The Regina Business Blog

Twitter Power Book Review

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:32:00 +0000

I just finished reading Twitter Power by Joel Comm (the forward is written by Anthony Robbins and there is a chapter by Ken Burge and one by Kevin Houchin as well).

You can get Twitter Power on Amazon here.

Joel's writing style is very conversational and very easy to read. This book is full of things that you can actually take action on right away (including a 30 day action plan to dominate Twitter). It comes highly recommended!

search.twitter.com - @Garyvee's Thoughts

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Last week I talked about search.twitter.com in my article about Twitter in Regina. I thought this video by Gary Vaynerchuk definitely adds to the conversation about search.twitter.com as he provides his thoughts on how Twitter will monetize.

I'm in total agreement. What a huge opportunity for Twitter and for advertisers. More and more people want to know what's happening right now. Sure Google Search is still king, but it doesn't have it's finger on the pulse of what's happening right now like search.twitter.com.

There's value in knowing what's happening right now vs. seeing a day old news story from the . That means targeted eyeballs, and as we've seen with Google, that means $$$.

I'd love to see ads on search.twitter.com. The ads would be targeted to what I was interested in right then, which would make me more likely to click on them - a perfect scenario for advertisers and for me.

Twitter in Regina

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:29:00 +0000

Lately it seems as though Twitter has finally started to buzz in our little city of Regina, Saskatchewan. But even with the big media in town talking about it, it appears that hardly anyone knows what the heck it is or how they can leverage it for what they do.

I hope to shed some light on the situation.

So here’s what prompted me to explore this a little bit. A few weeks ago Cory Kolt was talking to a guest (sorry, can’t remember his name) about Facebook and Twitter on Newstalk Radio. Cory is on Facebook, but no matter how his guest tried to explain Twitter to him, he just couldn’t see how it would be useful for him even though his radio station uses it already to update people on breaking news (although they could and should be doing more of it).

The week after that interview Cory Kolt did, I was flipping through the channels and heard Brad and Heather talking about the Big Dog 92.7 Twitter account (http://twitter.com/BigDogRegina). Then a few days later I pick up the Leader-Post and see a question on the top right of the front page that says something to the affect of “Do you use Twitter? Do you even know what Twitter is? Take the poll at LeaderPost.com and then check out our Twitter page”. FYI: The Leader-Post Twitter page is at http://twitter.com/leaderpost.

I took the poll. At the time I took it, here were the results:

Yikes! No wonder the Regina media is just starting to use Twitter, no one in Regina even knows what the heck it is!

But all that means is that the opportunity is there for the local media to start using Twitter to enhance their listener’s/viewer’s/reader’s experience so that they can survive and thrive in the Internet age.

Here’s my take:

I joined Twitter in June 2008 without really knowing what I was doing. But I thought hey, lots of people are talking about it and using it, so I might as well open up an account and see what all the fuss was about. I started following a few people and watched their tweets while posting a few of my own. But all my tweets started off really as one way tweets, and since all of my friends were on Facebook and not Twitter, they weren’t really useful. If there wasn’t a Twitter application that updated your Facebook status when you updated your Twitter account I probably would have given up on it right away.

But I’m glad I didn’t.

Twitter is so much more than a service to let people know what you had for breakfast (although it can be good for that too). It’s a great place for community, troubleshooting, connecting, networking, and finding answers (forgive me if all of those things sound similar).

First, let me explain how Twitter works in a nutshell.

It asks a simple question – “What are you doing?” but answering that question is just dipping your toe in the pool.

You have 140 characters to say basically whatever is on your mind.

Side note: The 140 character limit is there because the idea is that you can get Twitter updates from people you follow on your mobile phone if you want to, and the limit for SMS messaging is 140 characters.

You can pose a question to the Twitter community, find people that are talking about the same things you are, let people know what you are doing/thinking, or by adding the @ sign in front of someone’s user name you can direct a public reply to someone. And if someone that you follow is also following you, you can send a private direct message to that person.

Facebook has friends and Twitter has followers. The only difference is that Twitter is much more open. If you want to follow my tweets, all you have to do is go to http://twitter.com/SeanStefan and click the follow button. After that, my updates will show up in your Twitter feed. I don’t have to approve you as a follower unless I have protected my updates, in which case I would control who sees my updates.

Watching your Twitter stream, replying to people you follow, and making your own tweets can be a lot of fun, but you can still get a lot more out of it.

Twitter Search

The beautiful thing about Twitter is all the third party applications that work with the Twitter API. One of those apps was actually purchased by Twitter and is now http://search.twitter.com/. Twitter Search is by far the best thing that has happened to Twitter because it makes it so much more functional.

Twitter Search works just like any other search engine that you’re familiar with, except the results are in real time and only show tweets. So if you want to hear what people are saying about a certain topic, just punch a few keywords into the search box and you’ll see all the tweets containing those keywords. And they’re updated in real time.

Ok, so that’s good if everyone is using the exact same keyword, but what how do I find the tweets that are about a topic but don’t use the exact keyword or prhase?

That’s why hashtags were invented. A hashtag is a tagging system for tweets that invites users to group their tweets together by category using the # sign and then a keyword or abbreviation. These hashtags are most commonly used around conferences or events.

For example, right now as I write this one of the hot topics on Twitter is #sxsw. SXSW (South by Southwest) is a media conference held in Austin, Texas and the attendees use the hashtag #sxsw to group their tweets together. That way, if someone wants to keep tabs on the conversation around the conference, they just type #sxsw into the Twitter Search bar and voila! You know exactly what’s happening with people at the SXSW conference.

Trending Topics

If you’re new to Twitter, you’re probably asking how I knew that #sxsw was a hot topic. Well it’s not a hot topic just because I knew about it. It’s a hot topic because Twitter shows that it is a trending topic on the Twitter Search homepage.

The beautiful thing about Twitter Search is that it has the ability to track what terms people are using the most in their tweets. I’m sure there’s an algorithm that pushes the terms into trending topics based on the volume and frequency that a term is showing up, but exactly how it works isn’t important. What is important is that it gives you a way to see what has people talking right now.

Below is a screenshot that I took of Twitter Search this morning:

As you can see, it’s a great way to get a quick news fix to stay on top of things. Click on these links, and here’s what you’ll discover:

· The chairman of AIG is appearing before congress
· SXSW is wrapping up and everyone is flying home
· IBM has put an offer out to buy Sun Microsystems
· Natasha Richardson has brain damage after a skiing accident near Montreal
· There’s an article out about titled How to tweet your way out of a job at http://bhc3.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/how-to-tweet-your-way-out-of-a-job/ that has lots of people talking about how not to tweet

So media take note, you no longer get to tell people what stories are important by giving them more air time or press. You still get to put out the stories, but the people get to decide which ones get talked about. If I was in the news business, I would be watching these trends because a lot of times news is broken on Twitter before it hits the wires.

Case Studies

Here’s some examples of how I’ve used Twitter and how I’ve seen it used over the past year:

#NHLtrade

Trade deadline day is an exciting day for hockey fans. There’s a ton of television, radio, and online media that break trade news all day long. But there’s no way that you can follow all of the different broadcasts and keep up with all the rumours. Well, at least there wasn’t until Twitter came along.

I had my Twitter search bar set to #NHLtrade all day and I got the news first whenever a trade went down. If a radio station in Boston reported something, someone would Twitter out the news before they could get it out on TSN. It was a great aggregator of information as both The Score (http://twitter.com/The_Score) and CBC Sports (http://twitter.com/cbcsports) were tweeting the trades, and I could get instant analysis from people from all over the world.

#TAT09

Joel Comm is an internet marketer who runs Infomedia Inc. and is the author of Twitter Power, among other best selling titles. In February 2009, he helped put together the Tweet-A-Thon 2009 with his team at Infomedia. The Tweet-A-Thon was a live streaming broadcast using Ustream.tv around the launch of his new book, Twitter Power.

He had special guests on the live stream throughout the day talking about Twitter and social media. He used Twitter with the hashtag #tat09 to spread the word about the Tweet-A-Thon. And the best part was that the whole event wasn’t just to launch his new book, but to raise money for a charity called Water is Life. The charity was trying to raise money to buy special water filter straws to take to Africa, a truly great cause.

Twitter was used to carry the conversation and drive traffic to the live stream, which in turn drove donations to the charity. People learned about Twitter and social media, they got to feel like part of a community, and money was raised for a good cause.

Joel Comm also provided us with a good example of how people who host events can use Twitter to promote their shows. Joel had a bunch of guests on the show, and when they came on he would tweet out what who he would be talking to in the next segment. Tweet out that you’re going to be talking to MC Hammer and people will probably take an interest and spread the word.

Radio show hosts take note. Maybe I don’t listen to your show all day every day, but if I caught a tweet from you that you were talking about something of interest to me I might be inclined to turn on my radio (or live online stream). I’m guessing your advertisers would be glad for the additional listeners.

#Infusioncon

The CRM software that we use for our business and our client’s businesses is Infusionsoft. Recently they held a conference called Infusioncon in Scottsdale, Arizona to help their users get more out of the software. I wasn’t able to attend, but they did have everything live streamed on Ustream.tv. But watching a live stream still isn’t quite the same as being there. Twitter helps make it a little bit more real though.

As I was watching the stream, I had the Twitter search set to #Infusioncon to follow the tweets from people at the conference. Watching the tweets and interacting with the attendees gave me a feel for the atmosphere at the conference and provided a way for me to interact without being there.

Troubleshooting

I was attempting to change my Twitter profile background the other day without any success. I was getting extremely frustrated. But before I wasted my whole day, I wanted to find out if I was the only one experiencing problems.

Fire “Twitter background” into the search and I find that there are issues with background uploads from Windows Vista. Thanks Twitter Search, you saved me a lot of time trying to troubleshoot something that I had not control over.

Product Research

Google is the king of search, but sometimes you still can’t find exactly what you’re looking for when you’re researching a product.

I’ve been researching video equipment lately, but don’t like spending hours sorting through reviews just to find what I’m looking for. I’d rather find someone who already knows where the information is that I’m looking for and ask them their opinion.

I just bought a camera for doing web video that has an input for an external mic. I wanted to know the best one to use and Kallow.com (http://twitter.com/kallow) tweeted back that they knew of one. The mic that they recommended cost just about as much as my camera, but it was still an option that I didn’t know existed.

I’ve also been considering buying a handheld HD video camera and have narrowed my search down to the Flip HD and the Kodak Zi6. So I tweeted out to ask if anyone knew of any good reviews comparing the two. A few minutes later I got an @reply from Kodak’s chief blogger Jennifer Cisney (http://twitter.com/kodakCB) who pointed me to a some side by side comparisons.

I tweeted back that I liked the video and audio quality of the Zi6 better, but I wished that it was as small as the Flip HD. Jennifer sent another @reply in response to say that they were coming out with the Zx1 in April that would be 30% smaller than the Zi6. Well that was great news to me! She sold me on the Zi6, but now I’ll wait and get the Zx1 and won’t spend much time thinking about the Flip HD because it’s more expensive and not quite as good in my opinion.

All of these responses probably occurred because people searched for terms in Twitter Search and saw a way to help me (even if they were helping themselves in the process). This is another way to generate followers too. After tweeting about the Flip HD, shortly after I had the Flip_Video_Tips Twitter account (http://twitter.com/Flip_Video_Tips) following my updates.

TweetDeck

To make following Twitter easier and much more organized, I use a desktop tool called TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/). You can sort the updates by follower or by search term, and they currently have a beta version that incorporates with Facebook status updates as well.

Using TweetDeck is a huge timesaver because you don’t have to keep going to the web to login and all the information is filtered so much better.

Where Is Twitter Headed in Regina?

As Twitter gets more media coverage, the curiosity factor will drive more and more people to the site. I remember a few years ago when I learned of Facebook. At first I thought it was useless because I thought it would be just another annoyance. I dove into it and it’s something I check everyday. Now even my parents are on Facebook.

I see the same thing happening with Twitter.

Now you might say that’s obvious, but keep in mind that Leader-Post poll that said less than 4% of recipients actually use it in the Regina area. That means that right now, there isn’t going to be a ton of value for the local media to start being heavy users of Twitter.

They aren’t going to have a ton of local followers because there simply aren’t that many people using the service. However, the more the media talks about Twitter, the more people will flock to the service. And when Twitter hits a critical mass in Regina, that won’t be the time to get started, you’ll be left behind.

The time is now for media outlets in Regina to build a Twitter presence. Incorporate it into your shows. Monitor the conversations happening in the news. Interview the people who talk about interesting subjects on Twitter. Watch it for breaking news and to interact with the audience.
Rawlco Radio has a big advantage on the other media outlets because they have John Himpe (http://twitter.com/himpster) on staff who already knows how it works. Here’s a clip of a tweet he sent out when he was guest hosting the Cory Kolt Show:

And the one before that was trying to generate some content for the show from the Twitter community:

If more media outlets start using Twitter like this, a lot more people in Regina will start to see the value in using Twitter. In return, the media outlets can build their tribe (see Seth Godin’s book Tribes about how this works) and attract more for their advertising spots.

There’s much more to Twitter than what I’ve touched on here, and I’m sure I’ll touch on it more in the future, but it’s a start.

Are you on Twitter? What do you think Twitter has in store for Regina? Will it ever catch on?

Testimonial for Infusioncon 2009

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:36:00 +0000

Infusionsoft held their Infusioncon 2009 seminar last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. I didn't have the foresight to get to the conference in person, but I did take in most of the live feed of the conference that Joseph Manna and the team at Infusionsoft streamed on Ustream.tv. Here's a quick video I did to say thanks to everyone for doing that.

P.S. More businesses should take note about the free live streaming capabilities at http://www.ustream.tv/. It's a huge opportunity!

How To Avoid Being A Spammer

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:25:00 +0000

Email seems to be thought of as a more personal medium than direct mail for example. People have a list of senders that they expect to receive email from and if you're not on that list, you'll probably look a lot like a spammer in the recipient's eyes.

Watch the video below for a few tips on how to avoid being seen as a spammer.

Organization is important when you're talking about email marketing. Make sure all your contacts are grouped so that you know where you collected their email list from and the relationship you have with them. That will go a long way to determining what types of messages you can send to those people.

Setting the expectations up front as to what you plan to send people when you collect their email address is also an important aspect of permission based email marketing. Tell your customers, leads, and prospects what you plan to send them and then follow through.

Ask permission before sending email that a group didn't specifically ask to receive. You may widdle down your list, but at least all your future messages will be welcomed, anticipated messages.

Weigh In On This Ad

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:12:00 +0000

Has advertising hit a new low?

Don Crowther uses Twitter to point us to an AdFreak story about a bus shelter ad in the Netherlands that tries to embarrass people into joining the Fitness First gym.

The person sits on the bench (with a hidden scale in it we can assume) and their weight pops up on the ad.

I'd just blame the other guy sitting on the bench for the bulk of the weight.

10/10 for creativity. 1/10 for trying to shame people into becoming your customers.

How To Choose Email Marketing Software

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Wow, has it ever been a long time since I did a blog post. Hopefully that's changed for a while. Afterall, we're almost at the 100 post threshold!

Anyway, I've shot a series of videos about email marketing that I'll be posting here over the next few weeks. The first one talks about how to choose email marketing software:

Resources mentioned in this video:

Infusionsoft
Constant Contact
Aweber
Email Labs

If you're interested in getting started with email marketing but want someone to manage it or get it all set up for you, visit us at www.lrsconsulting.ca and drop us a line!

Google SearchWiki

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:01:00 +0000

So Google up and decided to add some interaction to their search results. I first read about it on Seth Godin’s blog when it showed up in my email this morning and then quickly headed over to TechCrunch to see their take on it. Google's offical SearchWiki blog post is here and it contains a demo video.

The jist of the changes are that users that are logged in to their Google accounts will be able to interact with their search results. You can vote the results up and down, but that will only affect your own personal searches. Other people can see the names of those who voted the result up and down, as well as comment on each result, but it won’t have a bearing on where a site shows up in the search for everyone else – for now.

In the future, I can see Google having the option of searching by user rankings only, but hopefully they don’t mess with the actual search. Google search wasn’t broken, so changes like this are certainly gutsy. I’m not a huge fan of the commenting, because most of it will end up being irrelevant, which I guess is why you can vote up and down the comments, but I’m still not a fan.

Seth Godin talks about people running to game the system, but I’m not so sure that will matter. I can search for a keyword pertaining to one of my businesses and rank it up, like if I searched for “diy sprinkler systems”. I could get a good feeling by moving my Sprinkler Daddy site up in my rankings, but it won’t affect how anyone else sees it.

What are your thoughts on the new Google interaction feature?

Here's my quick Google SearchWiki demo:

Do It Wrong Fast - Learn just enough, Apply it, Change it

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:16:00 +0000

A few different things all came together for me this morning while I was reading this article from Business Week that I found on Seth's Blog. There's a quote from an academic in there that really made me think about what Rich Schefren has been trumpeting with his new report, The Uncertainty Syndrome.

The quote was to the effect that Godin's books are a good read but they aren't backed by enough research to be proven. In my opinion, I'm glad that his books aren't backed with a whole pile of research (although I'm sure he obviously checks out his stuff before he just willy nilly writes a book on it). If he had time to research it thoroughly and provide lots of charts, graphs, and trend lines, I doubt the principles he's talking about would still be applicable.

In Rich's report, the aforementioned Uncertainty Syndrome, my biggest take-away was the fact that you should do it wrong fast. Only action can create clarity. Sure it's good to have a knowledge of something before you start implementing it, but you certainly don't have to be a world expert. Your goal should be to find something you think would apply well in your business and implement it as quickly as possible. If it doesn't (which it probably won't) you just make adjustments until you get it right. It's easier to keep an object in motion than to get something started from nothing.

If you think about it logically, it makes total sense. You could spend years trying to get something perfect before you launch, be it a website, a store front, or a piece of software. But it's all just hypothetical until you put it into action. Once you do, chances are pretty good that your perfect system isn't perfect and you'll have to make changes anyway. So wouldn't it be better to put up the imperfect website quickly and make the necessary changes along the way?

I've been trying to live by this philosophy for a while now. When we started Sprinkler Daddy, we didn't wait until we knew every in and out of underground sprinklers before we launched this past May. We found out the basics that we needed to know, put up the website, and learned what we didn't know along the way. There's always going to be situations that come up that I don't have an answer for, but that's why I surround myself with people that have the answers. My uncle has been in the irrigation for over 30 years and he still doesn't have all the answers, but that's ok, that's why they invented the Internet.

We're trying to take a similar trial by fire approach with our new online store at www.skweddingwebsite.com. Sure I've got a bunch of material coming from Stompernet this week (hopefully it gets here by then, been waiting a while for it) that's supposed to help me with the ins and outs of setting up an online store and making it profitable. I could have waited for it to come and then started building the store, but that just delays the inevitable. I know enough to get it functioning now, I can worry about optimizing it later.

So what are you putting off that you should probably be implementing right now instead? My challenge for you today is to find something you've been putting off and put it into action right now. Even if you fail, at least you know and you can stop thinking about it and move onto the next thing.

Onward SmallBiz - Your Business Strategy Behind Web 2.0

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:48:00 +0000

A few months ago I was interviewed by Mark Henricks for AT&T's Onward SmallBiz publication. Today I stumbled upon the article, so I thought I would share it with you at http://tinyurl.com/5zjuug.

I've done a few phone interviews for different publications and it's interesting to see how it translates into text. Kudos to Mark for capturing the essence of what I was trying to get at. My only beef is in the formatting of the article. What's with all the ????? ?

The only thing I would flip flop on is trying to pick one thing and do it well. While I still agree with this to an extent, I'm learning now that if you're going to dive into the world of marketing your business online, it's best to jump head first into a few things at the same time. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to blog, create videos, send out emails, and update your Twitter status and Facebook page. Web 2.0 is all about applications that can be used in harmony, so why not create a video and throw it up on YouTube, post it on your blog, share it with your Facebook friends, send out an email, and tweet about it?

You just have to be willing to hustle a little bit.

Internet Marketing Tips | Solve Problems & Answer Questions

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:43:00 +0000

One of the biggest reasons people use the Internet is to search out information. It could just be for curiosity’s sake, but most of the time people search for a solution to an existing problem or an answer to an existing question.

That’s where your focus needs to be if you’re a small business trying to use the Internet as a marketing tool. Answering the questions and solving the problems that people are seeking out. And the way you do this is through content creation.

If you don’t want to pay directly for every visitor coming into your site, you’re going to have to give people a reason to come visit you. If you’re a business, answering the questions that customers ask you every day is a good place to start. Think of the most common questions you get in your store every day. Turn the answers into videos, articles, blog posts, or whatever you want. Spread those answers around the web and brand them with your business info. Pretty soon every time someone has a question about something that you sell, you’ll be the one providing all the answers. And when you’re the one with all the answers, chances are pretty good that people will turn to you when it’s time to buy.

Use Content to Become the Expert in Your Area

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:07:00 +0000

Nobody likes a know-it-all…until they have a question. The Internet is a great platform to spread your knowledge and become known as the expert in whatever area of business you’re in.

I’ve used online video to build one of our small businesses – Sprinkler Daddy, and now more and more people are coming to us when they have questions. Some people just want to find their own solutions and have no intention to buy anything from you, but others are looking to find an expert in an area and have them solve their problems for them. With all the tools available on the web, it’s easier than ever to demonstrate to people that you know what you’re doing and you should be the one they look to as the expert who can provide what they’re looking for.

LRS Consulting is a marketing consulting company in Regina, SK that helps traditional small businesses around the world use the Internet to communicate with their customers and market their products and services – whether they sell anything online or not. If your business is looking to start selling things online, just wants to use it to communicate with your customers directly and more effectively, or want help getting people to your website, visit us at www.lrsconsulting.ca, email sean[at]lrsconsulting[dot]ca or call 306-757-2677.

How To Get Traffic To Your Website - Talking About The Two Types - Organic and Paid Traffic

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:35:00 +0000

There’s basically two ways to get traffic to your website – organically and paid.

Paid traffic is simple to explain. You spend money advertising your site, whether it be through Google Adwords, banner ads, or traditional advertising mediums like radio, television, billboards, flyers, brochures, etc. The problem with this model is that if you don’t convert those visitors into customers, you’ll be sunk in a big hurry.

Organic traffic is traffic that comes from any unpaid source. The most common form of organic traffic comes from the search engines, and more specifically Google. Other organic traffic can come from anywhere online that people can click on a link that points back to your site. Some examples would include videos like this one with a link in the description or appearing on the screen of the video. Articles, blog posts, comments on other blogs, and Squidoo lenses are other ways to get links pointing back to your site. These links will help build your rankings in the search engines, but they also provide more ways for people to find your site. For example, this video is being hosted in about a dozen different places online. That means that each video I create adds another 12 ways that someone can find out about my websites online.

Remember, traffic isn’t just a number. Traffic comes from actual people sitting down at their computers and finding your website as a result of some sort of search for information. The next step is providing those people with whatever it is they were searching for in the first place.

2010 World Junior Hockey Championship Coming to Saskatchewan!

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Hockey Canada is set to announce today that the 2010 World Junior Hockey Championship (aka the IIHF World U-20 Hockey Championship) will be held in Saskatchewan. The Saskatoon-Regina joint bid beat out bids from Manitoba and Halifax.

I for one couldn't have been happier this morning. When I woke up to the 6:00 sportscast this morning I thought my birthday had come a day early - that or I was dreaming. But I have to admit I never would have thought that Hockey Canada would ever have granted such a huge international tournament to little old Saskatchewan. Too much money to be had elsewhere goes the argument.

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm pretty proud to be from Saskatchewan and love promoting it to people all over the place. But even I thought it was a pipe dream to compete with the profit guarantees that could be made by centers with larger facilities. Boy am I glad I was wrong!

The momentum keeps rolling for Saskatchewan, and as we continue to show that we have the people and the dollars that can support sellout after sellout at world class events we only stand to see more of these great events.

Now let's not get caught up here in Regina complaining that we only get the non-Canadian pool. That would only reflect poorly on us here in Regina, and quite frankly Saskatoon deserves the Canadian games and the medal rounds because they can hold more than twice as many fans. To hold Canadian games in Regina would be an injustice as you would leave 5000+ fans without access to the live games.

Hey, we've got the Riders and thousands of people drive here from places a lot further than Saskatoon 9 times each summer. I for one don't mind the idea of driving 2 hours up the number 11 to take in one of the most electric hockey tournaments in the world.

My only question is how much will tickets be and when can we buy? I hope they put together a package that would give Regina residents who buy a package for the Regina games to also buy individual tickets for the Team Canada games in Saskatoon. Not sure on the logistics, but I'll be happy to take in the games in Regina as long as I get a shot to catch the Team Canada games in Saskatoon as well.

Good on the bid committee and our local politicians for putting together the winning bid. I for one am very grateful. Now let's not ruin this by complaining about things like where the games are played and who gets tickets - let's just be happy that the 2010 holiday season will be a hockey filled great time!

Joel Comm Drops My Name Into His Live Show

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:48:00 +0000

As you can see in the video below at the 46:53 mark, Joel Comm dropped my name into his live show this afternoon. Looks like I've finally stepped into the big time of Internet marketing!

Ok, so I only get a mention for knowing that Zoolander made the Blue Steel look famous - but hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere!

You can check out the archived video of the live show below or here if the embed doesn't work. Joel Comm does a live show every Wednesday at 1 PM EST. You can visit Ustream.tv or http://joelcomm.com/live.html to catch the show.

Who knows, you might just win a book like me!

Live .TV show provided by Ustream

Automated Voice Answering Services - They Suck

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:43:00 +0000

Seth Godin made a post yesterday about his frustrations dealing with Verizon's voice routing system and one point really hit home with me. Why do these voice answering services ask you to punch in your phone number, only to ask you for it again once you get through to a live person?

What a waste of time. The idea of voice routing is to save time and save money by automating some of the steps. If you don't use that information, you're wasting your time as well as your customer's time.

Just another example of how things fall through the cracks.

The Regina to Las Vegas Direct Flight Blunder

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:32:00 +0000

It looks like Westjet is set to announce a direct flight from Saskatoon to Las Vegas. The Regina Airport Authority seems stunned that they weren't allowed to put a bid together to get this flight to originate from Regina.

I don't know who is at fault, but I think we already burned that bridge. Remember last year when Westjet tried to get a direct flight from Regina to Las Vegas? The powers that be said that the times wouldn't work because the customs officers don't work early enough to handle the incoming flight from Sin City.

In business, you take the path of least resistance. If someone shuts a door in your face, you don't stand there waiting for it to open again, you look down the street to see if anyone else has their door open.

Hello there, Saskatoon.

I'm not sure if it's the Federal government, the Regina Airport Authority, or someone else, but somebody definitely dropped the ball here.

Westjet seems committed to Regina after announcing a direct flight to Toronto, but if we aren't interested in helping them out with customs officers, they won't be looking to expand direct flights to the U.S. anytime soon.

An Apology And A Case Study

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:06:00 +0000

My apologies for a lack of posts lately. We're busy launching a new service - Sprinkler Daddy - and it's taking most of my time these days.

What the whole process has done is allow us to conduct a little case study on all the internet marketing strategies that we've talked about using with small businesses. What we've found just verifies what we've always thought. This stuff works when you put it to work for you.

Let's backtrack for a moment. Sprinkler Daddy is a service we launched to sell professionally designed do-it-yourself sprinkler systems. Through the Sprinkler Daddy website (http://www.sprinklerdaddy.ca/) you can request a quote from us. Using our CRM software, we've created an auto-responder email that goes out automatically to everyone that requests a quote. That email contains the information people need to measure up their yards and provideus with a plan of their yard. People can then send in their yard designs and we'll rough out a design for a sprinkler system, allowing us to get an estimate for the job.

We have also used our CRM to create a questionnaire for people to fill out, answering most of the questions we need to know. The software is great for helping us automate a good portion of the business.

Online video has also been a very effective tool for Sprinkler Daddy. We've got very positive reactions about all the videos we've created that explain a bit about the process of installing your own sprinkler system. They also help walk people through the process of getting a quote. It keeps us from answering the same questions over and over again, and it makes things easy on our customers. It's a win-win.

Actually, it's a win-win-win because when we upload those videos to a bunch of different video hosting sites, we get a ton of quality backlinks to our website and we have numerous opportunities to turn up in search engine results.

We've also found that search engine optimization is much easier in an industry that isn't full of internet marketing and seo professionals. This is actually the case for numerous industries, especially those dominated by small businesses. Within a matter of days our website was listed on the first page of some key search terms. This led to our first quote coming only 3 days after our domain went live, without doing any sort of marketing. We also managed to close our first sale within a ten day window and receive a few new quote requests everyday.

We're not talking about early retirement here, but it is amazing how an idea can turn into a business in a matter of weeks with the help of the Internet.

P.S. If you are thinking about installing underground sprinklers, just enter your info at http://www.sprinklerdaddy.ca/ to get started.

More Noise About Saskatchewan

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:24:00 +0000

The cover story of the Globe and Mail's Report on Business this weekend was The New 'It' Province. Referring to Saskatchewan, the article goes on to talk about how Saskatchewan is about a lot more than wheat these days. The focus on the article was primarily on potash, oil and gas, and the rising population. You can read the whole article here.

At first blush, you might be tempted to think that the boom is only affecting natural resource based industries. After all, the money seems to be flowing in from oil and gas exploration and expansion in areas such as potash. But don't kid yourself into thinking that the only people that stand to benefit are the natural resource companies and the labourers that pull the stuff out of the ground.

Remember, those companies will also need accountants, sales reps, marketing managers, and HR personnel. And since those companies are set to do so well financially, they might just be able to pay quality dollars to attract quality people. But the impact won't stop there.

As more jobs are created, it is natural for more inmigration to occur. That means more construction and more growth. Home owners in Saskatchewan are already starting to realize the equity in their homes since the economy has started to soar. And when more money and growth starts to infuse the Saskatchewan market, that means people will have cash to spend on other things - perhaps they'll even buy something that you sell!

Last year we already started to recruit people from outside the province to come join us in the good times Saskatchewan is experiencing through Think Regina in Calgary. Next week Think Regina heads to Edmonton to continue the campaign.

As the article states, Saskatchewan's time is now. You're either in or you're in the way.

I also liked what NewsTalk 980's Dave Arnold had to say this morning (rough paraphase) - if people keep hearing these good things about Saskatchewan, they might not be able to ignore us any longer.

Happy boom time Saskatchewan!

Ode to Gary Vay-ner-chuk

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:16:00 +0000

So I'm swamped. Haven't posted to the blog for a while. I've got a backlog (if that's a word) of videos that need to be posted and we're trying to get about 5 or 6 different projects going right now. To top it all off, my wife Katlyn and I are off to Mexico on Saturday for just over a week to take in a friend's wedding and to take in some sun (I know, boo hoo, you're swamped and you're taking a vacation).

But all of that aside, I wanted to dedicate a post to a guy that everyone who reads this should make part of their day. Even if you don't care about wine, business, or the tech world, you need Gary Vaynerchuk in your life. If I'm feeling sluggish I just push the play button on one of his videos and his energy just picks me right up.

Red Bull's got nothing on Gary Vee.

I occasionally watch the Thunder Show, but was more interested in the whole idea of Gary through Rich Schefren. I was fasicnated with the idea that anyone with enough passion and smarts can use all the free tools available to broadcast that passion to millions of people and make a difference. That's why I was pumped to stumble upon http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/ (Mott, link it up) where Gary has created a video blog to talk about business, and how technology can have a huge impact on it.

The best part about all the tools out there, whether it be a blog, YouTube, Facebook, or whatever is that they can be used in absolutely any industry, not just web based stuff. Heck, it's even better if it's not a web based business. There's less of a chance that there's an established competitor.

So bottom line - get to know Gary Vaynerchuk. He might be the catalyst to your pending success.

Here's a video below to get you started. It really resonated with me because I find myself doing a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated stuff (we have a marketing consulting company that runs a wedding website, helps small businesses with internet marketing, has an arm dedicated to restaurant marketing and we're starting a sprinkler business), but it's all stuff that I'm passionate about. I'm tired of people telling me I can only be known for one thing. I'm an entrepreneur, I'll get involved with as many different things as I want. I'll let you decide what you want to know me as.

Many people think of Gary as a wine guy. I prefer to think of him as an entrepreneur that's got a ton of passion and good ideas. Thanks to Gary for kickstarting my day. Enjoy.

Bacon Salt - The Product Is The Marketing

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:29:00 +0000

My favourite business author and blogger Seth Godin is always talking about the relationship between products and marketing. His stance is that the product should be the marketing. It's something that's built in.

So my ears couldn't help but perk up when listening to NewsTalk 980's John Gormley Live this morning. His guest was Dave (or was it Justin?) - the co-creator of Bacon Salt.

Yes. Bacon Salt.

The tag line you ask? Everything should taste like bacon. The header of their blog includes the title "The never ending quest to make everything taste like bacon."

This is the perfect example of a purple cow, and to go along with it they have a story worth telling (straight out of All Marketers Are Liars).

The two Bacon Salt founders were sitting around one night and someone said "Everything should taste like bacon". The next day when they sobered up they still figured it was a great idea so they started registering domain names and going through the paper work involved in starting a business and creating a product.

When it got to the point when they needed to pay for production, they needed to come up with $5000 and weren't sure how they were going to come up with the money. Well, fate was on their side because the next day they received a call from America's Funniest Home Videos saying that the video they entered had just won them $5000 and the cheque was in the mail. (The video is below).

Bacon Salt seems to be getting a ton of media exposure, and so they should. They've created something worth talking about. If you have the right story, a market will create itself because people will tell their friends.

If only we could all take a page out of Dave and Justin's book.

Building a Permission Asset

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:21:00 +0000

If you’re any good, your business probably has a lot of fans. These are the people that buy from you all the time and tell their friends how good you are. These are the people that you need to get permission to communicate with directly. And if you provide them with enough value, they’ll gladly give you their contact information. That’s permission based marketing.

There are a number of different ways to get permission from your best customers online. If you have a blog, let your readers subscribe to it via email or RSS feed. That way they know when you’ve made a new post. Start a preferred customer club to send your best customers special offers and discounts via email or direct mail. Build a subscriber base on YouTube. Start a Facebook group. Any permission asset you can build will help you effectively communicate with the people that buy what you sell.

That’s a huge deal.

Secrets to Building Your Customer List and Email Marketing

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:12:00 +0000

You can’t just slap a sign up form onto your website and expect great results.

People are getting bombarded with so many emails from their friends, family, and co-workers that they simply don’t want to see newsletters or marketing propaganda popping up in their inbox. Most people seem to be scared to give out their contact information for fear that they will never be able to escape the endless flood of email you might send them.

The thing is that most email marketing is all about you, the business. You want your customers email address so you can sell them more stuff. This just doesn’t fly with most people anymore. Sure you’ll have loyal fans that will want to receive everything you ever produce because they’re scared they might miss something, but that won’t be the norm.

To quote sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer, “People don’t want to be sold, but they love to buy”.

Use this to your advantage when you approach building your customer list and email marketing. The problem isn’t that people don’t want to buy what you sell, it’s that they don’t want to be sold what you sell.

The trick is all in the offer. Don’t make your email marketing and list building campaigns about you, make it about your customer.

So instead of getting people to sign up to receive your free email newsletter that will be filled with information about how they can buy what you sell, make them a better offer.

Make the offer about them.

When a customer buys something from you, tell them they’ve been chosen to receive $20 off their next purchase. Then provide them with a business card that includes the instructions they need to follow to receive their $20 gift by email. By signing up, make them aware that they’ll also receive more special offers by email up to six times per year.

That might get someone excited enough to fork over their contact information. It also shows that you are willing to treat your customers well in order to earn their business.

You are no longer a spammer. You’re the enabler that allows people to get a special deal on their favourite things.

Canadian Tour Coming To Saskatchewan

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:51:00 +0000

It's about time!

The Canadian Tour announced yesterday that they will be returning to Saskatchewan for the first time since 1984 with the playing of the Saskatchewan Open June 30 to July 6. Up for grabs is a $150,000 purse.

Thank you goes out to Darcy Bear of the Whitecap First Nation and everyone else involved in bringing the Canadian Tour to Dakota Dunes. It will be great for the local economy and will be a great event to attend.

Bear even mentions bigger things for Dakota Dunes, tossing around the PGA and LPGA as possibilities in the future. Let's take things one step at a time, but it never hurts to dream big.

This is a great thing for the province of Saskatchewan, and I hope the event is supported as well as every other event this province hosts.

For more information on Dakota Dunes, vist http://www.dakotadunes.ca/

To read the press release from the Canadian Tour, click here.

Marketing Tips - Be Real For Your Customers

sean@lrsconsulting.ca (Sean Stefan) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:26:00 +0000

By creating videos, posting to your blog, and responding to comments from your customers you become real to your customers. People are no longer buying from a company, they are buying from a familiar face.