Recent Posts
By David On July 6, 2009
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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.
By David On July 2, 2009
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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.
By David On July 1, 2009
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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!
By David On June 28, 2009
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This is a guest post by Rich Forster
The idea of offering a simple, short and straight forward approach to starting and managing a small business is greatly needed. The more I travel about and research business communities, the more evident that is. Here are 4 issues I see repeatidly lacking in small business owners and their operations:
1. They try and do everything but lack in areas that bog them down because they do not know how to do them. One example is your marketing piece.
2. They lack the encouragement to stay our of depression because they tend to focus on the negative and often get mired in the mud of disappointment.
3. They lack self management and/or time management. The easy way out for the moment is the safest slope to slide on. Not being able to establish priorities and attack them one at a time results in more and more confusion. It’s like adding dirty clothes to a closet till the stack is so high you can’t get in the closet to for its main function, which is storing your clean clothes for easy access.
4. They lack initiative to try something because they just don’t know where to start and how to proceed. They need mentors.
Sounds like a recipe for a mentor or coach, right? Well that is exactly what I see your blog being, just lke KBJ. Small business owners could definitely use a coach/mentor and financial advisor.So besides these subject matters that I believe are of interst to your readership the last thing I suggest is this:
Ken, my boss, once taught me a great concept for teaching sales. He said “take one person and design a sales training program aound that one person. Make a plan, and follow it through a step at a time from start to finish. If it’s teaching how to fact find, like one of your articles was about, teach it thourougly. What is it, how do you do it, give examples, role play it then go do it.
Same with marketing….whats the objective, what are some ideas to consider, explore the pros and cons, where do you go to get materials, how do you distribute your message, fit it in the budget, give it a go, etc…you get the point?
Rich Forster is an businessman, entrepreneur and founder of Kingdom Business Journal. Rich and his wife, Vanna, and their two sons reside in the Springfield, MO area.
By David On June 21, 2009
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Not long ago I sat next to this guy on an airplane to New York. We had started our conversation before the plane took off and it quickly turned to business.
Have you noticed that guys, even strangers, like to talk about what interests them? I’m going to write about that soon. Back to the story, though.
He told me he was a rep for a major manufacturing firm. I quietly listened to him answer the questions I was asking. In answer to my question about the stock market, he said,
“There are many undervalued stocks out there. I’m picking some of them up right now and in the next 10 years, I’ll make a killing.”
I’ve really thought about the term “undervalued’ he used and how it applies to the business card. Because I believe it is the most undervalued marketing tool available to us.
Think about this for a moment. How much time did you give to the design and message of your business card? If you’re like most, you didn’t.
It’s even possible you had a graphics artist or the print shop design your card. Here’s something I’ve learned over the years: most graphic people, as good as they are, know little about marketing.
Here is the silver bullet information that’ll make your business card killer. It needs only these three things:
who you are…
what you do…
how to contact you…
And just as important, it should be designed in such a way when a person looks at your card, they can read and understand your 3 point message in 7 seconds or less.
Here’s why your business card is undervalued. From my personal and informal surveys, the majority of people hold on to business cards that are given to them. A SBA survey I read years ago also backs up my findings.
Once your cards are given out, the majority of them stay in circulation for a long time. Maybe they do lie in a desk drawer, but the day comes when the holder pulls it out and looks at it.
I think the secret is to have as many cards you can out there, just waiting for the right time to be remembered or used to refer someone else to you.
How much value do you put on that?
Notice how clean, simple and direct the message is: who I am, what I do and how to contact me. This single page website appears in the top 10 rankings of Google when my name is searched for.
