have been up to -

Tech Solution

Tech Solution has been growing at a rate of 2 to 3 times per year. The first year, revenue was $18,000; the second it was about $42,000; and this year… Well this year I am looking at doing $40,000 just this summer. That means Tech Solution is on it’s way to having its first $100,000+ year. Not bad for a business that everyone thought was dead in the water before it was even started.

TS is why I have been away for so long. I have been trying to close deals and train employees.

Employee Training

I would have to say that training employees is almost harder than overcoming all the obstacles in building a business. This is probably one of the reasons that it’s easier to start with a partner - because you have two people that pretty much know what the other does and it’s easier to bring a third and a fourth along into the mix. But when you only have a founder and a new hire - it makes things a little bit difficult.

New TS marketing and brand image

I have been trying to come up with a cohesive marketing campaign for Tech Solution’s Internet marketing side of the business. With this roll-out is coming completely redesigned thank you cards, business cards, presentation folders, and a comprehensive four site Internet presence.

MarketingHackz.com and the Hackz Network

I have spent a lot of time building out the Hackz Network, which presently includes MarketingHackz.com and will soon include NetHackz.com. Also in the pipeline are property investment and stock investment sites. Those will be up towards the end of the summer.

Quick Asides..

I have also delved head first into reading productivity and traditional marketing books. These include Getting Things Done and Gravitational Marketing. I did a full implementation of GTD and love it; but it is taking some getting used to.

Thanks for sticking around

I want to make my final point by thanking all of you 600-700 RSS readers, and anyone who comes by JDsBlog through the search engines for sticking around. My grammar isn’t always the best and my choice of words is a bit convoluted at times - but I guarantee you will build better businesses with the format we are going with from this point out.

No holds barred.

Take no prisoners.

To the point.

Build Better Businesses.

To your success,

Jason

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How many times have you tried to sell a client on something, only to be turned down based on price?

The other day, I had a meeting with a client who wanted some web design done. Frankly, we turn down a lot of the web work we are approached with, simply because it takes to much time to support. There are far too many people who don’t understand how to use a mouse, let alone know what a WYSIWYG editor can do.

This job was different, though. I have a couple new employees that could learn our system by designing this project, so I wanted it for them. Armed with my estimate, I started walking the client through what all they would receive… But the sale was far from over. They started attacking the price.

All of a sudden, I was hit with a barrage of, “XYZ Company will do it for half that and ABC Company is throwing in two hours of search engine optimization.” Really? Nice for them. But as you see in my estimate - total search engine optimization is included.

This, all of a sudden, shifted the focus on what value I added in my offer. Now, I can start talking to them about the benefits of SEO, what the steps in the process are, etc. I can also sell them on maintenance packages, upgrades, and PPC campaign management.

What this value adder did for me was swing the door wide open so that I could cart my shopping basket full of goodies in and peddle them at my leisure. No more price comparisons. No more bargain shopping. Just pure, selling goodness.

PS. Don’t ever reduce your price. If you think you are in a bind, throw something in that will add value!

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Becoming active on others’s blogs in your niche is nothing new and certainly not a new idea when it comes to marketing. But being the 718th commenter or leaving comments like, “Great post!”, just don’t cut it.

The first thing you need to be doing to be a smart commenter is start using Google Alerts. This allows you to get updates from across the web on topics you decide on based on keywords; and you can get them as they happen. Using alerts like these allows you to be frequently first in the commenting on sites. And being first gets you noticed.

If you’re missing the point on why commenting is such a big deal, think about the fact that most blogs give you the opportunity to leave a URL when you comment. Your name, when displayed, will then link back to your site.

Smart Commenting

So now you have you a way to get in first on the comments of blogs in your niche. But again, cheesy comments like the aforementioned won’t do you much good. On a highly trafficked blog, you will see probably 500 of these at least. Commenting is your chance to show others’ readers that you are an authority on the topic also.

Therefore, your comments should be commentary on the topic at hand. This can include opinion, fact, reference to information, additional information not touched on in the post, and more. But it should always be topic oriented.

The Results

Many people, for whatever reason, still do not see the benefit of niche related commenting, so I am going to show you!

I put a WordPress blog about three months ago, did some posting to it for the first two months sporadically, had no ping list, and virtually no other marketing or SEO, and then let it sit. I would get maybe 2-5 visits a day (not new visits, total). I did this to get a base line.

Yesterday I began using Google Alerts and commented on every blog post that came into my email, frequently first. This is the only thing I have done differently. Below you can see the results:

Now I know these results are not great by any means, but all I did was leave 10-15 comments and they weren’t on super, highly trafficked sites. With a little good research, the proper search terms, and hitting the big sites in a niche, just this tactic can have insane results!

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If you’ve been an entreprenuer for more than a year, then you know a little bit about how big of a bite taxes can take out of the unprepared business owner. When you have a regular payroll job, the employer takes care of a lot of taxes for you. In addtition, they handle most of the administrative hassles as well. As an employee all you have to do is fill out a W-4 form and then wait for the payroll department to take out whatever the government asks for based on your number of deductions and claimed withholdings. For the small business owner, things are much more complicated.

First, there is no withholding. You have to pay into the government via quarterly payments. Second, what non-business owners don’t realize is that those taxes they see disappear out out of their paycheck each wee are only half the story. For every 7.5% they take in FICA from an employee paycheck, the employer pays another 7.5%. When you are self-employed, you are on the hook for the whole 15%. Add in Medicare, State, and any local taxes and most business owners turning a profit are looking at a 50% tax hit. Luckily, there are some ways to reduce those taxes.

Remember Only YOU Can Prevent Too Much Taxes

I don’t have a cartoon tax bear to help here, but it’s true. Many entrepreneurs rely entirely on their friendly accountant to handle all things tax for them. While this ensures that you are in compliance with the law, it does not minimize your taxes. Too many business owners make the mistake of assuming that tax planning is nothing more than holding on to your receipts all year and then handing them over to an accountant or plugging them into TurboTax. Don’t make this mistake.

It is up to you to understand your taxes and how to help make them lower. You probably already know the basics, things like recording your mileage and saving receipts from taking clients out to lunch. But, there is much, much more you can be doing.

Plan For Taxes Year Round

Seriously, a 50% tax rate is a nightmare. Bust your butt all year long to build a successful revenue stream just to flush half down the drain. It almost makes you want to go back and work for The Man. You need to be playing this game and dodging the bullets year round.

The first thing you want to understand is your tax responsibility when it comes to quarterly payments. When you worked for The Man, it was taken care of by withholding your taxes from your paycheck according to a table matched up with your W-4. For the business owner the rules are a little bit different. Basically, if you underpay over the course of the year, the IRS will ding you with substantial penalties and interest. After all, it’s no secret the government is not very responsible with those tax dollars. They can’t wait until April 15th next year to get more income. Servicing all of that debt and ongoing spending require massive inflows of cash. They get them by requiring people to in pay all year long.

So, how do you know how much you have to pay over the year? The answer is that you have to pay 85% of whatever your total taxes will be for 2008. See a glitch? In order to know your taxes for 2008 you need to know your reviews and expenses for 2008. Don’t get me wrong, I plan ahead, but I’m not magic. (I’d be in a whole other line of business if I was.) Fortunately, there is a second way. If you pay in 100% of the previous year’s taxes then you are considered “safe” no matter how far off you are on this year’s taxes. This can be a big advantage when your business is growing fast. If you paid $10,000 on $100,000 of revenue last year, and things are going so well that you fully expect to clear $500,000 this year, you are still in the clear as long as you pay $10,000 in 2008. Unfortunately, you can’t just wait until the end of the year either. That’s why your accountant makes you pay quarterly. Quarterly is the lowest allowable frequency.

Theoretically, you could pay in each quarter only the taxes you owe on that quarter’s taxable receipts. Of course, in order to do this you also need to determine that quarter’s tax deductions including breaking up any annual deductions into fourths. Obviously, this is a nightmare for you and your accountant, so unless you have the kind of business that only makes money during the end of the year (Christmas ornament shop) don’t even consider going this route. Instead, the “safe” system is to divide the 100% of last year’s taxes by four, and make equal payments each quarter.

Although the amount you are paying is mostly set, that doesn’t mean you should stop tax planning. Saving receipts is good, but taking it another step will ensure a lower tax bill come next year.

Business Only

A mistake many business owners make is to assume that if they “bought it for the business,” then it is deductible. That is usually true, but there is a catch. You want to make sure that your business purchases are used 100% for your business in the year you buy them. There is a special small business deduction that allows you to take a full write-off all at once during the year you buy equipment instead of depreciating it over time which results in a much lower deduction this year. The catch is that it has to be used 100% for the business during the year it is bought. If your daughter uses that laptop for one week during finals, you’ve lost the ability to take that deduction.

I always get asked, “How can they tell?” Truthfully, they can’t but, it has be reasonable for you to both claim and defend the 100% use. So, if you buy a new computer, don’t load games or let your kids do homework on it. Don’t save recipes or balance your checkbook on it either. In fact, take pictures of your kids and spouse using the OTHER computer so that you have proof. Also, do not throw out or donate your old computer until after the end of the tax year so you can claim that it was the “personal use” computer.

The good news is that after that first year (not 12 months, but through December 31) the item only has to remain 50% used by the business in subsequent years. The catch though, is that it must remain at 50% or more use through the full time it usually takes to depreciate. So if that item normally has a 7-year depreciation schedule, then you have to keep it around for 7 years. Don’t give the IRS ammunition by buying a “business” computer and then two years later writing off the same computer as a donation to charity. Make sure you keep the computer in your business premises until the depreciation period is over, even if you have to stick it in a closet. Remember 50% use doesn’t mean you have to use it 50% of the time, it means that out of the use that it does get, 50% or more must be for business. So, if you turn it on to make sure it still works during business hours in your office and then put it back in the closet for the rest of the year it was still 100% used for business if no one else used it.

Mileage

You can deduct more than just driving to and from a client. Driving to the office supply store, taking equipment in to be serviced, attending trainings, and more can all be used as milage deduction. The rule is that you must have a “contemporaneous” record. That means you have to write it down as it happens. Keep a notebook, or buy one of those special mileage records, in your car. Write down the starting and ending mileage of EACH LEG of the trip. That is write the starting and end TO milage and the starting and ending FROM mileage. You can fudge this, but make it as ironclad as possible and there will be no reason to look any further should someone come knocking. I tell my clients to switch pens and ink colors each quarter when they pay their quarterly taxes and once or twice more than that if they think of it. Nothing looks more contemporaneous than writing in several inks and pencil. Your accountant can’t add to this record at the end of the year even if he discovers something, so they probably won’t even bother to say anything. It’s your job to keep the record all year.

Charity

Your business can deduct donations to charity just like you can. It is sometimes possible to deduct services performed for charity. In my writing business at ArcticLlama, I build up ties in the community by doing grant writing and other services for non-profit organizations. In order to have a chance to deduct it, you must keep track of it like a paying job. Set an hourly rate that you are donating (something in the middle of your usual rates is safest), and then keep track of the hours. If you use any materials or resources you usually charge for, include those as well. When the project is finished create an invoice. You don’t need to send it to them, just keep it for your records. Most non-profits will send you a thank you letter. Keep that with the invoice as proof that you provided the services described. Also, make sure you can produce other invoices for paying clients that contain similar charges and rates to back up your deductions. If you never charge anyone else for faxing, don’t try and write off faxing for your charity project.

Research

There are many more opportunities for year-round tax planning. Call your tax advisor now, if you have one. Now that April 15 is past, they have much more time for planning with you. If you don’t use a tax professional, go to the web site of the computer program you use, or look for books that discuss tax planning. If possible, try and get something specific to your type of business. What may be very deductible for one kind of business may be very risky or flat out illegal for another business to claim, so it pays to be specific. Avoid books with silly titles like “Pay No Taxes Ever” or “Super Secret Tax Strategies”. These books are for the unsophisticated person who wants something splashy. You don’t want splashy, you want solid. “Tax Planning for Architects,” sounds more like what you are after.

Follow the year round planning doctrine, and come December or January, your accountant will have a lot more ammunition to fight the tax dragon. You’ll thank me when you pay less next year.

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What’s your offer? Every business has one. What will you give me in return for my hard earned money? What kind of value can I expect?

Over the last few weeks, I have been delving into the books pretty heavily. The two I just finished are The Irresistible Offer and Gravitational Marketing. Truthfully, they should be read back to back.

The reason is simple: They both preach having an offer that a customer can’t turn down. Something so powerful that your have people begging for you to sell to them. Keep in mind, you can’t run scams - you need quality products or services that back up these incredible offers. But in order to entice a customer or a client, you need to make them see the benefit in as little time as possible.

The Sensational Offer

Here’s an example. The quintessential offer, which is often referred to as the best ever, is Domino’s, “30 minutes or your money back!”

This does a number of things. It ensures fast food. It provides value for your money. And best yet, it give you a guarantee.

Now think about this offer - “The best New York Pizza in town!”

Which is the better sales statement? Which can you almost taste before you even pick up the phone?

Don’t Waste Time

One time, a friend was pitching a business idea. It was something he was deeply passionate about (and very well educated in). He had one problem, he had no value proposition. He didn’t have an offer.

As the business was being started, he asked me to sit down with him and go over some of his plans. So I asked, what is it you are going to do? Give me you best elevator pitch.

45 minutes later, he finished his story.

Seriously, who is going to buy from this guy? I want to know what I am buying, what it’s going to do for me, and how much it’s going to cost in 3 seconds or less.

Everything has an Offer

So, where can you use this? What can you affix your sensational offer to?

My answer to you… Everything! You can give away and sell ebooks with this offer. You can use it to drive product or service sales. You can use it to make new friends. In reality, everything is an offer! The quicker you master it, the better off you’ll be…

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But so many people do press releases wrong.

They see a big blank sheet of paper and think they need to fill it up with information about their business. They take the opportunity to write about what their company has been up to and what they believe in - but seriously, who cares?

The media doesn’t care. Bloggers don’t care. They care about the next big thing. They are all scrambling to deliver some new twist on an already noteworthy topic. That’s how they put food on the table at home.

Take the newest movie release, “Iron Man.” Do you have a process or a product that can be tied to it?

I know that you’re thinking. “My company doesn’t build flying space suits or crazy jet packs.” And my answer is - it doesn’t have to.

I bet your company does do something relevant though. You might do some of the filming techniques used in the movie. Or maybe your specialty is the special effects in the blockbuster or the design work for the posters.

To win at press releases you need to tell a story. You have to tell clients how you are going to solve their problems. It isn’t 600 words about you and 100 about your solution; it’s 700 words about your solution that tease them in finding out more.

[via MarketingHackz]

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Set a Realistic Pricing Goal

The first and most important approach to setting a right price is setting a pricing goal that is justifiable by the customers. We all want to make and sell products that are low in operating costs but earns higher return on investment (ROI). It certainly would be nice to sell a product that costs us only $50.00 but sells for $100.00 giving us a profit of $50.00, but this is unrealistic in most cases.

We need to set a realistic goal at the very beginning by analyzing the customers that we are trying to reach. If our target market is middle class and we are developing product whose price range is more suited for the higher class, it most probably wont earn you much return on your investment. Analyze your market and see what is realistic. Will this price be seen as reasonable by customers? Is it the right price for this product? If I were to walk in a store would I be willing to buy this product at this price? Does the price justify the products actual value? These are some of the question that will help you set a realistic pricing goal to start out with.

Analyze Demand, Cost and Profits

Another very crucial step is to analyze the demand of a product, costs associated with it and whats in it for you. Lately ebay seems to be all the rage for making money. Most people fail to realize that although ebay has a wide market, not every product has high demand. If you purchase something for 100 dollars without analyzing the demand within that market or category you might not even get what you paid for. A product might be one of kind, pioneering and extremely useful but if its not in demand it wont do you any good.

For the price to be right you have to see how the market acts upon products similar to yours. Is it something that is widely desired? Is it a necessity? Are your costs low enough to earn you any profit? These are some questions to think about before jumping into setting a price for a product or service. Pricing on a product or service can substantially boost your sales or dump your business down the drain.

Choose a Pricing Strategy

Lets analyze two types of price strategy that most businesses seem to apply,

Price Skimming or Market Plus : This pricing strategy is mostly suitable for businesses that are already established. Businesses that have been able to gain recognition from consumers with their past products are more likely to use this kind of strategy in setting up a price.

Price Skipping or Market Plus is a pricing strategy where a business sets the price of their products relatively higher during the roll out phase. The key aspect of this pricing strategy is to lower the price as time passes by so as to compete with others. This strategy allows firms and businesses to recover its sunk cost quickly. As said earlier this might not be an option for every business.

Penetration Pricing : I am personally all for Penetration Pricing. This pricing strategy is usually implemented by most businesses, both large and small. The key is to set the price of your products and services relatively low during the introduction phase. This allows the business to tap into the market quickly and beat their competitors when it comes to pricing.

Although penetration pricing is very effective as it helps you compete directly in terms of pricing, it doesnt always yield benefits as expected. One of the biggest drawback of this kind of pricing strategy is lower profit margin. Since the key is to start out product sales at a lower price than what the market is currently running at, it is sometimes hard to make a profit. However, with clear planning this pricing strategy can yield great benefits and profits in the long run.

Analyzing the Entire Process

If you are a writer what do you do once you are done writing an article? You proofread! The same rule applies when setting a price for a product as well. Most businesses fail to realize that pricing is one of the key component of running a successful business. Just knowing your operation cost and desired profit alone does not lead to a perfect pricing. A perfect pricing includes future planning, market study and everything else related to the business.

Once the price for a product is set, the key is to go back and analyze. I can bet you will find some loopholes while you go through the entire process.

This post is by no means comprehensive when it comes to setting a right price. We will try and explore more as we go along. Meanwhile, please share what your strategy is in setting a price for your products or services?

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If you’ve seen people on an ice rink with brooms sweeping in front of a moving disc-thing, that is curling. Basically, curling is like shuffleboard, only after one person on the team pushes off the disc, other team members can influence it’s direction and speed by using brooms to change the structure of the ice in front of the disc. (I don’t know anything else about it, so don’t ask.) By sweeping more on the right, the disc will trend over to the right because the ice is smoother and easier to glide over. Sweeping more makes the disc go faster and so on. The key is that once the disc has been released, no one can touch it, all you can do is influence its path.

In order to implement effective reverse cold calling you have to make the ice silky smooth all the way to your business. Then, those new clients will just slide right on up to you.

Referrals

So, how do we make the ice smooth for this process?

In traditional marketing, you ask current clients for referrals. This is more effective than many other strategies but it does have some potential problems. First, many clients will feel put on the spot by your question. This ends up making them blank out on people that might be good referrals. Second, people don’t like to make decisions for other people, even their friends. So, just because Bob thinks you are the greatest guy since Abe Lincoln doesn’t mean that he wants to make that determination for his good friend Frank, who may or may not think the same about you or the service you provide. The harder you push on something like this, the more it seems like you care more about your next client than you do about your current one.

The easiest referral happens when Bob is at a Barbecue with Frank and Frank says, “Man, I love your deck, who built it?” Bob will be more than happy to recommend you at this point. However, if you sit around waiting for this to happen your business will build very slowly. A slightly harder referral is for Bob to be at Frank’s house and say “You know, you could have an awesome deck out here. I know a great guy.” Even harder is for Bob to just pipe up at lunch, “Hey, Frank do you need a deck?”

In order to sweep the ice you need to give Bob all the tools he needs, plus put the idea in his mind that he can and should be telling his friends and coworkers about you.

Reverse Cold Calling Plan

The first step to making all that ice sweeping effective is to evaluate where someone will be pushing off a disc. You will eventually try to turn all of your clients into people who market for you, but you should start where you have the best odds. The best clients to start with will be those who have big networks of their own and tend to be social. You can tell by how your client is with you. Did he tell you all about his business and his hobbies the first time you met? Does he routinely tell you about his weekend or friends. Does he ever try to market to you? Jackpot! If Bob sits in a chair in your office and says something like “Your rug looks a little worn. I have a friend who…,” then you have found your man.

Now that you have the right person it’s time to give him the right tools. Forget business cards. Have you ever stashed away 5 business cards from someone else to give out to others? Even if you did, what are the odds that you had them when it actually came up? All you need is to make sure that Bob has ONE of your cards, the one he keeps. He’ll write down, or email the info to the next person. The tool Bob does need is something easy to remember you by.

Your web site is best: www.awesomedecks.com is really easy to relay to someone during a conversation and really easy to remember. No one has to write down anything.

Some key tips on your web site:

• Always have the .com address. You can have the others too if you want, but when someone recalls a web site from memory they will almost always try .com. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me why “del.icio.us DOT COM” doesn’t work! If your web site does not have .com make sure you really emphasize that with Bob. “Bob, just remember it’s DOT NET. Tons of people screw up and go to DOT COM. So remember, DOT NET sounds more like DOT DECK.”
• Next, make absolutely sure that your homepage is friendly to someone who has never heard of you before. Don’t make your homepage all about current clients with a button over on the side somewhere that says “Are You a New Customer” Also, skip the flash, the animations, and anything else you think is clever. Someone, somewhere, blocks that stuff, whether with NoScript, or disabled by the company IT department. Only really web savvy people will look at your site and go, “Oh, it uses something that is being blocked.” Everyone else will think it is just broken, or dumb. And if you can’t even get your web site right, how will you get their business right?

A web site is good, but it isn’t enough. Your great-aunt isn’t so web savvy, neither is that one cousin. You need another way to remember your business so they can call later. A simple name seems like it might be easy to remember but it isn’t as good as you think. Tom’s Decks is simple. The problem is that if Bob tells Frank about Tom’s Decks, and later Frank meets a guy named Bill, he might remember Bill’s Decks.

Simple is good, but distinctive is necessary too. My professional writing business is ArcticLlama, LLC. You don’t have to remember the LLC to find me, so no problem there, and llama is unusual enough to trigger a memory, so is arctic. The two together are truly odd, but not so odd that someone will think bad about it. (”Die Skate Punks”, is memorable but probably not the kind of thing that inspires confidence in your grandmother.) Llama can be a little tough becuase of the two “L”s, but it is also the kind of thing people will think that they just misspelled so they’ll keep looking. If you misspell on purpose, “Amy’s Krafts,” they might give up when they can’t find you unless you really emphasized this to your clients, “Krafts with a K.”

Now Put Out the Honey

If your business info can be passed on and remembered during a conversation that is good, but you still have to make the conversation happen. For that we turn to go old fashioned bribery. Tell your clients that you are expanding your business again. Always say “again”. This makes it sound like you aren’t always expanding your business, and also that you have done it before. Both things inspire confidence and make it a little more urgent (after all you might not be expanding your business later.) Then, tell you client that for this expansion, you are doing a special deal. You will give your current client 10% off his next order, or baseball tickets, or a free hat (or somethings else as long as it is worthwhile) for each person that calls and mentions how he heard about you. Also, and this is the key, mention that the new client will also get the discount or gift if it’s in the next couple of months.

Be vague about how long. You want to make sure that there is some urgency (”only a couple of months”) but you don’t want it to come up after a little while and it seem too late (”it was four months ago and he said a couple of months, so it would probably be ok”).

The goal is, that with a good incentive, Bob will actively look for opportunities to mention you instead of waiting for them to come up. That means he will mention your business a lot more. Even if that doesn’t translate into more customers now, it does make Bob someone that knows a good provider. So, when down the road Frank’s wife mentions how nice it would be to have a deck, Frank will remember that Bob knows a good deck business and he will ask about it. Then your phone will ring. Welcome to reverse cold calling.

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So here are 5 great microblog practices that every microblogger should be using. These apply to any and all that microblog, whether you are simply giving play by play announcements of your day (you would be amazed at the number of followers Twitter accounts like this have) or you are using it like some airline companies and updating customers with real-time information.

5 Top Microblog Practices

1. Add your Pownce feed to your Tumblr account so you only have to post once. Pownce outputs an RSS feed and Tumblr allows for direct RSS submission. And use Twitterfeed.com to add it to your Twitter account. Twitterfeed.com allows you to auto post to Twitter from an RSS feed.

2. Use Tools to find friends and followers. There are two other applications that I really like that will help you expand your network: Twubble - which looks at your friends friends and recommends other people you could follow. Twits Like Me - which looks at your updates and finds other people talking about the same thing. Find others like you and follow them. You can find both of these tools at www.WebWorkerDaily.com.

3. TwitThis: Let others use their Twitter accounts to spread the word about you. With this handy little tool they can share what they find on your site with an automatically created short url and their own description right from your blog posts. Find it at: http://twitthis.com/

4. Stay on Top of Your Twitter: I recommend using Twhirl, found at www.twhirl.com. Twhirl creates widget like plugin for your desktop. You can update and configure various items, and monitor multiple accounts at the same time from Twitter without your browser. You can also update your Pownce account directly from Twhirl simultaneously.

5. And Last but Not Least: Remember to reciprocate the follow. Try to follow others that are following you. It simply builds good repoire.

If you arent microblogging yet, you should be. Its fun, easy, quick, painless, and best of all it is a great way to socialize with customers in ways never before possible. And customers across the world are eating it up!

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Title: The Game-Changer
Authors: A.G. Lafley & Ram Charan
Publisher: Crown Business (2008)

Bingo!!!

You know that IBM commercial where they play buzzword bingo before they go into the innovation meeting? If not…watch the ad here. Go ahead. I’ll give you a minute. Done? Good.

That’s pretty much what it felt like to read The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation by A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan. Lafley is the CEO of Procter & Gamble. You should already know what P&G is…but basically it is a giant company that makes everyday use products (like Swiffer, Thermacare, Mr. Clean, Tide, Herbal Essence, etc…). It is a massive company with 2007 revenues over $76 BILLION and 138,000 employees world wide. Living in Cincinnati, it also, in the spirit of full disclosure, employs my father-in-law, a lot of family friends, and hopefully my wife in a few years!

A.J. Lafley has done a lot to turn around P&G in a pretty short period of time. The company lost it’s way for a little while and Lafley came in and fixed it all. He says he did it mostly through innovation, hence the book.

In the book he tells a lot of really interesting stories about the myriad of brands P&G has (including 23 billion-dollar brands). He (and uber-consultant Charan) explain their many methods of innovation and how to implement innovation process into your company. They also have a few reminders at the end of each chapter where they give you things to think about “Monday Morning”. All that is fine and interesting. Certainly, the P&G CEO is someone to listen to reagarding business practices.

The problem is that the book is filled with so many business buzzwords it becomes distracting. From what I understand, P&G is famous for their buzzword usage…and this book is no different. Lines like:

Regular business strategy and brand equity reviews that focus on innovation as the competitive advantage and game-changer

and “sustaining organic growth.” I understand what he is saying. Context clues and all that jazz. But I just hate business buzzwords. It seems so pretentious.

Putting aside the fact that it could have been written more clearly, the book was pretty interesting and had some excellent tips on creating innovation in your company.

Plus it gets bonus points because it is Cincinnati related. I cheered whenever he mentioned Cincinnati…like what people do at rock concerts when the band says, “HOW ARE YOU DOING CINCINNATI!!!!” Everyone goes…”YEAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” That’s what I did.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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If this were a business course on campus that I was teaching, I would spend the entire first week on the first point. At the end of that week, I would have a test. That test would be worth 50% of your grade, because it is so important and it is where most people fail in real life. Ready? Here it is: Networking is not a quick way to get new business.

Exam 1 (Pass/Fail only, no partial credit):

1) Is Networking a quick way to get new business?

2) If you need 3 new clients by Friday is Networking a good way to get these clients?

3) If you want to measure your Networking success using any metric is one month or less a good time frame to use?

If you answered Yes to any of the above questions, re-read the highlighted sentence above the exam. Do not keep reading until you can pass the exam with a 100% score.

Networking Spam

If you look at it the right way, you’ll find that almost every interaction between people has “spam.” Let’s take a look at networking spam. Rodney is a new sales professional. He has recently been promoted and is eager to prove himself. After reading some of the big-name, highly recommended, sales books, he decides to try networking. Rodney attends the local Chamber of Commerce event. At the event, Rodney goes up to everyone. He shakes their hand, asks them what they do, then tells them what he does. Then, he hands them a business card and gets their business card and moves on to the next person. Over the next week, Rodney calls everyone he met at the meeting and says, “Hi, we met at the Chamber of Commerce…blah, blah, blah. Is there anything I can do for you right now?” Rodney doesn’t get any new clients. Not only that, but for those people who remember Rodney, they add him to their internal spam filter and if they see him coming next week, they’ll make sure and move away. Rodney tells anyone who will listen that networking doesn’t work.

So, if networking is so great, why didn’t Rodney get any clients? Because, he never took this class, or he dropped out after failing Exam 1. Rodney is not networking. What Rodney is doing is List Building by collecting information in person. This is not networking. The phone calls he is making are cold calls based on the list he built.

Now that we understand what Networking Spam looks like we can move on to what good Networking looks like.

Networking = Making Friends

Recently, I wrote about some reservations I had about using Twitter. My biggest hangup was not completely understanding their concept of “Friends.” Let’s review. You already have friends. If you think about it you actually have several kinds of friends. You have some friends who would fly down to South America to bail you out of jail, and you would do the same for them. For some people, if you aren’t like this, then you are not “friends.” This will obviously make your Twitter list very small, and make Twitter not very fun or useful.

For our purposes you are going to have to broaden the definition. You have friends at work that you have never done anything outside of work events with. They are still friends, they just aren’t close friends. For our purposes, “friends” means anyone that you like (and who likes you) well enough that you would save them a seat at a conference that you both were attending and they would want that seat, because you would like to sit together, not because it is the socially polite thing to do. Notice in the example above, nobody will want that seat next to Rodney.

So, with the above definition in mind, networking is nothing more than making friends on purpose. If you think back, you’ll notice that most of your friends you made by accident. They went to your high school, they lived in your dorm, they worked for the same company, they were friends of Bob and Sue. In networking we are going to remove the accident factor. Instead, we’ll be intentionally making friends. This is why networking is not fast. Every once and a while you will make an instant friend, but usually it takes some time.

How to Make Friends (a.k.a. How to Network)

In order to make friends and network you have to meet people. Since we’ll be making friends on purpose, we should put some effort into making the most beneficial friends we can. This is where attending Chamber of Commerce meetings comes in. If business owners and managers are the kinds of people who would be useful friends to have then the Chamber of Commerce is a good place to start. Attending a Chamber event is easy. When you get there, think about making friends, not networking. Imagine that you are going on a trip into space and the event you are at is with the other people who will be making the trip. In other words, if you want to have any friends once you get into space, these are the people who will have to be your friends. There is no need to talk to everyone here. After all, if these people are the kinds of people you want as friends, this won’t be the only time you come to one of these events. There is no urgency, and especially no desperation. How would you feel if a total stranger showed up at your 10 year reunion and begged to be your friend? Don’t be that guy.

Mingle by going up to people who aren’t currently talking to other people. This way, you aren’t interrupting. Say something like, “Hi, I’m Brad,” and offer your hand. They’ll shake your hand and tell you there name. Then say something like, “This is my first one of these. Are they always so <whatever>…” If it’s their first one too, then you have something in common. Go from there. If not, they’ll tell you something about themselves while answering your question. Go from there. No sales, no business cards, no nothing. After a while excuse yourself by saying, “Well, I don’t want to keep you all night…” and move off to someone else. If someone happens to come up while you are talking with Brad, he’ll introduce you to that person, and now you’ve met two people with only one effort.

Remember names first, everything else second. A helpful way to remember names is to repeat it back to the person out loud. “This is Joe.” “Hi, Joe, I’m Dave.” Then, SILENTLY in your own head associate their name with their most noticable characteristic. “Big Nose, Joe.” “Pregnant, Sally.” “Three-eyed, James.” Meet as many people as you feel is natural, but set a goal of at least 7. That way you won’t be tempted to skip out after just meeting two people.

Ignore advice to write down everything you find out. Do write down names and companies but only do this after you leave the event. While you are sitting in your car is good as long as there aren’t tons of people walking by wondering what you are doing in your car creepily writing. Don’t be tempted to be the “super memory” guy. It is actually unnerving for someone you barely know to ask “How is your wife, Sally doing? And little James and Becky? James just had a birthday, didn’t he?” This doesn’t make you a good networker, it makes you that guy from the Robin Williams movie where he is the photo developer obsessed with that family