Before you get all defensive, let me explain.

In a typical sales process a sales rep finds a lead, they ask a few qualifying questions and they start the pitch.

The problem is that the sales rep does not know what the prospect actually cares about yet.

Have you ever listened to someone pitch you a service or product and they start talking about things that are of no interest to you at all? We have all been there. What do you hear when they are talking about features or benefits that are of no interest to you? “Blah, blah, blah.” You tune out the sales pitch and start thinking to yourself about what questions you can ask to get the conversation back onto a relevant path.

We have been taught over the years that sales is a one way process. Someone is interested in your product or service so you talk as fast as you can to cover all of the features and benefits, and then you hope they give you a buying sign to pounce on. The problem with this approach is that you have no idea what is important to the prospect. If you start to tell them about features and benefits before you know if they are interested in those feature and benefits then you run a huge risk of becoming a “blah, blah, blah” talking head.

The key to a great sales process is listening

Your job is to get to the bottom of what a prospect really needs. The only way to do that is by asking great open-ended questions that allow the prospect to talk and you to listen. A few of my favorite topics to ask a prospect about are: business history, how they make money, how the business has changed in the last year, who else they have worked with, their business goals, what internal resources they have, their target demographic, etc. These topics alone will fill up most of a sales call and should give you a great sense of whether or not your product/services would help them.

So does all of this mean you don’t pitch your prospects? No, of course not. It does mean your pitch needs to be customized to address the prospect’s specific needs. You can still focus on differentiators, but by the time you get to the presentation you should know what they need and if you have what it is they need. Frankly, if you do a good enough job listening, you might find they do not actually need you. That is huge! It saves you time and the prospect grief.

If you have done your job right, you should get through the survey of the prospect and be able to say, “Based on what you told me, I see a couple of options (explain the options a bit). Based on your specific needs of (insert what they told you here), I would recommend option #1. What do you think?” Now it is simply a matter of overcoming objections.

When you really listen and try to understand a prospect’s situation and needs, you are able to help them identify the perfect solution. That means you don’t have to give a pitch ever again. Now you can simply provide a solution to their problem as they see it.

Stop Searching for Loopholes and Shortcuts

If your strategy still consists of link wheels, fake profiles on high-PR sites, comment spam with anchor text linking back to your site, spun content and too-good-to-be-true fiverr purchases, please stop. Assuming your site hasn’t already suffered repercussions, Google’s ban hammer is no doubt on its way.

 
Instead, focus on creating quality content and a positive user experience. This, in turn, will lead to an increase in social signals, natural inbound links and a lift to your SEO efforts as a whole.

Develop Content Strategy

Simply writing a bland article or throwing up a wall of text is no longer enough. You must strategize and present your content in a way that engages your visitors.

Write Winning Titles

Approximately 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is known as the 80/20 rule of headlines. The better the headline, the better chance you have of getting your content both read and distributed via social media.

Make it count!

Your headline shouldn’t be an afterthought; write your headline before your article to better define its focus.

Make Content Easily Shareable

Visitors should never have to struggle to find a way to share your content. I recommend including social sharing buttons both at the beginning and at the end of your pages/articles. ▲

Tools: ShareThis | AddThis

Choose Common Wording

An example Matt Cutts gave back in April is to not write “Mt. Everest Height,” but instead “How high is Mt. Everest?” because that’s how people typically type search queries. Writing this way helps ensure on-page relevancy and boosts the amount of organic traffic received from long-tail keywords.

Keep Important Content Visible

In other words, don’t bury the important elements of your page at the end of your content, in tiny or illegible text, or in otherwise hard-to-see places. It’s not a treasure hunt. As much as possible, try to keep the most important components of your content visible and above the fold (the part of the page that can be seen without having to scroll down).

Write for People, Not Search Engines

Don’t overdo it with keyword optimization. It’s perfectly fine to include (some) targeted and long-tail keywords throughout your content, but they should never feel forced or out of place. If your visitors can tell something reads awkwardly, so can Google.

Build Internal Links

Within your articles, link to other related content on your site whenever it makes sense to do so. The easiest way to do this is by linking to previous articles you have written in the past. This reminds Google that your older content is still relevant.

Allow Yourself Ample Writing Time

99% of people who write articles on a regular basis no doubt burn out on occasion, but it’s important to allow yourself enough time to not only write a quality piece of content, but make it pretty as well (details below).

Why Aesthetics Matter

Design is important. You may still gain traction with an ugly site if you have amazing content, but imagine how much more you could achieve if in addition to that amazing content you also had a beautiful design.

In fact, good design can lead to the improvement of many factors. It can:

• Increase time on site
• Increase pageviews
• Increase the likelihood visitors will share you content
• Lower bounce rate
• Lead to more signups, sales and leads

I urge you to spend the time and resources necessary to develop a winning design.

Use Optimal Content Column Width

The width of your content column (not your entire website, but where the content goes) plays a big role in the success of your content. People tend to prefer shorter line lengths when reading online content because it feels more organized and easy to understand.

You will find much debate about the “ideal width,” but I typically recommend anywhere from 550 to 650 pixels depending on the type of site. News outlets tend to keep their width as small as 450 to 500 pixels, but for sites that plan on using a lot of supplemental images, 550 pixels really is the minimum. Here are several sites’ approximate content column widths:

• Digital Aptitude: 590 pixels
• SEOmoz: 630 pixels
• Search Engine Land: 615 pixels
• ESPN: 580 pixels

Use Bigger Fonts

People should never have to strain or zoom in to read your text. Too many people still use size 11 and 12 fonts; this is a HUGE (or small, if you want to get technical) mistake. Aim for font sizes of 13-16 instead. Not only will it improve usability, it will likely lead to an increase in conversions. Also check that your line-height is set high enough to adequately space each line of text.

Use Headings

HTML Headings are defined with <h1> to <h6> tags, with <h1> being the most important heading and <h6> being the least important heading. The <h1> tag should always be the title of your article/content and used only once per page.

Use Images

Articles on the web aren’t meant to read like novels. Break things up with relevant and/or funny pictures whenever possible. Don’t forget to use alt/title tags!

Use Paragraphs

If you find this to be common sense, tell that to the millions of sites that still haven’t gotten the memo. This falls in line with the “wall of text” reference made at the beginning of this article. Please remember to use paragraphs. Most people—myself included—are quick to give up on reading articles where every paragraph is excessively long. Lists help, too. People love bulleted lists. They’re concise, easy to read and aesthetically appealing. Use them!

 
Take a good look at your site. Does your site implement these practices?

Questions? Comments? Tips of your own? Sound off below.

Don’t get me wrong: being an entrepreneur can be extremely rewarding. I absolutely love the work I do, I’m excited to come to the office every day and I’m more proud of the work we do now than I’ve ever been working for somebody else.

They say that entrepreneurship is like a rollercoaster: one day you’re at the top, the next day you’re at the bottom. One day you sign a great client, the next day you lose a great client. So, what do you do when things aren’t going the way you want?

Ask for Help

In my early days as an entrepreneur, when people asked me how the business was, my answer was always “great!”, whether we were doing great or not. We do this because we want people to perceive us as successful. After all, who likes doing business with a company that is struggling?

But the reality is that all companies struggled at one point or another. Even the most successful ones.

When you’re struggling, the worst thing you can do is try to deal with it by yourself. I’m not suggesting you should blog or tweet about how much you’re struggling, but take a few business owners you trust out for lunch and tell them what’s going on. Ask them for feedback and advice. Not only will they guide you in the right direction, but they’ll also help you understand that what you’re going through is absolutely normal, the price of being in business.

Dealing with struggles solo is not being a hero, it’s being proud and arrogant.

Remind Yourself Why You’re Doing It

One day I was feeling like “F**k this, I’m done with this BS!” I was ready to quit. A friend of mine helped me realize I had lost touch with my purpose. In other words, I forgot why I was doing it in the first place. If money is your main motivator for being in business, when shit hits the fan your first instinct will be to quit, because in the first few months (or years) in business it’s hard to make enough money to justify how hard you’re working.

When I started thinking about the reasons I was in business, I started becoming excited about it all over again. I understood that while money is important to me and I do need to pay my bills like everyone else, I was running my own business because I value my independence and free time above everything else. I understood that I was helping companies be more successful and feeding several families with the salaries I was paying my employees.

When I stopped thinking about money and started thinking about the impact I was making, my attitude completely changed. But that’s why I am in business. Why are you in business?

Spend Less Money than You Make

One of my mentors once told me “the only way to have fun running a business is to spend less money than you make.” At first I was like “duh, tell me something I don’t know.” But, after our meeting it became obvious to me that this was exactly the source of all my stress: there was not enough revenue to pay for all the expenses we had. We had to make some painful cuts but within a month, we went from a profit margin of negative 5% to a positive 12% and all my stress melted away instantly.

If your annual revenue is $5MM and you’re aiming for a 10% profit margin, it means you have to find a way to run your company with $4.5MM. It really is that simple (which doesn’t mean it’s easy, by the way.)

Accept Reality

One of my best friends was complaining today about the weather not being as nice as he wanted and he was all bummed out about it. But you can’t change the weather, so the solution is simple: accept that there will be sunny days, cloudy days and rainy days. As long as you expect every day to be sunny you’ll be disappointed and unhappy.

Entrepreneurship is difficult and when you solve a problem a new one arises. Forget those stupid books that promise you could make $50,000 a month working four hours a week. It’s a lot harder than that. All you need to do is adjust your expectations. If you accept the fact that you’ll have good days, OK days and bad days, there will be no surprises and you’ll make the most out of each day.

Stop buying into the idea that one day everything will be perfect. Instead, be thankful for what you have and keep working on making it better. It’s the only way to make it work.

73% of consumers say they have used their mobile phones to guide purchasing decisions while in stores.

These essentials will help you bring in more customers, create brand loyalty and even gain customers from your neighborhood competitors.

Mobile Optimized Website

If customers can’t view your site on mobile devices, you have already lost the location-based battle. Mobile sites are easy to come by these days. You can either choose a responsive theme for your site or build a mobile optimized site. There are tons of tools out there, including Google’s GoMo.

Social Media Integration

Social media apps for mobile are an essential part of boosting brand engagement and helping your storefront go viral. In order to leverage this media channel, you need profiles set up for your brand. The top 3 networks I recommend are Foursquare, Twitter and Instagram. This will enable customers to share their shopping experience with friends and overall increase the social reach for your brand.

Google Places

Search visibility is a given. Since most consumers are utilizing Google Places by default, make sure you have claimed and optimized your Places page. This can be a process.

• Follow Google’s guidelines to make sure everything is properly formatted and claimed.
• Populate your profile with engaging content such as photos.
• Always ask for reviews from your customers.

Check out our guide on Google+ Local.

Competitor Insight

It is much easier to form a local marketing strategy when you know exactly what your competitors are doing. I recommend using these simple steps in analyzing the neighborhood competition.

• Conduct mobile searches for keywords your customers would use. Look to see what sites are ranking highly. Observe content on profiles and reviews.
• Pull out your smart phone and browse apps such as Foursquare and Yelp when at your location. Based on your GPS, the apps will show you exactly what people see when browsing local businesses. Take note of profiles, special offers and loyalty programs nearby companies are offering.
• Make a list of the competitors within a 10 mile radius. Test their sites on a smart phone or tablet. Are these sites optimized for mobile?
• Go online and look at your competitors’ social media. What are they doing special? Do they have an active community?

Exposure on Directories/Apps

Other than search engines and social media, people use apps such as Yelp and Urban Spoon to find recommendations for local services. These apps allow for a quick review of the business landscape. Sometimes your business will exist on these platforms without you even knowing. Make sure to own your profile and manage your reputation. Take reviews as feedback to improve the in-store experience. The truth is, if you don’t take control of this exposure, someone else will.

Hashtags

The concept of hashtags applies to both local marketing as well as general social media strategy. Hashtags tie conversations together on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. You want to be active in the social conversation while inserting your brand into the minds of consumers. This will help your brand go viral. Here are two rules to follow when incorporating hashtags into your marketing.

• Create and promote unique branded hashtags for customers to use when talking about your brand on social media.
• Insert your brand into conversations including relevant trending hashtags. For example, tweet into conversations for local events.

A great tool for researching local conversations is Twitter Advanced Search.

Customer Loyalty and Offers

One of the best perks of location-based marketing is bringing back repeat customers. Offer an incentive for people to visit your store, make a purchase and keep coming back. Here are a few ideas.

• Post an offer on Foursquare. This will be searchable through the app’s location-based discovery feature.
• Gamify the shopping experience. For example, offer a free gift to the customer who visits your store most. This can be tracked through mobile check-ins.
• Promote new products with special discounts. This will entice new visitors and repeat visitors.
• Run a contest based on user-generated content. For example, hide items throughout your store and create a quiz. People can participate while using hashtags with tweets or submitting images on Instagram.

Check-ins

People have this crazy obsession with checking in on location-based apps. It might be because they get freebies or maybe they just like to show their friends. Personally, I like to track where I have been, especially when visiting a cool city such as Las Vegas or LA. Nonetheless, this is yet another way to leverage your marketing. To better understand check-ins, let’s look at the psychology from a consumer perspective.

You may ask “,what motivates customers to ‘check in’ and share their whereabouts with the world?”

Mobile technology evangelist Claudio Schapsis breaks this down with the 7 F’s.

Localized Content

Engaging content can be created in many formats. It is advantageous to craft local and hyper-local content. Yes, hyper-local content. This is the type of stuff that appeals to urban neighborhoods. It will appeal on a more intimate level with your neighborhood customers. For example, you may be a chiropractor in the Pearl District of Portland. Why not create an infographic about the best neighborhood gyms?

There are a million different ways you can go with this. Here are some ideas.

• Promote a neighborhood hashtag based on a popular topic or inside joke. For example, you may use #brooklynhipsters if you are located in Brooklyn, NY.
• Create a video of your neighborhood with information on popular parks.
• Use sidewalk chalk or plant hidden items to create a local scavenger hunt where users participate with social apps.
• Create an interactive local event calendar and publish it on your blog.

I hope this helps make better sense of location-based marketing.

How are you marketing your local business? Share your comments and questions below.

If you are like me, I am sure you spent your time thinking to yourself that you could do better if you were in charge of the event. That YOU would not have let that stuff happen. You are right; you CAN put on a better event.

So whether you are planning a small event for 20 of your most important clients or hosting a conference for 200 or 2000, these tips will help you put on a killer event that will leave your attendees thinking wow… in a good way.

Pre Event – Planning

Set Goals

Ask yourself these questions:

• Why am I putting on this event? – An event uses many resources; both time and money, so you want to make sure that you actually have a reason for putting on this event.
• What do you want to accomplish with this event?
  Do you want others to learn about your company? Or a new project/service you are launching?
  Do you want to find potential clients?
  Do you want to form a network of thought leaders?
  Do you want to celebrate an achievement?

Each of these demands a different type of event so you need to clearly know what you want to accomplish in order to select the appropriate plan of action.

• What defines success? - The number of attendees? The amount of money raised? The amount of people who filled out a comment card or signed up for a trial of the product? Having a clear idea of how you define success for your event will allow you to evaluate the event’s level of success at the end.

By setting goals, and reviewing them throughout the process, you can make sure that your event is on target and actually achieves its purpose in the end.

Decide What Type of Event Will Accomplish Your Goals

Depending on the type of goals you establish, different types of events will be more suitable than others. You may want to have a sit down dinner if your goal is to celebrate an achievement with a client, or host a large conference if you want to bring thought leaders together. A gala event may be more appropriate for presenting awards or launching a new product line. Decide on the right type of event to align well with your goals.

Assemble a Great Event Team

This will depend on the size of the event. If you are putting on a large conference, your team will need to consist of more people. The most important things to remember when assembling the group that will help put on the event is to select people with diverse skill sets and define each person’s role. Make sure that objectives are set for each person and actionable to do lists are distributed. Many times, details slip through the cracks at events because no one thought it was their responsibility to do that task. Make sure that it is clear who is in charge of what.

Stick to a Budget

Once goals are established, develop a budget for the event. Make sure to get the budget approved before you begin planning, as the budget will impact the vision. Make sure that everyone is aware of the budget and then allocate it accordingly to different activities such as venue, catering, media equipment, marketing materials, speakers, handouts and additional expenses that will come up.

Choose a Great Location

Selecting the right location is key. You want to make sure that it is located in an area that is easily accessible to your target attendees, has ample parking, and provides the right atmosphere for the type of event you are having.

Craft the Appropriate Guest List

In developing the guest list, look back at your goals and decide who needs to be in attendance to achieve that goal. Also look at the budget and the location capacity when deciding on the appropriate number of attendees.

Develop a Killer Marketing Plan

You can have the greatest event in the world but if no one is there, it is a waste of time and resources. It is imperative to identify the right ways to reach your target group, whether this is through print media, online marketing, or grassroots efforts. Social media is a must in marketing an event.

Materials should be visually engaging, clear, and concise. Make sure to always include a contact person and the date of the event. You would be surprised how many people forget to include this. No matter how informal your event is… never write with sharpie on poster board. Every communication with your attendees should be professional and typed.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

Nothing is worse than going to an event where people are poorly prepared. Make sure you have a strong plan that includes the logistics for the entire event. If you have speakers, make sure they have memorized their speeches and that transitions are clearly planned out. Run a rehearsal before the event.

The Actual Event

Create An Event Script

The schedule is key in making sure that your event stays on target and achieves its goals. It is beyond just an itinerary for the attendees. This event script puts everything in one place and acts as a snapshot of the entire event from start to finish.

Things to include in the event script:

• Contact information for all event staff, volunteers, and venders
• Materials and supplies that are needed for each part of the event
• A detailed layout of the event logistics including timeline, flow, volunteer posts, job descriptions and catering layout and menus
• Scripts for all planned speeches

Make A Great First Impression

You have a very short time to make a great first impression. Everything matters, from what the venue looks like to how prepared you are to how the event flows. Flow is very important. Awkward transitions between speakers or between break times make an event look poorly planned. Transitions should be planned out and practiced to make sure that everything moves smoothly throughout the event. Timing is also very important. Make sure that if you provide a schedule, you stick to it. Speakers need to start on time. And most importantly – if your event ends at 8, it needs to end at 8. Never go over the ending time.

Feed People

It is fact that people are happier when they are fed. It does not have to be elaborate but providing food during meal times and breaks does keep people more engaged in the event. Presentation is everything with food. Bad presentation can lead to a negative impression of the overall event. Use nice serving dishes and class things up. Do not just open up contains from a grocery store and boxes of beer and call it a day.

Have a back up plan

Always have a back up plan and a team ready to react – if something can go wrong it will. I once put on a conference where, on the second day, the city flooded and we had to quickly mobilize the team to make changes to the catering, venue, and schedule for the day. You never know what might happen so it is important to have the team come up with possible scenarios and solutions before the event happens.

Post Event – Follow up

Follow up

Your job does not end when the event comes to a close. You need to make sure to thank the attendees for coming. If you want feedback, send out a survey, but make sure it is short so you will actually get responses.

Also, thank people who helped put on the event, not just members of your team and volunteers but also your venders. If you plan to put on more events, creating strong relationships with your venders is key.

Measure Results

After your event, you need to measure the results against your goals to gauge whether it was success. Go back to your planning documents and look at how you defined success. Did you reach it?

You also want to use these results to improve future events. Your next event will be much stronger if you are able to objectively evaluate every event you have and identify strengths and weaknesses as well as ways to improve.

You now have the tools to be able to put on a great event. Now if only we can get others on board… just maybe, we will never have to sit through a bad event again… fingers crossed.

If you have questions or additional tips, please join the conversation below.

These three variables are the same for every organization, from an independent business owner to a Fortune 500 company. If you understand how these variables are impacted by your efforts, then you can identify the necessary steps to intentionally improve revenue. Without understanding these variables your goals are simply no more than an educated guess. The three variables are your average sale, your number of leads and your average close ratio.

Before we go into more depth on these variables it is important to understand your ability to impact your variables will depend on your business model. Some industries have little ability to impact one or two of their variables, but most will be able to change all of the variables to some degree. For example, most people who go into a restaurant will buy something so the close ratio will be almost 100% for every restaurant, but they can have a huge change in average sales or leads. It is also important you have systems in place to track these variables. If you do not have the capability to do so, it will be crucial that you put those systems in place as soon as you can.

Lets start by explaining each variable. Then we will look at how to use these numbers to understand your revenue.

Average Sale

The average sales could be measured in a few ways. You could measure the gross transaction, the lifetime value of a customer, the net margin of a transaction, etc. Regardless of how you calculate your average sale, it is important to understand what each transaction is worth to your business. While you could break this into business segments as well, it is important to understand and measure all of your transactions for average sales.

Calculate the average sale by totaling all of your sales for a specific date rage and dividing the total by the number of transactions. For example: $1,000,000 / 100 sales= $10,000 average sale. The longer the date range, the more accurate the number.

Activities that positively impact the average sale:

Number of Leads

The number of leads may be calculated differently depending on your organization. Typically, a new lead is counted when a sales rep successfully makes contact with a prospect. Some organizations may count a lead as someone who has expressed an interest in your offerings after the initial contact. You can measure leads by month, by year, or both. You could also count returning customers as existing leads and track those separately from new leads. New leads and existing leads can be tracked together or separately depending on what makes the most sense for your business model.

Activities that positively impact the number of leads:

Close Ratio

Your close ratio is determined by dividing the number of closed sales by the number of leads you processed to get those sales. For example, 40 closed sales / 200 leads = 20% close ratio. You can use any time period to measure this, but the longer the time period the more accurate the percentage.

Activities that positively impact close ratio:

By using these variables you will be able to understand how you can reach your revenue goals. Here is an example.

Business: Small Business Consulting
2012 Revenue: $181,311
2013 Revenue Goal: $225,000

2012 Variables

Now the business must identify how they will impact these three variables to reach the $225,000 goal in 2013. Here is an example of how each variable could get them to the goal.

As you can see, small adjustments in any one of the variables can help your company to achieve its revenue goals. Once you look at a few scenarios of how you can achieve your revenue goal you can then choose how to impact those variables. For example, if you believe you can increase the number of leads you generate by attending two new trade shows, starting to cold call prospects and asking existing customers for referrals then you can track if you achieve the increased number of leads you had planned on.

The only accurate way to achieve your revenue goals is by understanding what actions will impact your revenue variables. By measuring these variables each month, you will be able to identify if your actions are having the desired results on the variables and thus track the effectiveness of your business decisions relative to revenue generation.

Questions? Comments? Post them below!

Talking to Your Existing Customers

Make a list of all your customers and sort them by the revenue they generate for your company. Then, eliminate the ones you don’t like working with, the ones that you can’t service profitably and the ones whose needs you aren’t meeting very well. It’s very important that you’re completely honest with yourself.

Now pick your top five. Call them and say the following: “We love working with you and we want to make sure you love working with us, too. Our clients are the number one source of great ideas and you’re one of our most important clients. Can I buy you lunch and pick your brain about how can get better at what we do?”

I know this sounds scary, but wouldn’t you be thrilled if one of your key vendors asked you for ideas on how they can better serve you?

Meet your top five clients for lunch and ask them the following questions:

• What’s the most frustrating thing about your industry?
• What’s the most frustrating thing about your job?
• Where do you want to be in five years? What about in one year?
• What do you like the most about working with us?
• What do you wish we could do differently? What else? And, what else? (Keep repeating this question until they’re out of ideas.)
• What’s the most confusing thing about our industry?
• What do you wish companies like ours would offer?

Talking to Your Future Clients

Once you’ve talked to your existing clients, put together a list of your “dream team”: the 10 clients you would love to have. Use LinkedIn to find the decision-makers at these companies. For example, if you live in Seattle and want to target executive directors at local nonprofits, you can do this easily with LinkedIn.

Getting the attention of these people will take more work than getting the attention of your existing clients, but it’s absolutely possible if you’re persistent. I always reach out to them first through LinkedIn. If they don’t respond, I call their companies and ask for them. If that doesn’t work, I send them a book I think they’ll enjoy over FedEx along with a handwritten note. This usually does the trick.

Once I have their attention I take them out for lunch and ask them the same questions I ask our existing clients, in addition to these:

• Do you work with a digital marketing agency?
• What do you like about them?
• What do you wish they did differently?
• How did you find them?
• Did you interview more than one agency? What made you choose this one?
• What was the decision-making process like? Did you make the decision yourself or did someone help you? What criteria did you use to pick this agency?
• What would be a sign they’re doing a good job? What would be a sign they’re doing a poor job?

Don’t be surprised if you sign up some of these people as clients. They’ll be really impressed that you’re actually listening to them and trying to understand what they really want.

An Unfair Advantage

Imagine how powerful it is to understand how your clients think. Writing marketing copy is easy because you now know what’s important to them. Creating new products or improving existing ones is easy because now you know what your clients like and what they don’t.

I’ve started seven businesses, sold three of them and have been an entrepreneur for 16 years. Nothing I’ve ever done has been more valuable than talking to existing clients and future clients, and asking them these questions. It takes work and time, but it’s absolutely worth it.

One of our clients offers access to an extensive database of private equity firms. They had no AdWords account prior to working with us.

The Problem

With no historical data to work from, we needed to discover the demand for their product and whether or not AdWords was a viable, profitable method for gaining new customers.

Our Goal

Prior to starting the campaign, we needed to take a look at the landing pages that were being used and make sure everything was optimized accordingly. After ensuring all was dialed in, our primary goal was to bring customers in at a rate and price that justified paying for the AdWords campaign.

The Results

Total Conversions

In October, during the second half of the month only, there was a total of 6 conversions.
In November, there was a total of 15 conversions.
In December, there was a total of 27 conversions.
In January, there was a total of 38 conversions.
In February, despite it being a shorter month, there was a total of 41 conversions.
In March, there was a total of 46 conversion.
In total, that’s 173 conversions.

Strategies Taken

Building a campaign from the ground up is a bit different than improving a campaign that already has mounds of data to optimize. Both require similar practices, but tackling a campaign from the get-go requires additional research and trial and error.

In the case of this particular client, it was clear we needed to build ad groups based on keywords that were both relevant and affordable. Seeing that a keyword relevant to your business has high search volume is exciting, but making sure its estimated cost per click (CPC) falls within your budget is crucial.

Sample Scenario

1. Keyword 1 costs $12 per click.
2. Keyword 2 costs $3 per click.
3. Both keywords are highly relevant to your business and/or product.

If your daily budget is set at $48, for example, keyword 1 gives you four chances to convert while keyword 2 gives you 4x that number with 16 chances to convert. Finding a wide variety of keywords similar to keyword 2 will increase the likelihood of returning a positive ROI.

With this campaign, we paired our best keywords with terms that described the service, as well as with specific cities and states which were relevant to the product/service.

Negative Keywords

Adding negative keywords is vital to the success of any AdWords campaign. With this client—as is the case with most online tools or softwares—it was important to include negative keywords such as cheap, free, download, torrent, etc. More specifically, this client does not offer information on venture capital, so it was important that that and all related words were added to our negative keyword list.

Landing Page Optimization

This was touched on briefly in the beginning of this article, but campaign optimization is only half the battle; if your landing pages aren’t formatted properly and if they don’t include a strong call to action, your campaign will rarely get the kind of results you’re after. By simplifying the process, reducing the length of the page and including one clear call to action, conversions increased dramatically when compared to the first six weeks of the campaign.

 
Questions? Comments? Leave a comment below or contact us to discuss your AdWords campaign.

1. Should I get a .com?
2. Is .net really that bad?
3. Is it OK to use hyphens? If so, how many?
4. Does my domain name need to include keywords?
5. What about lesser-known top-level domains (TLDs)?

In short?

 
.com is still the undisputed king, but other TLDs make sense in certain situations.

.org was originally intended for non-profit organizations (and is still used by many), but also works well for any “official” or “educational” type of website.

.net should almost always be your third or fourth choice following .com, .org and, in some cases, .tv. Typically, .net is a poor choice if/when you have several better options available.

Domain Hacks

Delicious, before becoming delicious.com, was an early adopter of domain hacking. A domain hack is when you use a domain extension (typically involving a country code TLD, or ccTLD) to spell a word. In the case of Delicious, their original domain name was del.icio.us, as in http://del.icio.us/.

Other well-known examples include blo.gs, instagr.am and who.is.

While domain hacks can be fun and “cute,” I typically don’t recommend them unless you can also secure the .com variation.

Hyphens

This is a personal opinion, but anything beyond one or two hyphens is bad news. Not only that, it looks spammy. When possible, avoiding hyphens altogether is preferred.

Legitimate, established websites that use hyphens have nothing to worry about, so don’t freak out if this is you, but the primary reason most people use hyphenated domain names these days is for keyword stuffing (which is a no-no!).

Ever come across a site with a mouthful of a domain name along the lines of portland-vinyl-flooring-installation-services.com?
It’s available if anyone wants it.
Hideous. That’s what you want to avoid. Stick to something short, memorable and brandable.

It’s not necessary to have keywords in your domain name!

ccTLD

Did you know that .tv wasn’t orginally intended for sites related to television and video, but was in fact reserved for the island of Tuvalu? The extension is currently operated by dotTV, but Tuvalu’s government still owns 20% of the company.

.tv has gained a lot of traction and I highly recommend it for sites focused on video content.

That said, unless your business is located in another country or you want to use a domain hack, I don’t recommend ccTLD aside from .tv and .us.

Domain Name Tools

There are likely hundreds of tools out there for finding and/or generating domain names, but for me the following two sites have proven to be the most helpful:

 
LeanDomainSearch
LeanDomainSearch is incredible. Simply enter the word(s) you want included in your domain name and it will present you with hundreds or thousands of possibilities by appending popular suffixes and prefixes. Using “vinyl flooring” as an example, this is what you can expect:

 
Panabee
Panabee is very creative. After entering the word(s) you want included in your domain name, it shows you a list of clever possibilities by dropping letters, swapping letters, merging letters, adding suffixes and prefixes, etc. Definitely check it out.

 
Some other popular tools include www.bustaname.com, www.namestation.com and domai.nr.

Choosing a Registrar

This is slightly off topic, but I have experience with a handful of domain registrars, and the three I recommend most are Go Daddy, NameCheap and Dynadot.

Go Daddy is by far the most popular, which makes it extremely easy to push your domain to another user should you ever sell it. They also have some wonderful promo codes that can save you a lot of money, which you can easily find with a quick search.

NameCheap’s customer support is outstanding.

Dynadot is particularly great for international domain names (IDNs) should you ever need/decide to go down that path.

Miscellaneous Advice

Avoid .info and .biz domains; they are often associated with spam due to their low prices.

For premium and/or expiring domain names, visit Sedo and Go Daddy Auctions.

 
Question? Comments? Post them below and I will get back to you.

Most companies can reach $500,000 in annual revenue by working hard and long hours, but going from half a million dollars to $10MM+ requires a laser-focused strategy. In their first two or three years in business, most companies try a lot of different things: they go after multiple target markets, they offer a lot of products and they market them in a lot of different ways. But after throwing many things at the wall you need to pay attention to what sticks and what doesn’t.

These are some questions that will help you narrow your focus.

Target Market

• Who are your top 10 clients who get the most value from your services, pay on time and you like working with?

Product Offering

• What are your top 10 bestsellers? What are your top 3?

Team Strengths

• Out of all the things you do, what can you do better than anyone else?

Marketing

• Look at your top 10 clients: what marketing efforts helped you land them?

You might be thinking “this doesn’t make sense. If I want more clients why would I narrow down my focus? Wouldn’t that close a lot of doors?” The answer is that there’s a fundamental difference between how companies and consumers think. Companies want to do everything for everyone because they think that’s the best way to maximize profit. But consumers look for specialists, not generalists. For example, if you break your knee and need surgery, would you rather go to a knee specialist or a general surgeon? If you want great pizza, would you go to a pizza joint or a restaurant that serves all kinds of food?

Marketers need to always put themselves in their customers’ shoes. By the way, if you want ideas on how to grow your profit by narrowing down your focus, I highly recommend the book The Pumpkin Plan.

Join an Accountability Group

Two years ago I joined Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). They have two programs: the main EO program is for companies over $1M in annual revenue and Accelerator is for companies between $250,000 and $1M. Joining this organization is one of the best things I’ve ever done for my business. My favorite part of EO is that you’re part of an accountability group that meets every month. Every time we meet we define goals for the following 30 days and we discuss whether we accomplished our previous goals. This is fantastic because when you know that you’ll have to give an update to a group of very successful entrepreneurs, you take things more seriously.

If you’re not yet ready for EO or Accelerator you can still create an accountability group on your own. Find five or six local business owners you look up to and invite them to join every month. Accountability is very important, and it’s always great to be able to share your ideas and concerns with people who are in the same situation as you.

Find a Mentor

Last month I spoke at a conference for young entrepreneurs. During the Q&A session one of the attendees asked me “what’s the most important advice you can give to a new entrepreneur?” My answer was “find someone who has already done what you want to do and ask him/her to mentor you.” Most entrepreneurs like the idea of having a mentor but they never do anything to make it happen. I think this is because they feel uncomfortable approaching successful people. But successful people are still people, and most of them like helping others as much as you do. Think about it: if someone less experienced than you asked you for feedback, would you provide it? Chances are you would, because helping others isn’t a completely altruistic act; when you help someone you feel good. This is a universal principle and it doesn’t matter how successful someone is; everyone likes leaving a legacy and sharing their stories with others.

For more information, read How to Find a Mentor.

Talk to Your Customers

I believe it’s crucial to talk to your top customers at least once a year to understand how they think, what they like and what they don’t. These are some of the questions I like to ask.

• What do you like about working with us?
• We’re constantly looking for ways we can do things better. What can we improve? (After they answer, ask “What else?” to keep the ideas coming.)
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends?

Be TRULY Unique

I’m convinced that whereas 95% of companies think they’re unique, 95% of their customers think they aren’t. This is because there are things that we see as differentiators that most customers just assume are a given. You might claim that you have the best customer service in your industry, but so do 10 of your competitors. Maybe you have the highest quality products, but the difference in quality that is so clear to you as an expert in your product is completely overlooked by the average consumer.

Every consumer expects a superior product at a fair price and great customer service. Neither of these things are differentiators. Here are some examples of companies that are TRULY unique:

• In an industry where software developers sell copies of their software, Google disrupted the status quo by offering free software supported by ads.
• For every pair of shoes you buy from Tom’s, the company donates a pair of shoes to a child in need.
• Jones Soda allows you to upload your own pictures to their website and they print them in their soda bottle labels so all the beverages you buy from them are personalized.
• If you like theater, Sleep No More is a play in New York where the audience is part of the experience. It’s unlike any other play I’ve ever seen.
• In Portland, where I live, there’s a doughnut shop called Voodoo Doughnuts that creates the weirdest doughnuts you can imagine (such as Bacon Maple and Ain’t That A Peach Fritter). Two weeks ago I walked by their door at 1am and there were over 40 people in line.
• In Las Vegas there’s a restaurant called Dick’s Last Resort, where waiters treat patrons poorly; they make fun of them and make them feel uncomfortable. It’s packed every single night.

These companies are successful because people talk about them. Is your business so radically different that people can’t wait to tell their friends about it? One of my favorite business books is Blue Ocean Strategy and it’s all about creating your own market (blue ocean) instead of competing in a pre-existing market.

Focus

Most entrepreneurs suffer from ADLAS, which stands for “Attention Deficit… Look, A Squirrel!” We’re always looking for the next shiny thing to do and this causes two main problems:

1. We don’t always finish the things we start
2. We spread ourselves so thin that we struggle doing remarkable work

For the past two years, every person in my company has had between one and three goals every quarter. That’s it. It doesn’t mean that we don’t work on other stuff, but at the end of each quarter we talk about our previous three goals and we define the three goals that we’ll work on for the following three months.

We start this process by defining where we want to be in ten years. Our 10-year vision is “We have 200 clients with digital marketing budgets over $5,000. They love us and rave about us. We still love our jobs as much as always.” Then we ask ourselves, “what can we do in the next 90 days to move closer to that goal?”

All the goals we set are action-oriented. In other words, these are things you can do, not an outcome you expect. For example, let’s say you want to get $100,000 in additional revenue. You can’t just “do” that. But there are things you can do to make that happen; here are a few examples:

• Call three out of our top 10 clients and offer them one additional product they can benefit from.
• Schedule 10 appointments a week with local restaurant owners.

Focus on your actions, not the outcome. You control the former, not the latter.

Involve Everyone in Your Company’s Marketing

Having a marketing department is absolutely essential, but everyone in your company has the potential to bring you business. These are some of the things we’ve done at our agency to make sure everyone in our team is a great ambassador of our brand:

• Everyone is prepared to talk about what we do at any event, whether is a business conference or a casual conversation at a BBQ with friends. Everyone knows our elevator pitch, what makes us unique and we all know our call to action (to invite people to our office to meet our team and see if we’d be a good fit).
• Everyone has business cards and marketing literature.
• Everyone comes up with one company a week we would like to work with.

Don’t just leave marketing up to your marketing people; turn every one of your employees into a great representative of your brand. And treat your employees like royalty, because they tell everyone whether your company rocks or sucks.

Offer New Things to Your Existing Clients

I believe that a big majority of companies spend way too much time finding new clients and too little time helping their existing clients and looking for ways they can provide more value (and increase their revenues). Your clients already trust you, like you and are willing to give you money. What else can you do for them?