Big life changes can make you more aware of the power of ideas

I’ve had several big life changes recently. My Dad died in March. My Grandmother died in April. In May, I learned, through a stroke of good luck (a new client), that I am gluten-sensitive, and changed my diet.

But the funny thing about the world… the big wheel just keeps on turnin’. I honestly don’t know what happened to March, April, May, and June… and here we are the middle of July!! Summer’s half over. It’s taken me the better part of 2Q to get my head screwed back on straight.

On top of that, I’m a Small Business Consultant who has been bootstrapping my consulting business for the last 4 years, and using all the money that comes in to run our household. When things like this happen it can turn your world upside down…

… in a good way.

I’ve lost about 20lbs without even trying. And I am now out of the rut that I was in. A mental fog has lifted, and it’s opened my eyes to a whole new world–it’s literally as though I’ve woken up. Before I was just going through the motions. Now I’m in full control, and mindfully moving forward in a very positive direction.

And I’d like to share with you how I did it.

The Law of Attraction and The Power of Ideas

In a previous post that I wrote with one of my clients, I affirmed the importance of maintaining a positive attitude–no matter what. I suggested a couple of books: ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People‘ and ‘Think and Grow Rich‘. These are without a doubt the two singlemost important books in the self-help industry.

If you Google “Law of Attraction” you’ll see just how influential “Think and Grow Rich” is.

“Like attracts like”

The Law of Attraction is a metaphysical belief that “like energy attracts like results”, i.e., that positive thinking brings about positive results and negative thinking brings about negative results. In “Think and Grow Rich“, Napoleon Hill says that thoughts are objects, and ideas are the wellspring of abundance. Change your thoughts, change your life.

Channeling your desire, affirming your belief, visualizing your success, you can re-program your mind to think successful thoughts. The effect of this “rewiring” is that you can catch yourself when you’re being negative. As with the concept of mindfulness in Buddhism you can see your thoughts are objects, and train yourself to dismiss your negative thoughts.

The Power of Ideas (Do this excercise now):

Meditation and Vizualization: The key to stilling the left brain and creating greater inner awareness 

Many mystics have taught their students to develop greater inner and psychic awareness through meditation. This works because it is a great way to quiet the constant stream of thoughts that wander through our heads.

A great way to do this is:

1. Stop what you’re doing (Quiet your mind and take note of your breathing or body sensations)
2. Take 3 really deep breaths (Visualize breathing in health and vitality–and breathing out toxins and things holding you back)
3. Be grateful for where you are right now (Be thankful for what you have–even your current problems–because abundance springs from gratitude. Say to yourself: “I was born for a specific purpose, and I am grateful for the opportunity to use my talents to serve others.” )
4. Affirm your belief that you will have abundance (say to yourself ”I have more than enough money to pay all my bills, pay my taxes, fund my retirement, and expand my charitable giving.”)
5. Visualize yourself in possession of lots of money (What does it feel like? What would you do with it? Anything different?)

Note: I don’t know if he followed the first 4 steps, but when I was in business school, my International Finance and Trade Professor Arkadi Kuhlmann used to ask us to visualize all the money sloshing around in the financial markets and he called it: “Kuhlmann’s Bathtub”, a big bathtub of money. He is now the Chairman of ING Direct, which has over $92 billion in assets, and is the 15th largest bank in America.

If you do this, you’ll begin to see patterns of how your left brain chatter is overwhelming all of your creative impulses, and by quieting your left brain you’re able to unleash your creativity with the power of ideas.

Try this exercise now again now for a 2nd time, and listen to your inner voice.

What is your inner voice telling you to do? Without a doubt, “that” is what you should be doing. If you listen to your creative impulses and your intuition, it will guide you in a positive direction.

“Give and it will be given to you”

Do you feel like you can’t accomplish something because you’re not smart enough? Not courageous enough? Just follow the Yellow Brick Road. The Cowardly Lion did and he discovered he already had everything he needed to succeed. He just needed to do it!

Actions produce results. Left brain chatter stymies action, so no results. It’s simple.

Big Question: What would you do if money wasn’t an object? Would you do anything differently? If you had extra resources to accomplish your goals, what would you do? Chances are it’s not resources that are holding you back. It’s simply the idea that you don’t have enough resources that’s actually holding you back. You are holding yourself back. There are many ways to the top of the mountain.

As Eckhart Tolle affirms in “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose“:

“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you–you in fact are withholding from the world. [...] Give, and it will be given to you.”

So what is it that’s holding you back?

GetSimple CMS one of the latest in a lineup of simple web content management systems that underscore the trend toward leaner, simpler websites.

Yellow pages aren’t working like they used to. Traditional advertising isn’t working like it used to. What’s a small business owner supposed to do?

As IT & marketing budgets continue to get squeezed, small businesses are looking for easier and cheaper ways to (1) create a website (2) manage their content, and (3) use Social Networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to build their own channel with their customers and prospects.

GetSimple is a great CMS for Small Business

GetSimple has everything a small business owners needs, and nothing a CMS doesn’t.

While it’s unlikely that a large multinational is going to use a simple CMS system like GetSimple, it’s perfect for a small business owner who needs an online presence. Most small business owners need a small 1 to 10 page brochure site that will help them achieve search engine visibilty… they need a simple web presence — that’s it.

Here are some of the features:

• XML Based ~ Getsimple doesn’t use mySQL to store information, but instead depend the simplicity of XML (extensible markup language). By utilizing XML, it removes a layer that causes slowness and complexity.
• You can “Undo” Almost Everything ~ This feature was based off an eye-opening AListApart article explaining how warning messages never work as planned. Because of this, they’ve included “undo” into almost every action you can take on the site.
• Easy to Learn ~ The top priority when designing a user-interface for a small business is to make the best in it’s class. GetSimple tried and tested all the competing management systems, took the best practices out of each one – then refined it.
• Simple Theme Customization ~ It’s very easy to create a custom theme and make it your own look. The base software is extensible, meaning you can add just the functionality you want: for example a photo gallery, or a new manager (or blog), or a google map.
• It’s Perfect for Small Business ~ For most small businesses, the only need is to be able to easily update their site from time to time — to create seasonal offers, ur update a list of services. GetSimple alllows them o do it efficiently and effectively.

If you have any questions about CMS for Small Business, or you’re looking for a resource to help you build a website or increase your online visibility, please contact me today.

Based on a conversation with John Milgram and Ralph Dise

“It can be lonely at the top,” but it doesn’t need to be, and it shouldn’t be.

Many people would be surprised at the number of successful corporate executives who feel like fakes—these are highly successful people who attribute their success to luck, timing, or coasting by with a great personality. This includes CEOs of big, successful companies.

Many of these CEOs feel lonely and isolated – and that’s precisely the problem. As a Leader you should not let yourself get isolated in the first place.

It is natural to feel isolated, and that’s precisely why encouraging others is important

It’s understandable though, how Leaders can become lonely and isolated. In our culture, starting from a young age, many children are told “don’t do this”, “don’t do that”. We spend the first couple of years of our children’s lives teaching them how to walk, and then the next sixteen years telling them to sit down and shut up. When and if you’re called upon, it’s a sign of weakness if you say you don’t know something.

But being a Leader doesn’t mean you have to be Superman. Leaders are human, made of flesh and blood, and put their shoes on one foot at a time—like everyone else. Many of the best Leaders are very hands off – they’ve learned to delegate everything to their colleagues and subordinates.

As Leaders, if we’re going to be open to new opportunities, one of the most important things we can do is to work to better understand our own personal strengths and weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of our organizations, and then enlist others—from the HR department to the people who are working in the field—to fight the good fight against our ingrained culture, and tell everyone who works with us: “You are stronger than you think you are.”

“It’s up to you to build a positive culture.”

As a Leader you must maintain a positive attitude, no matter what. But attitude and affirmations are not enough. You need to show you mean it, because actions speak louder than words. Follow through to better understand your people’s strengths—and then find ways to put them to good use. With use, your strengths—like your muscles—will naturally get stronger and more resilient.

Kunstler’s Law and “The Geography of Nowhere”

In “The Geography of Nowhere” (Simon and Schuster, 1994), James Howard Kunstler offers a scathing critique of America’s urban and suburban landscapes, with our endless highways, bedroom communities, and strip malls.

It’s really a critique of our culture. Unfortunately when you compare many parts of the United States to other developed countries, which have put a great emphasis on developing livable communities, it rings true. It should make us think about what constitutes a good human habitat, a good community—and if you’re a corporate Leader—a good organization.

Kunstler received great praise for his work, and like others who’ve worked hard and suddenly achieved acclaim and success, he found acclaim and success somewhat unsettling.

In his own beautifully self-deprecating words, Kunstler says:

“‘The Geography of Nowhere’ was moderately successful. It seemed to help people understand their feelings about a subject that had long bewildered them. I became something of a low-grade guru. I received many invitations to speak to civic groups, professional organizations, and colleges around the country. My initial reaction was panic that people were looking to me for illumination. What could be more natural than to feel unworthy of other people’s esteem? I am aware that many successful figures secretly feel like frauds, including people far more knowledgeable and accomplished than myself. This is apparently a universal neurosis. Everybody feels inadequate. I’ve since formulated a social principle called Kunstler’s Law, which states that: “In any room containing 100 people, 99 of them each think that they are the only one in the room who doesn’t have his-or-her act together.”**

As a Leader you need to stop the negative self-talk and the negative feedback

Kunstler‘s observation is dead–on target. Many CEOs, Corporate Chiefs, and Leaders feel like fakes and frauds, and secretly think: “If only someone really knew ‘the real me’, they’d know that I am a fraud (or a loser, or a jerk).” If you’re ever going to succeed, you need to stop the negative feedback and the negative self-talk. Stop it dead in its tracks.

Here are “Three things you can do to combat negativity“:

1. Surround yourself with positive people – Negative people and negative thinking will only bring you down. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to bad news. You should just have a positive attitude when you hear it, and deal with it accordingly. It’s not what happens…, it’s how you react to what happens that really makes the difference between a winner and a loser.

2. Listen to motivational tapes and read motivational books – You need to hard-wire your brain to think positively. Two of the best books ever written are ‘Think and Grow Rich’, by Napoleon Hill and ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, by Dale Carnegie. They’re classics. They’ve helped millions of executives and managers to get their heads on straight, so they can take advantage of the opportunities that lie in front of them.

3. Celebrate positive attitudes and open-mindedness – You should work always to have a positive attitude, no matter what. If you see someone maintaining a positive attitude despite the circumstances, especially when the going is rough, let that person know you really appreciate it. If one of your employees was faced with a difficult situation, and they work their way out of it, celebrate that success. If someone finds a new way to solve an old problem, praise him or her openly for looking at things with fresh eyes.

As a Leader you are responsible for your culture

If you are a Leader, you set the tone of your business, your household, your civic organization – whatever you do. If you’re a CEO, a division chief, a human resource Leader, or a father or a mother, you have people looking up to you. They will follow your lead, whether you’re leading by intention or by default—so be mindful of how you conduct yourself and the cues you’re giving them.

Do you create a culture of fear and intimidation? Do you tell your people what they should and shouldn’t do? Do you show them just how wrong they are? Or do you project confidence and tell your people that you trust them? Do you celebrate successes and tell your people that working together you can accomplish great things, that working together there’s nothing you can’t do?

If you’re a Leader, and there’s negativity in the workplace, it’s up to you to get rid of it. The tone of an organization is set by the CEO and the HR Leader.

“You really are stronger than you think you are—and if it’s feeling lonely at the top, it doesn’t need to be.”

Takeways:

• “A positive culture doesn’t just happen; you have to create it.”

• “Work on your strengths and make yourself stronger”

• “Stop listening to the negativity of the news media—and start consuming positive thoughts from other sources”

~~~

Written by Les Proctor, Marketing Consultant to Dise & Company, based on conversations with Ralph Dise, CEO of Dise & Company, and John Milgram, CEO of Aexcel Corporation.

**Excerpted from “Home from Nowhere”, by John Howard Kunstler,  Simon and Schuster, 1996.

In a previous post I covered several different very good Social CRMs. Social media CRMs are applications that aggregate information on your contacts’ social profiles, making it easier to engage and ultimately influence and educate them to the point where they’re ready to do business with you. 

One Social CRM that I didn’t cover in the previous post was Rapportive, which is an application we use, and I highly recommend, since it’s free, and helps you connect with contacts on their preferred social networks.

Rapportive helps you get  rich contact profiles right inside Gmail. You can download it here. Download it and install it, and connect to your social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and it will automatically feed you information about your contacts’ social activity in your email inbox — see below).

Eh voila! A Free Social CRM that gives you rich contact profiles right inside Gmail.

Happy connecting!

Designed correctly, it can be a great way to educate the people you interact with every day, turn prospects into 1st time buyers, and 1st time buyers into regular customers.

People have been asking me how I create my social media email signature, and how I seem to connect with people so easily on my social networks, and I am going to share with you an easy way that I have found to do it.

If you don’t already have social profiles established at Linked-In, Facebook, and Twitter, I highly recommend you do this now. Also, if you are interested in sharing your ideas and establishing thought leadership, I suggest you look into WordPress.

My solution requires the use of both Firefox as a browser, and Gmail as an Email Application. I highly recommend using both. Not only are they great applications; they’re free. I have quit using Outlook altogether.

Firefox — Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Corporation. As of October 2010, Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with 30% of worldwide usage share of web browsers.In Germany, Firefox is the most popular browser with 60% usage. With Firefox, functions can be added through extensions, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox’s users.

Gmail — Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release in 2004, and became available to the general public in 2007. As of November 2010, it had 193.3 million users monthly.

Assuming you’re using Firefox and Gmail, to build your own social media signature, you just need to follow these easy steps:

1.) Download and Add Wisestamp to Firefox –

WiseStamp is a web browser extension which supports Firefox, Google Chrome and Rockmelt web browsers. WiseStamp enables you to include your social profiles and dynamic Email Apps in your emails. With this you can design your own email signature and link it to your social profiles.

2.) Add your contact information in the rich text box

Sincerely,

[I've added my image and my actual signature here; that requires a little bit of HTML coding].

Les Proctor
Founder/CTO
HyperLocalDeals
216-973-9228

3.) Add Social Media Icons

I added my profiles from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

4.) Add IM Icons

I added Google Talk, which contains my email address, but will also allow people to chat with me through Gmail and AIM.

5.) Add Email Apps

I added 2 RSS Feeds from HyperLocalDeals, and new venture we recently started. It’s a Group Buying Website with a Social/Community Twist. With our merchants, we offer great deals and also give back 5-10% of every deal to local charities. In my social media signature, I have a feed to the latest deal, and a feed to the latest blog post (where we feature the charity that’s going to benefit from the latest deal).

This is a live example of my social signature:

Sincerely,

Les Proctor
Founder/CTO
HyperLocalDeals
216-973-9228

Connect:
Some Really Awesome Local Deals Coming Soon!
“We make a life by what we give”

In the Wisestamp Settings, you can set up your default signature when you hit the “compose” button. you can have a business signature, and a personal signature. In my case, I am running two businesses, HyperLocalDeals and Les Proctor Direct, my marketing consulting practice, so if I want to switch signatures, it’s quite easy… just hit the little Wisestamp button in the rich text box.

Voila! That’s how you can create your own social media email signature.

Coming up next: How to Use Rapportive as a Free Social CRM with Gmail

The 18-Minute Plan

It is to me. Ultimately, I’m paid to produce.

So one of my favorite Mind-mapping tools that helps me save time by organizing my thoughts is X-mind. And after you see this, I think you’ll understand why… but first:

One of my absolute favorite bloggers is Peter Bregman, who writes for Harvard Business Review. One of the best posts he’s ever produced is “An 18-minute Plan for Managing your Day“. It’s a great post, but it was really asking for visual representation… for someone to “draw a picture” so to speak.

And along came Steve French from Infomatix, whose work I have become familiar with through the X-mind Community, who has put together a great little mindmap that illustrates Peter’s blog.

It’s so good I have to share it.

The 18 Minute Plan to Improve Your Productivity

How you use your time is a strategic decision

The most important thing in regards to managing my time and staying productive is to mindfully set my objectives, and then visualize achieving them. By doing this at the beginning of each day, I find it much easier to avoid doing the things that waste my time. I’m much more productive if I’m mindful about my work.

I hope you enjoy this mindmap and are able to put it to good use! Many thanks to Peter Bregman, and Steve French, and the folks at X-mind.

If you like this post about how to improve your productivity let me know!

The problem with the Yellow Pages is… they just don’t work like they used to. 

Yellow Page ads are expensive…, plus they tie you even more closely to the phone company. I mean–haven’t we paid enough money to Ma Bell over the years? 

The way to get prospects to call you ready to buy what you’re selling these days is by achieving top rankings for your web pages. Top Rankings help you in two ways (1) you get more targeted traffic to your website, and (2) you’re viewed as being more trustworthy (if you’re top ranked, you must be good, making it easier to sell).

One of my clients–Back Bay Hardware in Boston, MA–wanted to achieve greater search engine visibility to take their business to the next level, so we did three things, which I’m going to share with you: 

Three Really Easy Ways to Get Top Rankings:

1.) Sign up for a Universal Business Listing

With a UBL, you can list once,  and be found everywhere, and you don’t even need a land-line. If you use your cell phone for your business–you can use that. And it’s only $49 bucks/year. 

UBL distributes your batch client listings to all the major Search and Directory outlets – hundreds in total. These include: 

• Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN
• Online Yellow Pages such as Superpages, Yellowpages.com
• Portals and Guides such as AOL, CitySearch
• Databases like infoUSA and Acxiom
• Cell Phones and Mobile devices such as BlackBerry and iPhone
• 411 Directory Assistance
• In-Car GPS Navigation
• Telematics such as OnStar

The Result? Take a look. They are listing “B” in Google Maps 

The downside? The result may differ a bit depending on your proximity to the center of your geographic location. But at the very least, your information is accurate everywhere! 

2.) Create a Wordpress Website with All-in-one SEO (WordPress Plugin)

All-in-One SEO makes Search Engine Optimization easy by optimizing keyword phrases on each page of your website, which gives your website a boost in the search engine rankings, and increases traffic to your website. 

In this case we’re trying to not only achieve top rankings for search terms like “Hardware Store Back Bay”, “Hardware Store 02116″, but also “Hardware Store Boston”. 

All-in-One SEO is a WordPress Plugin

What is a “Keyword Phrase?” ~ Just in case you are not 100% sure about what a keyword phrase is, this is the word or phrase that someone will type into Google when they’re searching for information.  

3.) Optimize your Web Pages using the SEO Pressor Plugin  

SEO Pressor is a handy little On-Page Optimization Wordpress Plugin that forces you to choose one keyword phrase per page, and reminds you to do all the right things to optimize your web pages (proper use of Title Tags, Header tags, Alt tags, Hyperlink Text–boring SEO stuff), tells you your keyword density, and provides you a score that serves as a guideline for improvement.  

It’s really awesome and I use it on all my websites! 

Search Engine Ranking Analysis for Back Bay Hardware (click to view details)

You can see the search engine ranking analysis for Back Bay Hardware in greater detail by clicking the image above.

The Result? Back Bay Hardware is #1 for the Key Phrase “Hardware Store Boston” on Yahoo, Bing, and Google. 

By the way, you get the best results if you do a little keyword research prior to setting up your UBL – Universal Business Listing. If you’d like I can have one of my guys do it for you for $299.00. If you fill out this form we can have your listing updated in 2-3 business days. 

If you’d like more information about how to achieve top rankings please contact me today.

As marketing folks, we certainly have their work cut out for us–especially in this brave new world of social and new media, where relationship-building is literally everything!

Every small business owner, it would seem, now has a LinkedIn account, a Facebook Page, a Twitter Account, and many of the smaller retailers have Yelp and Foursquare accounts.  How are we supposed to keep up with all this? It can be overwhelming!

Yet manage we must

As Marketers, we’re ultimately graded (and paid) based upon the quantity and quality of qualified leads and sales that we generate through our websites, blog posts, and email blasts.  Our success (or failure) in using Social Media effectively is about  (1) connecting (2) listening (3) engaging, and (4) turning social connections into customers.

Enter Social Media CRM: Social media CRMs are applications that aggregate information on your contacts’ social profiles, making it easier to engage and ultimately influence and educate them to the point where they’re ready to do business with you. That’s why I’ve evaluated several of the the top Social Media CRMs:

Evaluation of Three Social Media CRM Tools:

Sprout Social - is very simple, clean, and easy-to-use, and has toolsets perhaps better suited for the small, retail business or marketing agency. 

Dashboard: They’ve put all the information that matters in one, simple interface, with all the information you need to measure success and know exactly where to spend your time. Brand Monitoring & Research: If there’s a conversation about your business anywhere on the web, whether it be tweets, reviews, blog posts, news…, it’ll show up in your inbox. Also, you can research users based on their Twitter profile to find targeted prospective customers and influencers based on criteria you define. Contact Management: You can manage all of your social media connections in one place, complete with history, notes, and more. 30 Day Free Trial. $9.95/month, $49.50/month for expanded capabilities.

Batch Book -  A very easy-to-use business solution, minus Facebook (as of now), which makes it perhaps better suited for the small to medium sized business selling to other businesses.

To get started you just import your email addresses, and click of the “Search Social Network” button, you can easily find and add your contact’s Twitter, Flickr and LinkedIn profile information. When you view the contact record, you will have links to social networking profiles as well as their last three tweets, most recent Flickr photos, and a LinkedIn summary will appear alongside their contact information and communication history, giving you a more holistic view of their social networking activity. Batch Book actually acts more like a traditional CRM with web forms, to-do lists, and pipeline development. 30 Day Free Trial. $9.95/month for solo users, up to $99.95/month for up to 50 users.

Gist - An elegant business solution perhaps better geared towards the enterprise.

Dashboard: Gist helps you meet your contacts where they are, whether they’re in email, social networks, on your mobile phone and many other sources. Gist brings your contacts into one place to give you a full view of your network making it easy to find anyone, anytime.  News & Updates: You can get the latest news, blog posts, and tweets for anyone in your professional network delivered where you want it, when you want it. Always keep up to date with all of your contacts. Contact Management: You can see all your contacts across all your inboxes, social networks, and lists assembled in one place for easy access and use – no invites to send or friends to request. Gist brings the whole mobile media dimension to Social Media CRM by integrating with: Outlook, Gmail, Lotus Notes, Saleforce.com, iPhone, and Droid. Ease of Implementation: Very easy to implement. The signup wizard accessed all my contacts through Gmail and linked Google Calendar, as well as Twitter and Facebook. It was going to make me manually upload my LinkedIn Contacts (which is a bit of a pain), so I didn’t do it.  Free Trial (indefinite) while its in its Beta Period.

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Each of these Social Media CRM tools offer Social Media users a major step forward. While Gist looks like the enterprise version with its integration capabilities, it seems poised to be the solution for larger businesses.

Sprout Social has more of a small business/retail/agency flavor and makes it extremely easy to manage Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare–for ten different accounts for only $49.00/month. Most importantly, it grades you on your engagement and influence with your followers, and provides suggestions to help you improve–which is what a Social Media CRM should help you accomplish.

The Best Social Media CRM: Sprout Social is my choice because I’m a small business marketer/marketing agency. I’m going to use it to help my clients manage their social media.

If you have any other questions about Social Media CRM please contact me today.

Can you bring them back to life?

Most leads are declared dead prematurely. If this happens at your company, this means your CRM is the equivalent of a “Lead Graveyard”. 

Very often the best sales people are somewhat technology-averse. Your Reps land like a ton of bricks on the “A” leads, and all the other leads are consigned to the dustbin of CRM history. 

Many sales reps, and most telemarketing firms,will give up on a lead after 3  phone calls, so many leads are declared as unqualified without having a single conversation! The supreme irony is that sales reps are continually asking for more leads after ignoring 3 out of every 4 leads produced for them.  

The bad news is that this is potentially a collosal waste of time and money.  The good news is that we, as marketing managers who are tirelessly advocating for our clients’ and employers’ best interests, and reminding everyone about our mutual purpose of increasing sales and profits, can capitalize on this opportunity and reactivate leads through a followup sequence that will bring those dead leads back to life. 

So that’s why I’m sharing a very simple Reactivation Sequence that you can implement to reactivate leads, and bring them back to life: 

How to Reactivate Leads: A Simple Sequence to rescuscitate leads declared dead prematurely:

The most successful drip marketing sequences are moved forward with “if/then” events. So each one of these events gets delayed, or moved into an alternate sequence based on prospect behaviors. 

1. Day 1: Post Card ~ with Landing Page with Education/Key Benefit, and a Personalized URL (PURL) and Low Commitment/Early Stage Reactivation Offer. If the prospect calls your 800 number, or fills out a form to request to have somone call, and speaks to a Rep, skip to Day 8.
2. Day 1 + 7: Follow up Phone Call from Assigned Sales Rep ~ Televalidate contact information; collect email and gain permission to send more information. If the Sales Rep is unable to reach the Prospect this delays the sequence until the Prospect is reached in person.
3. Day1 + 8: Follow up Email from Sales Rep ~ Initiate Subsequence based on Level of Interest and Knowledge based on Interaction from Day 7. If the Prospect visits clicks on a link or visits your website, you can track their behavior, and create a lead score. If they visit the site, and download a whitepaper about how to solve a particular problem, then you could de-activate the current sequence, and start them in a different follow-up sequence, including another call, and a different follow up. 
4. Day1 + 15: Education Email with Relevant Content ~ #1 the biggest problem your prospect is probably facing, how it can be solved. If the Prospect visits a link this can trigger a phone call or a new sequence.
5. Day1 + 22: Education Email with Relevant Content ~ #2 the second biggest problem your prospect is probably facing, how it can be solved.
6. Day1 + 29: Education Email with Relevant Content ~ #3 the third biggest problem your prospect is probably facing, how it can be solved.
7. Day1 + 36: Education Email with Relevant Content ~ #4 the fourth biggest problem your prospect is probably facing, how it can be solved. If a Prospect has not done anything after this sequence, maybe the timing isn’t right. Consider another reactivation campaign in the next 3-6 months.

The sequence above requires knowledge of a CRM with Lead Nurturing Capabilities (For example: Infusionsoft, OfficeAutoPilot, or Eloqua), 3 or 4 White Papers developed around your your customer’s most challenging problems, and how your company can solve them, and the Lead Tracking and Lead Scoring Capabilities based on your prospect’s behavior/interaction with your company, or your company’s website. 

Of the leads that are rejected by sales, industry data shows that 1 out of every 2 will buy something from somebody within the next year. If you’re not vigilant, it could be your competitor. 

If you’re currently closing 20% of your leads and converting them to sales, and you’re leaving 80% of your leads  in the CRM Graveyard. How much more money could you make if you reactivate leads and convert another 20%? 

You could effectively double your sales! 

Pages related to “How to Reactivate Leads”: 

• How to Get Great Leads

If you have any questions or would like to Reactivate Leads at your company please contact us today.

What do you value most?

If you are a small business owner and you read beyond this paragraph, I’m going to share my inexorable logic why outsourcing inbound marketing is the best of all possible options to find new customers for your small business.

If you are a small business owner, what are the two things that you value most?

After speaking and working with many small business owners, and being a small business owner myself, I can tell you without a doubt, the two most valuable things you possess as a small business owner are (1) time and (2) money:

1. Time. There’s just not enough of it. It’s your most valuable resource. With it you create the 2nd most valuable thing which is:
2. Money. It’s scarce. If you invest it, there’s got to be a return on investment, period. The higher the better, so if you can measure it, and improve it, so much the better.

Time and money are your most valuable resources. And everybody wants what you’ve got. That is precisely why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best of possible options for you.

First, why outsourcing your marketing makes business sense

If you outsource your marketing, it saves you time. You don’t have to do it. If there’s a return on investment, and it helps you make more money, then you’d be foolish not to do it, right? You’re saving time and making money!

Second, out of all the marketing alternatives, why inbound marketing?

If you are looking for something you need, what do you turn to first? Do you go to the yellow pages? Or do you do a search using your favorite search engine? If you’re like most consumers and business buyers, you sit down at your computer, or use your smart phone, and search for what you’re looking for… and you ultimately find what you’re looking for (without the yellow pages).

And the companies who show up at the top of the rankings, and provide you the things you’re looking for? They’re practicing inbound marketing. With Inbound Marketing, you develop a web presence, and promote yourself online so that when your customers are looking for products or services that you offer, they  (1) find you and contact you first (2) you convert them into a customer, and you (3) measure the results.

Inbound Marketing: How it Works

Inbound Marketing uses the best practices in Web Design, SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media… and ROI Analytics:

• Web Design ~ WordPress Websites and Blogs that position you in your unique niche, and put you in the driver’s seat.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ~ Top search engine rankings for keyword phrases that drive targeted traffice to your website.
• Pay per Click Marketing ~ Pay per Click Marketing augments your organic SEO, and helps you focus on keyword groupings and landing pages that will help you convert traffic into inquiries and sales.
• Blogging ~ Timely and relevant information that positions you as an expert in your niche, so that when your prospects have a need they call you first.
• Social Media ~ Connect with People, Collect and share information that it useful to your prospects and customers, Use that information to inform your own Editorial Direction, and Create your own content. 
• Traditional and Online PR ~ Leverage content, events, accomplishments to gain back links from other influential websites, and also media hits with traditional journalists.
• ROI Analytics ~ Measure the effectivness of your marketing activities to see what’s working and what’s not working, and invest your dollars where you can achieve the greatest ROI.

The catch? It really works best if you are doing all of these things simultaneously. It doesn’t work if you just try one tactic here, another tactic there. You might get some results with one or two tactics, but to really make it work, it requires a commitment–and it’s a process, not an event. But you can execute an Inbound Marketing program very cost-effectively, and that leads me to why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is your best possible alternative.

Third, why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best option

What are your options?

1. Do it Yourself: Not an option. You have more important things to do with your time.
2. Use an In-house Resource: It’s expensive to hire a full-time person, and it might only get partly done because many different skills are required. To be effective, Inbound Marketing requires simultaneous execution of multiple tactics, and a sustained effort.
3. Outsourcing Inbound Marketing to a Competent 3rd Party who can handle it for you: It’ll get done and you can measure the ROI.

The great news? Inbound Marketing is very cost-effective. You can get a lot for a relatively small investment.

Conclusion: So now hopefully I’ve been able to present a logical argument why outsourcing your Marketing, if it’s producing a measurable return on investment, is a wise decision. And by implementing an Inbound Marketing Strategy, you’ll help you find your prospects and customers find you at precisely the most important moment: when they’re looking for you!

And that is how I arrive at my claim that Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best of all possible alternatives for your business. Because it’ll help you spend more of your time doing the things you need to do to take your business to the next level, and you’ll be making more money.

Pages related to Outsourcing Inbound Marketing :

• Ghost-Blogging and Blog Management
• Social Media Marketing

If you are looking for Outsourcing Inbound Marketing please contact me today.