The 80-Hour Week

7 Steps Plus 1 to Success in Your Small Business

Last week we talked about Red Flags which is actually step 1 to Success in Your Small Business.  Here's step 2.

Find Your Core Difference

When you talk about your business at a party, do people respond, "Wow! Tell me more about that?" Or do they escape and run to the shrimp dip?

If they don't say 'Wow! Tell me more', you need a powerful short phrase that lets them know you offer something unique and different - and don't worry, this doesn't mean you have to spend lots of money.

If your Core Difference reflects their single biggest frustration, you'll find they absolutely want to know more.

"I show small business owners how to save thousands on their IT costs."

"We create systems that make money for our clients while they sleep."

"We help business owners predict cash flow accurately."

"We make accountants absolutely indispensable to their clients."

Does your core difference make the impact you are looking for?  Tell us your stories.

Red Flags: When Your eyes Are Deceiving you

When we do the Duct Tape Marketing Kick Start Scorecard (the first step in creating an Ultimate Marketing Plan), we keep our eyes out of these Red Flags.

What’s a Red Flag? It’s a belief our client is basing decisions on, which we have learned time and time again may not be accurate.

In other words, we are tricked into believing something that is not true. And therefore, we don’t get the results we want, or, at worst, we fail spectacularly!

When we hear this, the Red Flags start waving in our minds:

Red Flag: I need to spend time with all our customers
We’ve had clients where only 2% of their customers match their Ideal Customer profile. In another case, 31% of a client’s business came from 1% of their customers. In yet another, 1/3 of their customers were worth 300% more than the other 2/3. In these examples, 33% to 98% of executive time was actually being wasted.

Red Flag: We don’t track our advertising response.
When we look at the actual numbers and return on investment, we find some interesting observations. Here are some examples: You spent $3,000 to get one new client. 99% of the people you sent flyers to did not respond to them in any way. Your newsletter advertising got no responses. On other words, why don’t you take your advertising budget and buy yourself a boat; it’s way more fun and will do your business just as much good.

Red Flag: Word of mouth is our best business-builder.
Oh come on! Your referral sources only generated 15% of your total income. And you haven’t spoken to any customers once you’ve closed the sale.

Heard any Red Flags at your business lately?

New Marketing Plan Pro

Palo Alto Software announces Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing

The fastest, easiest way to create a marketing plan – is new for 2008 enriched by Duct Tape Marketing.

Palo Alto Software (www.paloalto.com) in partnership with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing (www.ducttapemarketing.com) announced the release of its newest version of Marketing Plan Pro Software powered by Duct Tape Marketing. In this latest release of Marketing Plan Pro, Palo Alto Software has taken the award-winning Duct Tape Marketing methodology and embedded it into Marketing Plan Pro–creating a product that will guide you through the process of creating a powerful marketing action plan that will help you understand how marketing and advertising can help successfully grow your business.

We are so excited to make this product available to you, and to bring the expertise and sheer marketing genius of John Jantsch to our product line. While Marketing Plan Pro has been an award winning software for years and years, we now bring to the market a product that really captures the simplicity of marketing espoused by John and the Duct Tape Marketing system.

Now you really can get your marketing plan together in just 30 minutes. You can use our software and be guided through the process by John himself.  The great thing about combining our software with John’s methodology is that John has been able to put together a system that helps people:

1. Understand marketing
2. Apply it effectively and quickly to their business
3. Create a real action plan
4. Realistically follow the plan to grow their business

We are excited to put this product into the market, just as small business owners are looking to batten down the hatches in this tough economy. All businesses need to make sure that they are spending every penny wisely — and that they understand which marketing spends actually work. So if you find yourself looking at your revenue, and then comparing that to your expenses, and scratching your head and wondering where you SHOULD be spending money, and where you SHOULD be saving money, this is the product for you! For more information give us a call at 905-377-8269.

Your Marketing Story

Many companies have interesting or even gut-wrenching histories. One of the first lessons I learned as a Duct Tape Marketer was, "Tell your story in an open, honest and entertaining way, and you will win prospects’ hearts as well as their heads". The ability to connect by way of personal stories is one of the greatest advantages that small business possesses over big business.

The marketing story is an effective tool because it allows you to do several things that traditional marketing or advertising does not:
•Stories are an effective way to simplify a complicated issue.
•Stories can create emotion. People buy on emotion and rationalize their decision with facts.
•Stories are easier to remember because people can more readily relate to a story.
And most importantly… stories build trust.

The most effective marketing stories fall into one of six categories.
1.Who I am – stories that allow the potential customer to connect with who you are or who the company is
2.What I do – stories that communicate not only what your firm does but why
3.The vision – stories that paint a picture of a dynamic future
4.Values in action – shared lessons that expose the human side – both the good and the bad
5.I know you – stories that let the potential customer know you have walked in their shoes.
What is your marketing story and what is it saying about you?

Has the ship sailed without you? Six reasons you can’t afford to be left standing on the dock when it comes to the internet.

Many small business owners originally were seduced with the notion that all they had to do was put a website online and wait for the phone to ring.  When that didn’t happen, some became disillusioned and either left the web or left their website to languish.

The primary purpose of a website is to act as a tool to integrate and connect all your marketing communication and education.  It allows your visitors to begin the task of more easily knowing, liking and trusting you.

Your website can educate, persuade and motivate your prospects to take action.  But, a website also can provide a much richer set of benefits.

Awareness

These days you are expected to have a website if you are in business, and many prospects start their search for a new product or service online before they ever pick up the phone.  This is even true of prospects who are referred to you.

Shortened selling cycles

In many cases, with a rich, content-driven website, your prospects may feel they can trust you before they even meet you.  I have dozens of clients who found so many answers on my websites that they were ready to hire me in the minute I showed up at their office.

Access to your information

A website offers your prospects access to your marketing materials whenever they wish.  You can and should save the contents of your marketing materials online and direct prospects to your website to acquire the information.

Tool to refer your business

A content-driven website allows referral contacts to share a great deal about your firm by simply directing others to your URL.

Automated distribution of marketing information

Promote the distribution of free or low-cost information and tools that allow your prospects to get to know you.

Ability to capture lead data

When people read an ad on a billboard, they may make a note of a service, but they may not need that service for months.  By the time, your billboard is no longer in sight.  One of the fundamental tools of a website is the ability to provide premium information in exchange for the visitor’s contact information.  Once you capture this information (along with marketing permissions), you have the key to begin marketing to these prospects indefinitely, assuring that your products or services are at the top of their mind when it’s buying time.

Are you losing business by not having a website? A website today is as important as your business card.  Have the site listed on all printed materials and include it wherever you can through out the world wide web. 

Send us your success or failure stories about your website, let us know what works or didn’t work for you.  Write to me personally by emailing me at liz@ducttapemarketingcoach.ca or phone me at 905-377-8269.  

It's a brand new year

Well that's the only way I could think of heading this post...a bit brain dead given what we are up to around here.

I'll be 'way active on this site in 2008. We are loving our new home in the small town of Cobourg Ontario, we have wonderful new people to work with (including a gig in Yellowknife NWT and new clients in Sydney Australia) and I've just put my head above ground level after completely revamping the business.

And yes, I am working an 80-Hour week again...but trust me folks, I'm on a lose-work diet now! I'll be letting you in on my progress as we go, and sharing all the lessons we are learning as go. Stay tuned!

The Six Highest-Rated Tools, Tips and Tricks (part five)

Here is another of the ideas participants find most helpful in my Schulich School of Executive Education course Advanced Account Management and High-Yield Selling.

The Chunk Outline
How to decide what to say in any situation even with 5 minutes or less to prepare

You’ve all been there. The Big Client calls and wants an update right now, or you’re in a meeting and the accountant needs a status report you hadn’t counted on giving.

How do you pull your thoughts together so you sound polished, even though you are frantically rummaging through the drawers of your mind searching for the missing sock of last month’s numbers?

Our experience is that sounding prepared has less to do with content than it does with how your comments are structured.

In fact, when we test this in seminars with small business leaders, they always rate well-structured presentations, even those with weaker content, as more satisfying than those where the presenter rambles around tossing out stray facts as they occur to him.

Here’s the process.

Let’s assume you are in a meeting and someone asks you to expound on a topic you know reasonably well, but have not prepared. Ask for a minute to gather your thoughts (really! Junior people are afraid to appear unprepared. Senior people know they are, and take the time to get it right.)

1. You need an agenda of no more than 3 points. Always advance-organize      listeners with an agenda, even if you are only speaking for 5 minutes.      Never have an agenda with more than 3 items. We like the “What, So What,      Now What” approach. It sounds like this:

“I’ll cover where we are today, the implications and then the action plan”

“I’ll answer your question by reminding you of the situation and how we see its impact, and then I’ll share where we’re going with it.”

“Well we all know what’s going on, so let me quickly summarize our understanding and what we’ve learned, before I go over the action plan.”

You could use another organizing principle if it works better for you of course: national situation, local situation, next steps; past, present, where we go from here; what A said, what B said, what C said…in any case, the trick is to make the audience feel comfortable that you have a handle on the content so they can relax and listen.

2. For each agenda point, touch on no more than 3 to 5 key facts in the same      order as the agenda. Do not give in to the desire to teach everyone the      minutiae of the situation. They are not interested, and it will take too      long.
3. Summarize each agenda point. Say, “So, the key messages are …” in the same order      as the agenda.
4. Close by clearly recommending a course of action, and indicating what you      are prepared to do to make it successful. Say, “As a result, I am      recommending…and I am prepared to…if you will…”

The Chunk Outline Summarized

                                     

Chunk   1	Chunk   2	Chunk   3
Agenda 1   “What”	Agenda 2   “So What?”	Agenda 3   “Now What?”
Current Situation   Where we are now   Problem	Implications   Where we want to be   Alternatives	Indicated Action   How to get there   Solution
Body 1	Body 2	Body 3
3 – 5 points to   match the agenda	3 – 5 points to   match the agenda	3 – 5 points to   match the agenda
Summary
“So, the key   messages are …” in the order of the agenda.
Recommendation
“As a result, I am   recommending…and I am prepared to…if you will…”

 

Next time I’ll close this system with How Executives Make Decisions, the 6 heuristics senior managers use to decide what to do under pressure.

 

 

This made me just **@#$%! nuts

Oh okay, I've calmed down now.
I'm reading Stephen Fry's Paperweight ((Arrow, 470pp)- it's a collection of newspaper and magazine columns he wrote early in his career. This one is particularly apt for me this week:it's called Sock Fury, (he's lost one sock and then spill coffee all over the kitchen floor and it makes him ballistic) and in it he says,

What is so infuriating is the fact that I am incensed by two such nugatory, not to say trivial, hiccoughs in the life of one who generally speaking doesn't have much to kvetch about...If I tremble with rage at a mislaid gentleman's half-hose...what have I left in the emotion-back for genocidal injustice or universal peace?

Well exactly.
Last week as I was running to get the dog to the kennel and myself on the highway for a 2 hour drive to a client event, I popped into one of our local bakeries for some bread. Since I've been away more than I've been home this month, it was going to serve as breakfast and lunch. "This is today's bread, right?" I asked. "Yes, sure, absolutely," said the over-jolly guy behind the counter.
Well it wasn't. And it cost $3.50. And I was pissed and got a headache and a stiff neck and made up all kinds of exotic tortures to demonstrate the folly of lying to customers.
So, I get to the hotel. I won't tell you the name (call it the Comfort Inn) - cheap and cheerful just like my client. I turn on the TV.
To find a 24-hour free porn channel, right after the decorating network.
Now there's something about a very sharp close up of someone's naughty bits that's off-putting if you don't expect it, even if it's something we're all familiar with. Granted, there was no bestiality, and everyone was slim and very, very clean, but still...I'm cancelling all my future reservations with this hotel chain, writing to the President of the company and telling everyone I can think of about this non-advertised special.
Well, yeah, I watched it. A bit. But I didn't inhale.

Duct Tape Marketing Coaching Excellence Series starts Oct. 24th with Guy Kawaski

Mark your calendars today for an exciting series of live interviews with some of today's brightest stars in the world of business, marketing, publishing and innovation.

Each month I and my fellow coaches in the international Duct Tape Marketing network will bring you access to a celebrity guest interviewed live on line by small business marketing expert John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing.First on the list is Guy Kawaski.

Managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur magazine. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start. Truemors wil be on the agenda 
October 25th, 2007 1 pm Eastern

Every small business owner will find inspiration, ideas, challenges and a new sense of purpose from listening to these amazingly successful business leaders.

These sessions are free to attend, but space is limited so enroll here now.

Future series participants include:

• John Battelle Nov. 15. Author of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture and founder of Federated Media.
• Michael Gerber Dec. 7. Author of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About
• Dr Ivan Misner, founder of BNI
• David Allen, author of Getting Things Done
• Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week
• Seth Godin, author of The Dip

To enroll in the series, enter your name and email here. You will automatically receive reminders and updates prior to each new session.

I wish I could write copy as well as Bill, the painter

I was on the phone with a Duct Tape Marketing client one day last month, while Bill, the guy who is painting my new house, was working in the hall outside my office.
"Hey Liz," he said as he was ripping off the last of the bubble-gum pink wallpaper border off the wall at the top of the stairs, "you're in business. You should come to my BNI group."
Well, I already knew about BNI, so at 6:30 on the next Wednesday morning Bill picked me up and was my host for the meeting. Turns out that pretty much everyone who works on my house is a member!
I'll talk about that some more in a later post, because you haven't seen anything till you've seen the Power Group these guys have put into action.
Anyway, back to Bill. Next meeting, it was his turn to do a longer presentation about his business. He was nervous, and he's not Mr. Slick marketer, but his presentation was riveting. Here's what he said:

Hi, I'm Bill. Well, hey, you guys already know that. Right now, I'm workin' on a big job. 600 windows, real little ones. So I've got to scrape 600 windows. Then fill all the missing or crappy grout. Then sand 600 windows. Then put base coat on 600 windows. Then paint 'em. How many? Right. 600. When I go home at night I'm grouchy and I hurt. My back is killin' me. But hey - I'm the one that's hurting, right?
Point is, I'm Bill Clark from Top to Bottom Painting. You need me, 'cause I take the pain out of painting.

Man, we could SEE the pain in that job - and we got the point. Don't do it yourself!
Anybody who knows about selling, presenting, or marketing will tell you the same thing: if you want people to know, like and trust you, start with a story.