Business Growth and Marketing Start Here.

Is There A Right And Wrong To Social Marketing on Social Media?

2013-11-28T19:52:00.001-08:00

Can you do Social Marketing wrong? Can anyone do it right? Is Social Media a must for small business?

These are three big and related questions that have some long answers and short answers. In marketing, metrics are everything, or at least that is what the big companies want you to think.

The only metric that matters is Sales Per Marketing Dollar spent. The rest is marketing smoke and mirrors to get more money out of your pocket.

So how does social media and social marketing fit into this mix? Basically your only expense is your time unless you hire someone to do it for you. My company used to offer the service, but the evolution of social media has made it ineffective for a third party to take over social media marketing.

What we do now is monitor your marketing and send reminders to someone inside your company. If the information doesn't come from within your business it lacks the authenticity that social media requires. We can start a program and coach you through it, and that is about it.

Why hire a coach? Reminders and accountability. 90% of the time people just need to be accountable to someone.

Social media and Social Marketing isn't any different.

Recently I took a class from someone who nailed all of the rules, and didn't follow a one of them. It was great because her lack of traction said it all.

Some simple keys?

First, make sure you know your customer. Think about your best customers. The top 1% in total dollars and the top 1% in profitability. When you write a tweet or Facebook post, write to them. Don't write to everyone.

Second make sure you post. Some good minimum rules, One blog post per month, One Facebook per week, three tweets per week. If you have nothing new, find something that helps them even if it isn't related to your business but something they trust you with.

Third, Listen and learn from them. See what they like and what they skip. Post more of what people like.

That is all you need to do. If you want a little more, try my book, "The Easy Guide To Internet Marketing"

Are You Spending Right For Your Business?

2013-11-12T16:30:00.000-08:00

Spending right for your business is a tougher challenge than most people can imagine. If everyone could do it, then we would all be in business for ourselves. I have to admit this bit of wisdom was passed on to me by a friend and mentor, it isn't something I understood on my own.

Business itself is a very different animal. Owning one takes a special person who is willing to sacrifice everything in order to serve someone else's wants and needs. Let's face it, building a business that only serves the owner is a waste of time and money. Regrettably, I know this because I did it and ate my lunch and seven figures doing it.

One of my "success keys" is to "Be careful who you listen to." I seek out people who make at least twice as much money, or have twice as big a home or at least appear to make at least twice as much money as I do. Why? Simply put, why do I want to take financial advice from someone who makes less money, business advice from someone with a smaller business or real estate advice from someone with less property? If I am doing better than they are I should advise them shouldn't I?

My friend owns a company that is well over ten times the size of my business. We were living about three streets apart at the time we had the conversation. He lived in a stunning golf course mansion, and I lived on a huge lot with a Sears Craftsman catalog home a few blocks over. We met through a neighbor at a party.

Sitting on his back patio enjoying a beer, he turns and says, "Scott, I think you can appreciate my day today. Today is a great example of how I make all of my money. Margins are so thin nowadays that you have to guard every penny with your life." Keep in mind this is a guy running a business easily 10 times bigger than mine in employee count and income.

He recounted his day covering everything from an employee that wanted an undeserved pay raise to a truck dealer trying to hit him up for a $1000 repair bill. He talked about how he showed the employee how much they needed to do to earn what they were asking for, and continued with the story of the truck dealer who tried to charge $1000 for a transmission that was just three days out of warranty. His company had over 100 employees and 20 trucks at that time.

When he added up all of the money he was able to not save for the day it was nearly $2500. He says do that 3 days a week, and spend the other two on the shop floor, and you are saving well over your salary. I did the math, 50 weeks at $7500 a week is $375,000. I can't verify his salary, but that looks like a number that would pay for his house.

In my personal blog, I have discussed the problems with IT overselling you on solutions. You have to know your business and what it really needs, otherwise you will just spend money without knowing where or why it is going somewhere else.

When you look at the financials of a successful business, the owner is taking home just a small percentage of the gross income, usually 5% or so. Think about that carefully. On a business doing $1,000,000 a year in sales the owner is really making only $50,000 for their investment. Anything else is income from the labor just like an employee. If they spend too much time in the business working on the job, they miss the opportunity to keep an eye on where the money is going.

That difference of just 2 or 3% can be the difference between success and failure. That fine line can make or break a small business. Building a business to sell creates an even bigger challenge when it comes to watching the outflow of cash. Buyers like money coming in, not going out.

Do you spend the time each month to understand where all of your money goes? How about each week? Where can you save that critical few hundred dollars each week?

What is your customer really worth?

2013-11-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

Lately I have had more than one discussion on the lifetime value of a customer. While there a few businesses that are one shot programs like wrongful death attorney’s, most other businesses have a long term value and benefit if they can maintain a customer relationship.

Every owner I talked to wanted more customers, and agreed that the customers they have are the most profitable. So when I wanted to add a customer relationship program to the mix, why do they hesitate?

It is a very interesting phenomenon and attitude among business owners. All of them will track how many customers are added to their “list” but they rarely track how many leave. Online marketing is an interesting field because the total list is always a moving target. If we forget about the existing customers for even a minute, they fall off the list faster than we can hit the refresh key.

So why is it that an owner will spend a small fortune on online advertising and not a penny to engage the existing list and make sure they don’t go anywhere else? I don’t know. The Harvard Business School has a pretty cool calculator to estimate the lifetime value of a customer.

When I owned the home theater businesses, the customers first purchase was generally small, a test of sorts. The second purchase was the major purchase, but sometimes it was the third purchase where we could finally make a profit. Imagine if we turned away the little job at the beginning? After the major installation, it was a very small stream of income until they moved and built a bigger and better theater. The mentality in the industry was to get the next big deal and move on, much like many custom home builders. A friend of mine is on his third custom home in the same area. All three built by different builders. When I asked why he doesn’t use the same guy the answer was simply “He never called”.

Some of the top performing real estate agents I know have it down to a science. They not only keep in touch they ask for referrals, compounding the value of each customer. The area I live in is pretty much handled by one of two agents. Over 60% of the people in the area bought up or down in the same area they liked it so much. A few even kept the first home as a rental. These two agents are so tight with all of the homeowners in the area, there isn’t much of a consideration to go elsewhere.

Are you keeping in touch with your customers? I use a whole set of tools. I use an Email manager to keep everyone up to date on the latest in the Online Marketing world. I also use Send Out Cards to send real, and personal notes to thank my customers. Sometimes I’ll send a gift card even if the referral doesn’t pan out just to say “Thank you for trying!”

Facebook is another tool to stay connected and grab new customers. Mr. FBx has a great course online that is worth every penny if you own a business.

When I first started my business life, I started selling cars. All but one of the salesmen I knew just stood around the lot and hoped to “get a good up.”, meaning someone that buys a car and doesn’t grind too much on price. Then I met Jerry. Jerry sat in a nice office with a Rolodex and was consistently the highest paid salesman on the lot.

Do you want Jerry's secret? Here it is: He kept in touch with his customers. Sometimes he would get a little aggressive. One time he had me drive a new Porsche to the house of a Doctor and ring the bell. When he answered, I said “I know your car is a couple of years old, do you want to take a new one for a spin?”. He of course did and bought the new car. Jerry and I split the commission. Jerry didn't do anything but send me over there.

While the doctor was getting his house keys, the neighbor came by and asked what was going on. I told him that I was delivering Dr. M’s new car. Not to be outdone, the neighbor met me at the dealer two hours later, and Jerry and I split the commission on two cars that day.

Don’t forget that the customers that got you where you are might be all you need to get to the next level.

Keep your aim point and grow your business.

Who Are You Marketing Too?

2013-03-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Marketing to the right customer is critical to your success. If you own a cupcake store, and don't have sugar free or gluten free, marketing to diabetics and people with celiac disease is a waste of time and money isn't it?

So who are you marketing too?

Jeff Walker taught me a great little exercise. It is a two part exercise that I do every time I create an ad or copy for a client. First I define the business and then I define the customers. I only write to the things that overlap the two.

Within that overlapping area is the image of the perfect customer. I grab a photo from the internet of someone who I might or might not know, and imagine they fit this profile. I then start writing. I write as if we are talking to each other at my desk.

For each customer I have two phrases or keywords. For GetTheBugOut.com I have Termite Tenting and Termite Repair. As I write for them I look at the article or ad and ask, "Does this help the you (the person in the picture) decide on a Termite Tenting or Termite Repair company?

If not, I keep writing, until it does.

The picture is the perfect customer, the who of your ad and your marketing. The keywords are your why. If there isn't a who and a why there isn't anything to market.

Figure out your who and why before you write or buy any advertising, and you'll find your returns are a lot better.

Put Your Website To Work In 2013

2012-12-26T08:30:00.000-08:00

Is your website doing the job you expect of it? Is it being the dutiful sales tool you paid for and helping your build your business? If not don’t feel bad, most websites are sitting out there and nobody but the owners has ever see them. Once in a while, you read about a website with millions of visitors. That is such a small percentage of the internet world, it has created and industry of thousands of businesses like the Bourquin Group where I work.

Last week I was referred to a business by a current client. Since the business was local, I stopped in. Not something I normally do, the owner didn't know who I was and asked what I did. I explained that I ran an online marketing company. The response was clear that he didn’t understand. I said we do SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Still a blank look.

Then I said, I help people find your website when they are looking for your kind of business, and he got it. Every day there are 300,000 new websites added to the internet. Most of them will get less than 1000 visitors in the next year. Many will get less than 100 unique visitors. Why would a business spend the time and money to build a website that nobody sees? It happens more often than not. In most cases the website becomes an expensive digital brochure and nothing more.

If you are going to spend the time and money to build a decent website, why not spend the time and money to market it? Don’t you want to get more potential customers to find it online? So how is your traffic? Do you know? I am amazed at how many business owners I talk to have no idea. They just see the site out there. Some look at Google Analytics, and know their traffic, but have no idea how to influence it.

Recently I offered to double the monthly unique visitors for a businesses website for $1500 a month. The owner had no idea that was only 12 people. We ended up growing the site 100% per week for 8 weeks straight. Now he has 200 unique visitors each week, many of them are potential new customers and call for information. He pays $875 per month, not the $1500 I initially presented. It is still growing double digits each month. Just one new customer from that group pays my bill, and the rest is gravy.

When you started your business, why did you do it? Freedom, Happiness and Income are the three biggest reasons I hear when I interview new potential customers. And yet most of them tell me they feel trapped by their business, and more importantly trapped by their online marketing efforts. One guy was spending six hours each day on his website, social media and e mail marketing. How can you run a business doing that?

Before you go out and hire an online marketing company spend $15 and take a look at our books. Even if you don't choose to do it yourself, you will know the right questions to ask. Any or them or all of them will help you better understand what companies like mine do. It will help you make better choices when hiring a company or deciding to do it yourself.

Build it and they will come doesn’t happen online. You have to reach out and make sure you are in front of them where ever they are and lead them to your site. Don’t let them get away.

Internet Marketing 101

2012-12-21T22:53:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing is something that every person I meet wants to know more about. Or at least they say they do. When I start asking questions, or trying to help their eyes usually roll up and they check out of the conversation.

Every business owner I meet, every real estate agent I work with and every salesperson I talk to wants to increase their business using the internet, and so far not one has had an idea how to do it. Have you been buying those internet marketing courses only to find they make no sense at all. Do you feel like some kid is taking your money and telling you to give up your life so you can make money online?

I want to change all of that.

If you are new to this blog, I run an SEO. My company helps websites get to page one in "organic search". That alone is a daunting task, and depending on your competition can cost several thousand dollars each month. So how is a small company going to compete with the people handing me several thousand per month? Can it even be done?

The answer is, Yes, it can be done and in less time than you think. The secret is focus, and knowing your customer. As much as I want to have every small business in American be my client, I know that isn't a reality. So, in order to fulfill my personal mission of helping business owners break the handcuffs of their business and achieve freedom, I have made some changes to my business.

The first major change is letting go of a few of our closely held internal secrets. Like most secrets, they really aren't "secrets" at all. They are just simple common sense actions that we all overlook because we are so "busy" running our businesses.

After years of frustration, failure and wasted effort, I used my brothers logic (patented by the way) and found a way to effectively market my clients business in less than one fifth the time I had been spending previously. Not one of my clients complained when their invoice dropped 75% in a twelve month period and their results were still improving.

In order to help more people I took the major parts of our "secret sauce" and put it into a book that you can get for under $12. It just might be the best $12 you spend on marketing your business all year.

Internet Presence is your position on the internet. It is the combined result of your online marketing efforts, digital PR, your website and social media efforts. More importantly, included in your Internet Presence is your customers online opinion of your business. Many owner feel like this is totally out of their control. My experience tells me the opposite is true. You can change the online opinion of your business with very little effort. You just need the right effort.

If you want to start 2013 off on the right foot, pick up a copy of The Easy Guide To Internet Marketing today. You will quickly learn how to position your business and build your online presence in just a few hours each week. Don't let the competition get ahead of you, get your internet presence plan in place today.

Are You Marketing On Facebook For Free?

2012-09-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

Facebook is clearly the king of Social Media. Just having a solid Social Media Foundation on Facebook can bring your real customers. I don't mean the kids that spend eight or ten hours a day on Facebook, I mean real paying customers. Recently I have learned that several of my high level power friends only will respond to me on Facebook. Like me, they have someone else that reads their email because there is just too much spam. Facebook and LinkedIn have become to the high level communications platforms for the power players and high rollers.

As a small business or a local business, it is entirely possible to have your entire online marketing platform on Facebook for FREE and keep busy. My dog groomer is just such a business. I would like to sell her some marketing, but she is booked solid, and has no current desire to grow. Her only marketing avenue? An incorrectly placed Facebook Profile for her business. Currently using a profile for a business is against the rules, so she will have to change it. Her customers have already started the process for her, building a place page and a fan base. Now all she has to do is claim it, and keep the customers happy.

The funny thing is her competitor just three blocks over doesn't get it and won't hire my team to do the same thing for her business. The competitor "has a guy" that built them a website which does nothing for them.

Clearly Facebook is the king of Social Media, and these days, it is really a better starting point than a website. The best part about Facebook for a small business owner is the price, FREE.

Facebook is probably the best starting point to build a foundation for Social Media Marketing. It depends on the kind of business you have where you’ll go next, but just like building a good house, the longevity aspect starts with a good foundation.

Start by learning how to build your Facebook foundation correctly the first time. Once you have a foundation, you can market on Facebook for free with just a few hours each week. Free marketing on Facebook is pretty straightforward but there are some big mistakes you can make early that can cost you. While your kid might be on Facebook for eight hours a day, Facebook marketing isn’t a place to let anything go.

Once you have a foundation on Facebook properly built, then you can use your marketing strategy to build your plan for Social Media Marketing beginning with Facebook. In order to make sure you get it right, I wrote a book with a step by step guide to get your foundation built correctly. Included in How To Market On Facebook For Free is several strategies that you can tailor to your business, along with a few things not to do on Facebook or anywhere online.

Currently you can get How To Market On Facebook For Free at Amazon only on the kindle. The paperback should follow shortly. If you get it before the five days are up you can check it out for free too. After that, it will be under $5 for the kindle version and under $15 for the paperback. It will be money well spent.

Google Graphs Change the Game

2012-05-20T22:23:00.002-07:00

The online real estate game is changing and Google is making it very clear who the landlord is. A very popular article hosting site came up for sale for less that $2000 even though it still has some great traffic. Google graphs is going to help Google really fine tune the responses you get before you get them. No more "aggregator" or junk websites.

The article site that is for sale only makes about $30 a month from adwords, and it would take a shift to turn it into a subscription base given that Google is now downplaying the input from the article sites. May authors like me are sticking to the big pages like blogger and wordpress.org.

So what is a business to do? Real brick and mortar businesses are at a huge advantage right now where some individual people and online only companies are at a loss. Any solo or small business with a business address can build a solid following online or pay an SEO to to local listings for them. We have programs for under $500 a month that are very successful for our clients.

Who it doesn't help are people like Real Estate agents where 50 or 100 agents might use the same physical office address. The broker is the only one gaining ground. Individual agents are now double tasked with online work and social work to just keep up with the rankings and traffic for the office.

The timing couldn't have been worse for me as I made the decision to focus my business on the Real Estate industry and join my wife as an agent for Keller Williams Newport Estates. The fun part is looking at how all of this has changed marketing for Real Estate, a market that has been beaten down for over 6 years. We'll get it figured out, it just means I have to put in more effort than I expected when I started Real Estate School last fall.

For my existing clients, many saw some traffic improvements with very little additional effort on our part. We only had to make a couple of minor changes for law firms, auto service centers and the like. For the real estate work, we are taking on an entirely new direction. We don't know how it is working yet but one of the techniques we are trying is the billboard and newsletter style websites.

The billboard website is a website like www.newportcostamesa.com where there is a newsletter of the events for Newport and Costa Mesa. Then we are going to create a subdomain like AutoService.NewportCostaMesa.com and build a one page billboard for our Auto Service client in that area. For them it should work nicely. For realtors, we don't know how it will pan out due to the sheer numbers.

I'll let you know. In the mean time, if you get a Google Graphs page, let us know what you think!

Who is your SEM helping you or them?

2012-04-23T09:38:00.002-07:00

Google is making some big changes. Using smarter natural language engines, they are preventing "over SEO'd" sites from making it to the top. That is great for my company and clients, not so much for the big guys.

SEM or Seach Engine Marketing is the paid ad part. When I go head to head with a national player very few people understand the game. They just send money and hope those little numbers under the phone means real customers, not sales people looking to sell you something. You can't ever know for sure.

What you can know is who Google is crediting for your ads. You might have a landing page in your domain like http://replicaspeedster.truspeed.com, or you could have a landing page on your vendors domain like http://replicaspeedster.bourquingroup.com. If you are paying for the ad, with 25% to 50% markup, which domain should it go too? As your marketing consultant my answer is yours of course.

Our policy is that all landing pages are created on the customers domain for SEM. For SEO, we create separate pages based on the city the company is based in. With the exception of Real Estate Agents and Brokers, we only accept one of each type of business per city. If you are a bigger business that covers two or three cities, we'll let you "buy" all of those cities.

Since we specialize in Real Estate Office Marketing Online, we can accept two or three per city, each with a different "niche". Huntington Beach, CA for instance has three distinct markets, so we represent one agent for each. Reno Nevada, has two parts of town and then there is Sparks. The agents that try to cover it all won't make it, so we don't want to work with them. Specialists make the money.

SEO and SEM are separate programs which should be intertwined to get the most value. Mobile and Local programs should also be in the mix. Doing them all gets you the most reach and the lowest overall price per contact. Getting reach to local and mobile customers is a big part of the small business game online these days.

When your SEM company places ads that link to their domain, it is easier to set up and easier to manage. They don't need access to your website to do it. If they are doing your SEO work though, they should have access to your website to make minor tweaks to comply with Google policies and changes from time to time.

The problem with the easy route is that every time your ad is clicked the SEM company gets the hit, not your website. I have had clients say they don't want to be tied to an adwords campaign, and this is exactly how you end up tied to paid ads forever. Your ads and the the SEM companies website will be out pacing your own website if they get more clicks on your search terms. If you stop paying, they get the clicks for another client. You are now tied to them. It can take 3 months to a year to fix.

As an SEM of course, my little company will probably never make page one on Google for search marketing agencies because the big 10 companies all have their clients campaigns linked to their domains. This process is giving them better ranking on Google automatically, which leads to more customers because they are easier to find than the little companies like mine. Word of mouth is 95% of our new business each year.

This arrangement is fine with me. I am glad to have the scraps and do a better job for my clients without the hassles of large offices, thousands of employees and in a couple of cases, large investors trying to run the company. At the end of the day, I know my clients are getting the best marketing they can buy online at any price. What are you paying for?

Google Gives Away $100 Coupons to Ad Agencies

2012-03-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

I got a nice gift from Google today. The funny thing is I can't use it really. Google sent me a stack of $100 coupons for adwords. If you have a small business and want to start advertising on line, call me, I have some free coupons.

Why would Google give me a stack of $100 coupons for adwords? Google knows that ad agencies can get two to ten times better response per ad than most users can. You have a business to run. Advertising and Marketing isn't your business. Maybe Google sent you a $100 coupon and you used it only to find it frustrating that you didn't get any new customers.

Google wants to change that. Instead of sending out coupons to every business in the world, they send stacks to Search Engine Marketing companies like the Bourquin Group. As an SEO and SEM business, online ads and websites are what we do. Your success online is our success. Google wants your ads to work, and they know if they send me the coupons to send to you, the chances of your success increase.

If you want to start an online ad campaign that really works, call me and let me show you how we can help. What have you got to lose, a $100 Coupon from Google? Call me at 775-589-2655

Todays Simple Tip - Be Great at One Thing

2012-03-16T09:54:00.001-07:00

Today I just want to post a reminder that has been handed down from business guru's since the beginning of time in business guru land.

Be Great At One Thing.

No body is great at everything. Bo Jackson tried, and came close, but I don't believe he is mortal.

So for the rest of us, practice good habits doing something that makes you happy every day. Don't live in a job or life that makes you miserable.

If you are a writer, write every day. If you are a salesperson, sell every day. Never let up, be great.

That is the real secret to success.

In the Cloud, Storing or Sharing?

2012-02-26T21:57:00.000-08:00

More and more "The Cloud" looks like the easier alternative for data storage. It is just another way we can hold someone or no one else responsible for something that is ours. Recently a CPA suggested that I switch to an online version of the accounting software my business was using.

Like many things in life, it is cheaper this month to "rent" than to buy. For $39 a month I could get software that I could download for $99. Ok so month one I pay $39, and keep $60 in my wallet. The next month, I pay another $39 and keep $21, but then the third month I am now $18 behind and each month, I get another $39 behind the financial curve.

The truly rich rent nothing and buy everything. Looking at the accounting software option, you can quickly see that the software company is getting pretty rich because they own it and other people rent it.

My next concern is simply: What am I really doing with my data?

Am I just storing my data or sharing it? If the data sits in my office, the little green light on my server tells me it is there doing fine. The CD on the shelf and the one I take home make me feel better about my data being there in the morning.

I did look at "renting" the online version of the software but I found two things. First the EULA made my eyes cross and there is another company that offers just about all the same features for just $19 a month. I discovered a couple of features that even my "purchased" version didn't have.

What I was trying to find before my eyes crossed while reading the EULA was an answer about what happens to my data if they get bought or the CEO goes nuts with company money and they go out of business? What if I sell the company and get audited two years later? Would I be able to get the data?

I never got to the answer if it was in the EULA, and decided the $99 download only version was the quick and easy way to upgrade for the year. A little more background is probably due here. I was using a 2009 version of the software. One feature was going to go away in May. When I sent my files to my CPA for my 2011 taxes, he couldn't open the file or make changes because my software version was too old. That is why I started looking.

As soon as I upgraded the software, I got a popup asking me to "share how I use" the software. I started thinking, if they know how I use the software and what is in the data, who is really running my accounting? The problem I have is that "they" aren't going to have to sit with the IRS when something goes wrong.

The more I looked at the accounting software the more I started to wonder about anything else stored in "the cloud". I mean if Facebook shuts down and my pictures disappear, I will probably live without them being online just fine. If LinkedIn shuts down and my business life story is erased from their servers, I probably wouldn't know for a few days at least. Just for fun I have copies of the good pictures on my little home server.

For now, I'll keep "buying" storage devices for my home and office. At least I know where they are. Anyone else have any thoughts on "the cloud'?

Simple Lesson of the week for better marketing

2012-02-24T14:42:00.000-08:00

This is a very embarrassing blog to write. Twice this month my website went down and my phone number quit working.

Ah Technology.....

Now we all have things happen where a website might not work, or a phone number goes out of service for a little while and we fix it and move on. These were both internal technology oversights, and that is why they are embarrassing.

In order to help us troubleshoot a website, I gave a vendor access to our servers. Not knowing that we hosted more than 100 websites on that server alone, they uploaded a file to the main folder. All of the websites quit working and no body knew it.

Thankfully, I pay for a monitoring service that randomly checks all of our sites for errors each day. I get an email right to my phone when the site is found to be down. I don't know how many customers found our website down and got a 404 page not found error or a 500 server error. It really doesn't matter if it was one. That one could have been our next big client.

The phones were another issue all together. We buy banks of phone numbers to track add campaigns. Our main number is in one of those blocks of numbers. Unlike a regular phone number we "buy" these blocks each year. This year, for whatever reason, one block didn't get paid for and our number was in that block.

I am glad to say it was only the block of numbers for our company, and no customers lost a call, but again how many calls did we lose? Fortunately some vendors had my home number and called me to make sure I was OK. That is the value of a good vendor relationship. I never call my office, so it could have been weeks before I knew. You can't fix that kind of damage easily.

More recently, a client had a Trojan horse infect his website. He wasn't a hosting client, so we had nothing to do with the website at the time. The hosting vendor blamed the long delay in removing the Trojan horse on several factors. They are now a hosting client.

Just today I met with a company and 90% of the pictures on the website weren't correctly addressed so the site looked like a sixth grader built it for a class project and forgot the camera. Seeing it would have made me bounce off the walls. When I called the office to tell them, no body could find the "computer person".

After doing a little checking it was clear their website was like that for months. So a couple of quick tips. Have everyone call your numbers regularly so you know they work, and either pull up your website every day or pay for a service to make sure it works. Keep in mind many browsers just show you the "cached" web page until you reload or navigate around, so just making your website you home page might not alert you to a problem.

Time for a change

2011-09-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

For some time we have known that the name Rustic Creek has run it's course. A new name is in the works, it is harder than you think!

The Domain Name, Corporate name and trademark logo are officially up for sale. e-mail your bid to ap@rusticcreek.com if you are interested.

The blog will remain on blogger, however the future writing will be at blog.scottbourquin.com and www.beachstreetnews.com

RusticCreek.com was sold and we have been holding it. The buyer again has asked us to sell it as their needs have changed.

Build Good Rules for a Good Business.

2011-09-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

He has an Aim Point, Do You?

An updated version of this is now at

Http://blog.scottbourquin.com

Aren’t successful businesses built with good rules? I mean pilots use rules to fly, the big burger chains use rules to make burgers and the government is loaded with rules. Last I heard Pilots were doing a pretty good job getting people where they wanted to go, the burger chains were making good money and the government, ok I’ll skip that one.

As a commercial rated pilot for over a quarter of a century, it is pretty rare that I go flying without a purpose, reason or direction. Even as a student I had a plan and followed the rules. All the while I considered my flying career a success. When I fly, there is always someplace to go, something to see, or something to do in the airplane. Isn’t that a lot like business? When a pilot starts out, he has a destination or an aim point, a plan to get there and a few thoughts in case the plan doesn’t work out.

Doesn’t that sound like a successful business? It does to me. Just like pilots, business owners need an aim point. If they don’t know where they want to take the business how will it ever get there? How can the employees help them get there? That aim point becomes the focus that creates the ‘strategy’. Ask my clients, I make them crazy sometimes with this stuff, but they agree it works.

In flying there are a lot of rules and regulations, just like in business. The flawed thinking that many business owners use to build a business is to create rules. Rules are great for assembly lines and other highly repeatable tasks. As a business owner, I have fallen into this trap once or twice myself. I once heard it said that “Rules are for people that don’t know what to do.” Using that thought process I built step by step rules so all of my people would know what to do. Eventually I was so totally saturated just writing rules trying to cover every situation I forgot why I was in business. Never mind that I was making myself and everyone around me crazy.

Why did I think rules were needed to build a business? Like most business owners I started out working for someone else. My worklife started when I worked for a Burger King while I was in High School. There were exacting rules for everything that happened inside the store during business hours right down to the simple task of filling a soda cup. There were even lines on the cup to show the ice line before filling the rest with soda. I learned a little phrase for filling a tray “Drinks, Sandwiches and then Fries”. These days, when I see fries getting cold waiting for a soda, I want to scream out “Don’t you know it is Drinks, Sandwiches THEN Fries.” That phrase was such a simple and usable rule, it sticks with me nearly three decades after I quit working there.

At some McDonalds now, the rules for filling a soda are so exact they have programmed a machine to do it.

So if rules work for Burger King and soda filling robots at McDonalds, how come they didn’t work for me in my business? It is really a matter of perspective. At Burger King, I was employed to run a business. As a business owner I was trying to build a business. When you are running a business, there isn’t anywhere to go; you just need to fulfill the customer’s orders. As an owner, the perspective changes and you always need to be thinking about building the business. The adage of “If you aren’t growing you are dying” applies directly to business. Owners need to worry about the direction of the business so it can grow. Rules don’t grow a business. A focus on an aim point does.

I realized some years ago the owners of the franchise didn’t have any rule books for how many Burger Kings to build, or what kind of flowers to plant out front. The owners had strategies. The smart owners knew that if the restaurant was clean and well-kept with nice landscaping, it made more money that stores that didn’t. The owners that didn’t keep up their stores won’t make as much money.

As you look at your business, building some rules is ok. If you have a service company, the old saying “Five minutes early is late…” is a great rule. Rules should be very basic and simple. When they get complicated it is time to use strategy and goals instead.

What exactly does that mean?

What it means is that your employees should treat your customers like they want to be treated. This can be sticky if you hire people that have never been treated well. I will save this topic for another day. Basically, there is a strategy for treating customers that has been called “The Golden Rule” for centuries. If you follow the rule you will get the gold.

It also means that your customers should already have an expectation of how they will be treated before they ever get to your business. Your strategy should be clear on your website and the minute they meet you or your employees.

Recently I had an automotive service center owner ask me to go market to, and get all the “soccer moms” in the area to get their car serviced. I asked him to take a walk with me. We walked out the front of the shop and I said, “OK, here you are Mr. Soccer Mom. Two kids in tow, and you are coming here for an service because your check engine light is on. Let’s walk in and tell me if this place says ‘welcome soccer mom’”. He quickly agreed it did not. When we looked at the website, it didn’t either. The print ads? Nope, not them either. Nothing about the business said, “Soccer Mom’s will love an Oil Change here”.

When you walked in the place it said “Cool Car Guy Hangout”. That is the message that the website also portrayed. That is what we should be marketing to, because when those guys arrive, they will get what they expected. The generic Soccer Mom won’t be happy sitting at a bar surrounded by expensive cars watching the racing channel.

When all of the employees know to treat the place like a soccer mom haven, they will make the right decisions and buy the right furniture without any rules. When you build the cool guy hangout the same thing will happen. Many times the owners are looking at opportunities while they inject their “hidden strategy” without knowing it. This guy saw an opportunity to get more business through “soccer moms” but his actions created an environment for racing fans, and that is what his employees continued to build without any rules.

The implied strategy was strong enough to create a singular environment. The rules came as a necessity to meet the strategy, not the other way around.

Huntington Beach Wins the Title in 2011

2011-08-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

The kids in my neighborhood made me proud today. They won the little league world series. This is no easy task. 7000 teams start the 45 day journey to stardom. The road to the trophy is littered with broken dreams and battered hearts.

When a team makes it to the series it is a huge accomplishment. These kids are everything that is missing in most people's lives. I can't help but laugh when I hear that these kids are "lucky", "different" or have "tiger parents". What these kids have is simple. They have what Napoleon Hill called a "definite chief aim". That is it.

What makes these kids "lucky" is their families, coaches and in the case of the Huntington Beach team an entire community that supports their definite chief aim. As adults it is surprising how many people don't have any aim point at all, let alone a definite chief aim?

The final game in the Little League World Series was a great example of why having that definite chief aim is so important to success. Early on one of the Huntington Beach pitchers was hit in the face by a nice line drive. Looking like Nolan Ryan after his famous encounter with Bo, the team kept it together and won the game.

In the final game the importance was once again illustrated with perfection. 12 year old Nick Pratto committed an error allowing the Japanese team to score a run. Most faults would lose focus and give up. Instead Nick stayed focused on his definite chief aim of winning and hit a line drive single with bases loaded to drive in the winning run.

Nick Pratto also had a game changing hit in the regionals that sent the team to the finals.

Later While talking with ESPN, Nick Pratto continued to look like a major league pro saying "Oh, that hit. That hit felt good coming off the bat. I just ... I knew it was over.

How many adults do you know that can keep that kind of focus? There is a reason they are well rewarded you know. Do you have a definite chief aim in life like Nick Pratt as he joined his team in the World Series? What holds you back from achieving your dreams? Find your aim point and don't lose site of it no matter what gets in the way.

Facebook Marketing - Is There a Right Way?

2011-08-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

Marketing a small business today is very different than it a decade ago, and really even a year ago. There is a pretty good book out there called “Changing the Channel” by Micheal Masterson and Mary Ellen Tribby. After reading “Changing the Channel” you would think that you need to spend a million dollars a year to market anything. The Authors of “Changing the Channel” talked about so many different ways to market and advertise that it was mind boggling.

One of the great advantages to small business today is how easy it is to gather information on each of the different channels. The easiest thing to do is to put a different phone number on every channel, and every ad for that matter, during testing to see which ad and which channel offer the most bang for the buck. More importantly you can determine which channels aren’t making you any money.

If you are a little confused by the term channels, think of it this way. Google Ads is a channel, Facebook advertising is a channel, Facebook itself is a channel, Television is a channel, Direct Mail Postcards are a channel.

A decade or so ago, many businesses could survive with a great ad in the local yellow pages. Today that isn’t the case. There can be as many as five Yellow Pages books in a given area to make it more difficult. For the past three or four years, a really well managed ad campaign on Google could do wonders for a small business. Today that channel is starting to get crowded and expensive. So what’s next?

With over 750 million active users, Facebook Marketing becomes the obvious choice. The ad planning looks a lot like Google but the cost per click can be 10 or 20 times higher pushing the cost of acquiring a new customer into the land of no profit. According to a couple of people there is a better way.

Recently I learned about a program teaching Online Marketing companies like mine a better way to use Facebook. It requires some interaction, but aren’t customers worth a little of your time? One of the challenges of being in the Online Marketing space is keeping up. I spend thousands of dollars every month on training, classes and seminars to keep up. Not many are easy enough or practical for a small business owner to use themselves, this one is. The cost is very reasonable, and the information is huge. Step by step video that shows you how to really use Facebook and not be labeled a spammer.

After finishing the program and changing direction on a few Facebook accounts for my clients I realized this guy was on to something. I can’t imagine that a small business owner couldn’t get a good boost out of their business using these techniques on Facebook. My clients are.

Knowing exactly how to place your ads on Facebook to get the best response from likely customers is a huge advantage for any small business. Many of the features on Google adwords have been mimicked by the Facebook team but there are a few Ninja Marketing tricks like the @ mention tag which, can make a huge difference in your response when you use it correctly.

Any small business owner that doesn’t have a Facebook Page for their business should get one today. And any small business owner that wants a much better return will find this Facebook marketing program a bargain. You can of course send me some money and I’ll do it for you, but if you want to try it yourself first, give it a look. I’ll even make this deal. If you buy the program here and decide to have us manage your Facebook marketing, I’ll waive the first months fee’s.

Find your Aim Point and go there!

What Is Your Aim Point?

2011-07-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been working with a couple of people and realized a big problem in small business. The owners don’t have an “Aim Point”. In my book, So Now What?, I talked about the scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice asks the Cheshire cat which way to go. It seems with the new economic problems more and more people are losing their direction. Maybe they were going in the wrong direction in the first place. Do you know where you are going?

One of the things I included in my book, which you can now get on the kindle for just $2.99 by the way, was worksheets. I put the worksheets in there to get people thinking about their direction in life. Since the book came out I have had the opportunity to talk with several people in person who read the book. Many didn’t even do the worksheets, and guess what? They didn’t make any headway in finding a direction.

Sunset Tow Lead by a KC-10

As a competitive marksman in the military I was always shooting targets. Some big, some small, some close and some far. One of the tricks is to not look at the target, but to focus on the front site of the weapon. This made the target a little blurry, but it also got the shot much closer to the center.

When I became a pilot in the military we had targets too. We called them “aim points”. When I planned a mission to fly from Northern California to some runway half way around the world, I couldn’t yet see the aim point, but I had a direction to go. Only when I could see the destination did the aim point become clear. In order to put 100,000 pounds of metal moving over 120 miles per hour safely on the ground you had to pick an aim point on the runway. While you don’t always land on the aim point, you can get quite close.

If you want to get gas from a Tanker moving at 250 miles per hour, you really needed an aim point.

Think about it, with a little planning and practice, a group of people can move hundreds of tons of metal and machine half way around the world and put it on a piece on concrete 150 feet wide and a mile or so long. So why is it so hard to grow a business?

Growing a business has the same rules and the same problems. First you need a direction. If you own a small business, you absolutely positively must pick a specialty. Something that separates you from what others would call your competitors. You can grow into other areas over time, but at first you really need to have a direction, and as you begin to grow the business, you need an aim point.

Why? Well let me give you an example, two real examples that came from one of my businesses.

I owned a residential systems business, in generic terms I sold home theaters. We decided to become authorized for one of the big Satellite companies so their guys would not mess with our gear. Since we only installed two or three systems a month, adding satellite services meant that we only sold two or three satellite installations a month if we sold 100%. We did about 70%.

We also decided that since our automation systems and remotes for the theaters had home security functions built in we should do this too. Again we only were installing one or two a month.

Another guy just down the road started a business installing satellites, and right next door to us in one of our buildings was an alarm company.

Two years into the program what do you think happened? Well, it turned out that our direction of installing home theaters was spot on, but selecting the multiple aim points didn’t work. The home theater business lost money on every satellite and alarm installation it performed. The profits from the home theaters were subsidizing the alarm and satellite business.

Eventually we flipped and made a deal with the satellite and alarm companies and returned to what we did best. It turned out both of them were making more money, doing less work and doing it with fewer employees. We never go good enough to install the satellites or alarms anywhere near as fast as they could. The alarm company later attempted to add some home audio installations, and sure enough within months, stopped.

The right way to do this is to grow each business as a separate business. Let the home theater guys be the best they can. When you have enough money, hire alarm guys and let them become the best alarm guys. The same process works for satellite.

It doesn’t matter if you have a small restaurant or small gas station. All of the rules apply the same. Just like one airplane can only fly to one airport at a time successfully, your business can only go one direction at a time. As you grow it is like buying more airplanes. Only then can you go more places and hit more aim points.

Find a direction, hit your aim point and don’t ever look back.

What Are You Saying Online?

2011-05-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

In a world where there are over a million new websites every month vying for your customer’s attention, how can anyone sell anything online? There are 100,000 pages a week created just to phish people’s information online. How can your business rise above all of this?

The questions came to me from a business owner who paid well over ten thousand dollars for a website that looked great. The problem he wanted to show me was the Google analytics pages and the chart for the visitors to his website. The chart was a flat zero. He wanted to know how he could have such a great website and zero traffic. After all, isn’t there a big software company touting how easy it is to be found on the web when you get a website with them?

The truth was really a two part answer. First is the easy one. When you post a website you have to market the website. When you market the website you tell the world where it is and what you can do for them. Search Engine Optimization or SEO along with blogging, videos, Pay per Click ads all market your website and bring you traffic. He didn’t do any of that. The “easy website hosting” companies are all giving away the website hosting so they can get your marketing money.

The marketing of the website is more important than the building or even the existence of the website. We can market a company online without a website and have a very effective campaign. So there is a thinker, which comes first, online marketing or the website. My answer for the 40% of businesses out there without a website is of course the online marketing.

The second part of his issue was the difficult one. His website said exactly what he did, nothing or everything. Customers of the online world aren’t looking for the “Jack of all trades”. They are looking for the best price on the specialist that does exactly what they want. Nothing more, nothing less. Search engines reward specialists with high rankings for free. Even on the off chance that someone found this guy’s website, they would be confused by what he did.

The best businesses are painfully narrow in what they do. The best car washes only wash cars, no oil changes, they just wash cars. People looking for a car wash and oil change center are a different customer. Those customers are looking for convenience, not the best wash.

The online world is very specific in what they want and what they are looking for. What are you telling them? What is the one thing you should be saying? Are you? His new website says one thing, can you tell what he does right now for you?

Your Business On Facebook

2011-02-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

One of the aspects of running a business I talk about often is that the owner and the business in many ways are one in the same. This doesn’t mean your marketing should be. You should be marketed separately from your business even if you are the only person in the business. Someday you might want to grow.

Last night I was talking with the GM of a local business, and his boss created a Facebook page for the business. The owner had just added the business to her Facebook profile. She became the business and the business became her on Facebook.

The people at Facebook recognize this problem as well. If you have a business, you can post it separately from yourself using he “as page” function. This lets you create a “Page” instead of a “Profile” for your business.

What is the difference? There isn’t much, “pages” don’t “friend” people like people do. It just makes sense this way. There are some other differences like being able to add an admin. If you have someone that you work with you can let them manage your business “page”, and not have access to your personal “profile”. When your receptionist gets bored, just hand her a digital camera and have her update your Facebook “page”.

While a business represents the views, attitudes and outlook of the owners, it is also better most of the time to let the business take on a life of its own. Separating your information from your businesses on Facebook is a good place to start.

The Business Lessons of Super Bowl XLV

2011-02-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Super Bowl XLV and Super Bowl Sunday! This is a great day to take a break and get re-acquainted with friends. Super Bowl Sunday has become a national past time through the excellent marketing efforts of the NFL. Even if you don’t like football, the NFL has built a show that everyone can enjoy. Even the commercials are more entertainment in themselves. A separate competition for the best Super Bowl ad has been spawned from this phenomenon we call the Super Bowl.

I hope you are watching the Super Bowl with the mindset of a manager looking for a better way or business owner looking to expand and grow. If you do this and spend just a little thought on the lessons the NFL has to offer, you might find some nuggets you can use like these three:

1. Specialize – Look at each and every player in the NFL. They all have a unique position. Something they are continuously improving. Look at each team. They are known for some specific part of the game. Joe Montana and the 49’rs of his era were known for a spectacular passing game that didn’t even start until the fourth quarter.

2. Build Teams – As your business grows and expands each of the tasks that you do can be broken out into a specialty. I have one person I go to for all of my graphics work, one person for my website analysis. Everyone on our team has a specific job, everyone is important but no one can do it all.

3. Have a backup – Every team has backup players for every position. Sometimes players cover other positions in a pinch and the team knows this creates a weakness for the other side to exploit.
Watch the Super Bowl game as if you were a team owner, and notice how differently you watch the game. Think about each of the players in the Super Bowl as members of a business team. Notice how they each have a specialty and think about how much training and effort went into making that slot on the team that made it to Super Bowl XLV.

Business is about winning, just like sports. You have to win the customers attention from your competitors to get them in the door. You have to win over the customer to get a sale and then your team has to amaze the customer so they will tell their friends to come back with them. The NFL has done all of this and more, how can you do it for your business? Think about that today while you are taking your break, and build a better business tomorrow.

Are You Stopping Your Business?

2011-01-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

"When you look in the mirror, you see the biggest troublemaker in your life" - Chinese Proverb

I was walking down the street when I saw a mirror that had this taped to it in a store window. I don't know why it was there, it just was. We all know this to be a very true statement and one that we completely ignore. It is so much easier to say that the car troubles you are having is because the car is poorly made or you need a new car. And it is easier to blame the traffic for being late to a meeting isn't it?

One of the things that most business owners do wrong is love their business. The day I realized I was doing this in the home technology business, I knew I had a problem that would only be fixed by closing the doors. When you love your business, you are building a wall and forcing customers to do the work and climb over it. I am as guilty as the next owner. When I finished my first book, I designed the cover, picked the title, ran them both by a couple of "yes" people and published it. Two years later I met Imal. She laughed and sent this text one day:

u r in luv w your idea.

It took a while for what she was saying to sink in. Eventually I realized the reason I wasn't selling more books was pretty simple. People do judge a book by its cover and I designed a cover and picked a title that I liked. I never bothered to ask the people I wrote the book for what they thought. Since the book was publushed, they have told me loud and clear and yet I still didn't listen. I blamed other things. The obvious problem here is I am not going to buy a copy of my book. At least not enough to get it on to any kind of best seller list.

My new friend Imal was 100% right, I built a roadblock in front of my potential customers. My publisher didn't do it, I did it. There was no one else to blame. A few people that picked up the book out of curiosity really liked it. All of the sales during the first year were word of mouth. I couldn't give them away on the street corner with the cover I picked. The cover hasn't yet changed and the only reason it is selling is a great review from Jim Pawlak and a few favorable blog postings by readers. I won't be doing any more autograph sessions at Borders until it gets a new cover and maybe even a new title.

The truth is if we want to improve our outlook and position in life, we can only talk to one person about fixing it, and that is the person in the mirror. I talk with people every day who are clearly their own road block. I am not going to ask you if you are one of those people I am going to tell you you are one of those people just as the Chinese proverb is. Admit it, and you can help fix it.

There are many different kinds of people in the world, and even the super successful get in their own way once in a while. Sometimes we can talk to the person in the mirror, other times we need to talk out loud to someone else. It doesn't matter if you sit in a confessional, a counselors office or just sit and talk to the mirror, you are both the problem and the answer. The trick is having the humility and the awareness to see the problem.

It took several attempts to get me to understand the problem with my book cover and title. Recognizing I was the problem was only step one. I still had to fix it. In business this step is usually much easier. If you take a walk in your customers shoes, you can usually find the answer. If that doesn't work, ask your customer.

More recently, I had a website that had a free giveaway. The idea was to promote our new DIY training program for smaller businesses. It is relatively inexpensive, easy to follow and the first months information is free. The problem was no one even took the free information, they just called to become a client. While this is good for business, it means I missed the mark in a huge way.

Once again Imal pointed out that my entire business and teaching is about focus, service and growth. Even the way the DIY website was written said pretty clearly "We can do this better than anyone else for you". Why would anyone want to get free information on mowing their lawn with a push mower in just 4 hours a week when they could get a guy with the new hi-speed zero turn, supercharged mower-trimmer-vacuum combination to do it and make it look like a baseball diamond?

Every day without fail, I meet a business owner who is the only person standing in the way of their true happiness and success. Most of the time it is because they are trying to do to many things. I wrote the book "So, Now What?" I should have had a cover designer make the cover. I didn't then, I am now.

There are too many business owners or CEO's that are trying to be the COO, visionary and venture capital developer. Pick one and hire out the others. If you can't afford to pay the other two positions, you definitely can't afford to be them.

All of this comes down to the person in the mirror. Did they pick the right job or business? What is the one thing they could do all day and make themselves happy? What customers could they love more than their business? Figure these out and you will take down a big chunk of that wall that separates your business from both your customers and your success.

NAMM Takes it to 11, And Opens To The Public On Sunday

2011-01-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

Unless you are really into music, you probably have no idea what the NAMM show is. Basically NAMM is like any other industry group. It offers manufacturers a chance to get together with their dealers to educate them and hopefully sell more products. NAMM serves the music business.

Visit The Real Rockers At NAMM

There are industry groups like CEDIA for the home electronics business, CES for the consumer electronics business and Infocomm for techies. The big difference at NAMM is Sunday the public can stop by and join the artists, musicians and engineers to see what the latest and greatest is the music industry has to offer.

An internal message leaked to me by a NAMM member, asked the vendors and manufacturers to please stay open for this important day. Clearly NAMM as a group gets it. The public is the real customer and the only reason the business even exists. Any of the companies that close up shop early and run are missing out on the most important part of the event.

As far back as the 1930's when Claude Hopkins published Scientific Advertising, he noted the companies that had the most success sold to the consumers, creating an automatic demand from the dealers. This isn't new psychology of marketing, it is just a truth many businesses forgot during the go-go growth of the 1990's.

Today is a new or depending on how you look at it an old market. The consumer is king and will always be king. If you are in Anaheim this Sunday, stop by the NAMM show and help the economy remember who makes the real decisions. It isn't the government, it is the consumer.

A New Years Resolution For You And It Is Free

2011-01-03T09:53:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2011. I don't know if you finish all of your New Year's resolutions yet but I've got one I'd like to add to your list that won't be that hard. In fact if you come back and visit this blog all year all help keep you on track with just a couple hours each month. This resolution has the potential to double your business in the next 12 months. Don't you think that's worth a couple hours a month?

All through 2010, there were two common threads missing from just about every business I talked with. Even those few businesses that we found which were focused on their primary core strength we still found these two threads missing. So I want you to make a resolution for 2011 to fix this for your business. Of the nearly 43,000,000 registered brick-and-mortar businesses in the United States, nearly half don't even have a website. And believe it or not this is not one of those threads. For most of the businesses that don't have a website, they can probably continue to live for years without a regular website if they don't want to.

The more amazing number is that less than 2% have claimed their space on the Internet, and only half of them have bothered to do anything more than claiming their space. Now you're probably wondering how you claim space on the Internet. The truth is there are several ways that you should think about the one much more important than the others. To begin with if your company name is already taken or something close, you should register it. This can be done for less than $20 per year and it prevents somebody else from stealing your business by using your name.

We had a client last year who had someone put up a spoof website using his name. Believe me when I tell you that the stuff posted was not flattering. We had to buy the website and take it down in order to help the customer move forward. For $20 a year you don't want that to happen.

But this isn't what I'm talking about, what I'm talking about is claiming your space on the Internet and the world of mobile and maps. All of this can be done for free and you don't even need a website.

The resolution that I would like to add to your list and I want you to say out loud right now is this:

I will claim my businesses place on the Internet web of maps and mobile. I will make one update and one addition each month until the end of the year. If I don't have time to do this I will pay someone to do this because it is important that I do this.

They are probably still a little foggy on what I mean by this, so I will start the new year off by giving you the first where to go. When I say tip, I'm not talking about some little tidbit of information that is totally useless. I am giving you the exact same steps that we use for our clients and our Mobile Connect Marketing^tm program. This is probably the single most important task you will need to accomplish in order to weave this thread to the fabric of your businesses marketing program.

After you do this, you're going to find that it was amazingly easy to do. It is a three-step task if you don't have a Google Gmail account already. Google will allow you to do this without a Gmail account however we find that they are much friendlier in their system works better if you have a Google Gmail account.

I know that I made you read a lot in order to do this, and this is pretty simple, but like I said, less than 2% of the businesses in the US have done this and it is FREE.

Step One. - if you don’t have a Google account is to go to www.google.com/gmail and get a Gmail Account.

Step Two. – Go to www.google.com/places and click on the Places for Business Link.

Step Three. – Find your business and fill out your place page completely. Here is a link to ours so you can see all of the information that should be there. You want to make sure the three keywords that people would use to describe your business are in the categories and the description. If you have pictures of your location, people and customers post a couple. If you have a logo, post it like we did.

That is it, when you complete this you have moved up to the top 3% of all businesses in America on the internet. If you want to do more right away, our complete workbook is available here.

Is Your Business On Mobile Yet?

2010-12-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

In today’s economy you are probably wondering what is really happing? Your business is still not as good as it was and everything is starting to cost more. The government says there might be 1% or 2% inflation next year and the paper says gas is already up 10%, silver 74%, cotton is up 56% and that means clothes are going up too. What is a business owner to do to survive in this economy?

Rustic Creek Logo QR Code

Most of us are probably wondering what is the real truth. The important question is really; “why do you care?” Worrying about the entire economy is like banging your head against the wall isn’t it? Your head hurts and the wall hasn’t moved one inch. I propose that we stop worrying and get back to work.

The turmoil in the economy and the move to mobile technology presents some killer opportunities to make your business a runaway success. The entire mission of our marketing business is to help connect your business to your customers. You might wonder exactly what that means. It means we want to help focus customers in a way that guides them to want your products and services. Most importantly, we need to make it easy for those customers to find you and to buy your products and services when they are looking. Don’t make your customers work to buy from you.

Today, mobile internet is growing several times faster than wired or desktop internet. Smart phones are the fastest growing segment of mobile internet. Just today Apple announced a new higher delivery target for the iPhone even with Google’s Android and Blackberry’s new phones also growing in numbers.

Your current customers and potential new customers are both likely to have a smart phone, and if not now, they will very soon. The best part is you don’t even need an expensive website to connect to these customers. For half the price of a good yellow pages ad, you can put your business on the phones of your customers and new customers when they are local and ready to buy.

If you don’t have the time to do it, we offer some very affordable managed programs and can even preprogram some basic ads and messages for you. Let’s say you own a restaurant in Flower Mound Texas and are running slow tonight. You could send a pre-planned text coupon, or have us send an SMS message to your customer list offering a better deal. Maybe Tuesday night is $15.00 steak night which is a smoking deal, and you are still slow. Imagine if you could reach 100 or 200 of your best customers and offer half off desert with the daily special, or happy hour pricing to them after happy hour but ONLY if they show you the message on their phone. How about a one time coupon for “kids eat free tonight only”?

The statistics from the Neilson group show that 95% of all text messages are opened and read. As long as you offer value, your customers will keep opening the messages hoping for the day they can take advantage.

Think of it as building your own savings club membership program that builds your business. Remember, text and mobile email can be forwarded. Even if your customer can’t make it, maybe his friend will. Don’t pay those big company fees for group ads that might work, get targeted ads that do work.

If you aren’t sure how this works, look at Google maps, Google places, Facebook places, yelp! and foursquare. Are you there? If not, get there now. If you don’t have the time drop me a note or give me a call, and I’ll take half off the initial set up if you tell me you read this. We'll set up your QR code link like the one above FREE with any new account.