Folger’s Coffee and Nickolay
I often marvel at today’s technology. This morning is no different.
I’m sitting at my breakfast bar, drinking my usual coffee, Folgers with a heavy dose of French vanilla cream. Next to me sits my long time friend and business partner, Nickolay from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Nickolay owns KievApartment.com, a travel office I helped him start about 10 years ago in Kyiv.
He’s enjoying my Folgers, but just black. We’re both online with our laptops. I’ve been checking email and looking at some sales figures from yesterday’s online activity. Nickolay’s had several conversations via Skype with clients and business associates in Ukraine.
There’s an 8 hour time difference between Northeast Oklahoma and Ukraine, so it’s late afternoon there. But because of the technology of today and a fast internet connection, there is no distance, really.
Because of this, the world is much smaller and your business network is potentially much larger than ever before.
I just think that is really cool.
Marketing with Yellow Pages
When times get tough, your marketing dollars need to be spent more wisely because you’re competing for fewer customers who are tighter with their wallets. Rather than cutting marketing from your budget, a mistake many business owners make, cut the fat from your marketing budget So its leaner but more effective.
A Yellow Page ad can be a very effective marketing tool for your business. Certain kinds of businesses benefit more than others from this type of marketing. If your business is only occasionally used by the public, such as a plumber, electrician, travel agent, attorney, bail bondsman, printer, auto mechanic, contractor, dentist, etc., your yellow page ad will be more effective than a business that is frequented very often by the public. I mean how often do you call your local grocery store for something? Not very often. But when the toilet is backed up and running over, you need a plumber and you need one RIGHT NOW! And where do you go? That’s right, the yellow pages.
Not long ago, I returned home from the office and I noticed a large yellow book lying in the driveway of my neighbor. I stopped, got out of my car for a closer look. I could’nt believe my eyes! The book was a Yellow Page directory that was being distributed in our residential area.
A few thousand businesses in the area had spent hard earned profits on Yellow Page advertisements for what? To be tossed on the driveway of potential users in February. How many books do you suppose were destroyed by inclement weather before the homeowner could retrieve it from their driveway?
How much value do you think the homeowners placed on those directories if the publisher placed no more value than to have them tossed on the driveway? Probably not very much.
You know what that means? If your ad was in that Yellow Page directory, your hard earned dollars was lying on a cold, wet driveway in February. Now how effective were those marketing dollars spent? That’s right, not very well.
When choosing which Yellow Page directories to market your business in, there are five in my area, you should also consider not just the cost but also how the publisher delivers the finished directory. Do they use the postal system to deliver them to residential areas or are they tossed in the driveways and yards?
Whether times are hard or not, your marketing dollars must be spent in the most effective manner. Don’t waste your money with a marketing company that places very little value on what you spend with them.
What’s Social Media All About?
I received an invitation by email today to a webinar titled “How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation.” The opening sentence read:
Learn how to harness the power of social media - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networking sites - to get found by more prospects and generate sales leads for your business.
There’s no doubt that new prospects, customers and business are generated by social media venues. However, I’m of the firm conviction the primary purpose of social media is “social” interaction.
I’ve been active on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for over a year. In the beginning, I was probably like the masses, shy and afraid to post anything.
One day on Twitter, something dramatically changed. Someone tweeted a question that I knew the answer to. I tweeted back with that answer and a link supporting it.
I received back a very nice comment, complimenting me for the generosity of my knowledge. (Believe me, it wasn’t that big a thing.)
It was then I ‘got it’. Twitter and other social media venues are about making friends, just like we do in the real world.
You help someone because you want to, not for any other reason. Because it’s the right and friendly thing to do.
I know there are others who are simply using Twitter and the other social sites to build their following so they can market to them. So be it. In my opinion, they’re missing the true value of social media.
To date, I’ve met a throng of people on Twitter and Facebook. Probably a dozen or so I would call new friends. These new friends are scattered all over the world, from SE Asia through North America to Europe. My life has been enriched by them and I’m doing the best I can to enrich their lives. Without expecting anything in return, except friendship.
To me, building lasting relationships rests on the foundation of friendship.
When I see some blatently pimping social media purely to generate leads and new prospects, it offends me. Why? Because I value relationships just for the sake of relationships.
If you want to be my friend merely to use me for business purposes, don’t bother.
Marketing is Like Grilling Steaks
I have two real passions in my life, marketing my businesses and grilling steaks on the patio.
You might be wondering how these two passions intersect. Actually there are a lot of similarities between the two.
To grill great steaks, there are three basic things you need: Good meat, a good fire and patience. If you have these three basic ingredients down pat, you can be known as the grill-meister on your block.
I have two sources for the steaks I grill. There’s a meat market in town that has superior meat to what the local Walmart offers. I often purchase my steaks at this little hole-in-the-wall meat market.
The second source is once a year, I purchase a half beef from an area rancher. He raises his own beef and takes great pride in feeding them just the right amount so when butchered, the meat is tender and tasty. If you don’t have good meat to start with, the fire and patience won’t improve your medicore meat.
In my humble opinion, most amateurs cook their steaks over too hot a fire. We like our steak meduim to rare and they’re cooked over a low fire. For those of us who like our meat pink, a hot fire increases the risk of over-cooking the steak. Once over-cooked, you can’t go back.
The last ingredient in great steaks is patience. Don’t rush the meat, let it cook slow and it’ll turn out right. Using this system almost guarantees great steak 100% of the time.
Likewise, marketing your business successfully consists of basic ingredients: a marketing plan, marketing tools and patience.
Like good meat, you have to start with a marketing plan. Hint: a marketing plan is not two paragraphs in your business plan! You need a marketing strategy and how you’re going to execute it. That’s a practical explanation what a marketing plan is.
Your marketing plan defines what marketing tools you’re going to use, when you’re going to use them and how you’re going to implement them to your greatest advantage. Now let me ask you, do you have a working marketing plan?
Secondly, your marketing tools are just like the fire you grill your steaks over, not too hot, not too cool, but just right.
Jay Conrad Levinson’s book, Guerrilla Marketing listed over 100 potential marketing tools. Some tools work for just about any kind of business, others don’t. Others are seasonal, unusual, traditional or even quirky. But it’s up to you to pick what marketing tools will work for your kind of business and put them to use.
My dad used to tell me when I was a kid that a hammer hanging on the shelf in the tool shed wouldn’t build a barn.
Patience is a virtue. Is that in the Good Book? It seems like everything in life that’s worthwhile requires patience. Just like when I’m grilling steaks, I don’t get in a rush or impatient. I know if I have great meat and the right fire, in the process of time, I’m going to have some great steaks.
It’s the same with marketing your business. You need patience. Marketing works and usually it takes a little while for it to show results. Be patient, don’t quit too soon, your efforts will soon pay dividends.
The Price of Freedom
Free enterprise is a benefit of freedom. I’m thankful for the freedoms we have in the USA, although they are shrinking. It’s not so much of the liberal Dems or Obama, it’s more about the time we live in.
Some Iranians are sacrificing their lives in the name of freedom, not to mention the thousands that have been harrassed and injured. We live in perilous times, love and embrace freedom.
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants; nine were farmers and large plantation owners.
They signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more and than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
Freedom is never free!
