Pretty cool when you think about it though. The transition to buying real stuff online was a difficult one, for some still is. Think about all of the factors that usually drive a buying decision. All of the psychological and emotional stimulation that comes from tantalizing the senses prior to a sale, kinda tough to do without any physical engagement whatsoever.

From my own personal perspective, I still have trouble buying certain things online, I want to touch and feel the stuff before I buy it. Considering the alternative though, it’s becoming easier and easier to forgo the physical stimuli in favor of saving time and money.

This year I decided to be brave and venture out to the Black Friday swarm, tantalized by a big screen TV deal that I really didn’t need, but due to the price, was ready to go. Upon arriving at 9:00pm to the store in my sights for the midnight opening, at first appeared there was almost no line at all. An awesome tactic employed by this store, there were about 15 people in line at the front of the store, then a gap, until of course you got around the corner, then the line stretched for hundreds of people wrapping around the back. My Black Friday craze diminished entirely and I bailed.

If that deal would have been online instead, no line, no waiting in the cold, I would have gladly parted with the cash. And that my friends is why the barrier to people buying stuff online has diminished greatly over the last few years. We all love shopping (to a certain extent), playing with new toys, trying on new clothes, but in the end, if we can save time and money buying online, we are all in.

So, what were your plans for Cyber Monday? Are you having a sale? Shame on you if you aren’t. You’re missing out on a piece of the billion dollar economy that is gracing the webs of online stores this beautiful fall day. Start planning for next year now, a well planned Cyber Monday sale is a well executed sale. But, if you have something you can put on sale now, DO IT! After all, if a name hasn’t already been created for the sale, make one up! haha All week this week you’ll see sales touting Cyber Week, small business week, etc… Cash in while you still can…

Don’t miss the deals either. Now’s the time to add the tools you need for your online business and they are all on sale. Here’s a few good ones we’ve seen.

Premise: Want to save time creating sales pages that work? Premise is a premium wordpress plugin that takes a lot of the guess work out of creating awesome landing pages. Save $70 until 5:00pm using the promo code THANKS at checkout. Get Premise Cyber Monday

StudioPress: Want or need themes for your website? Get 25% off everything at StudioPress today until 5:00pm using the promo code THANKS at checkout. StudioPress Cyber Monday

Amazon.com: Check out Amazon today, ton’s of tech deals but they each only last a few hours. Check out their Cyber Monday page here: Amazon Cyber Monday

Living Social: Tons of local deals up to 50% off. LivingSocial Cyber Monday

If you ask the people that you likely idolize in your chosen field and asked them how to overcome an obstacle that you know is a pain point for every business in your space, whatever answer they give you is likely just a rewording of what someone told them >b>who they hired to fix it for them.

The majority of the time, they had nothing to do with solving that problem.

Staying true to your audience

When you think about it more, you can’t really fault them for hiring someone to solve their problems, because when you are a big company it’s basically impossible to be amazing at every business function and still run the organization administratively. The only issue is that they pretended to be an expert when they weren’t.

Don’t forget the first rule of building a loyal following: Never lie to your audience.

Sadly, as simple as this is there are countless examples of this happening by shady business people that can sour the outlook of customers for the entire marketplace.

Owning what you suck at earns you trust

If thought exposing what you are personally weak at to your audience would hurt you in their eyes as being an expert, then you thought wrong. People respect the fact that no single person can be the best at everything, that is part of the very essence of being an expert at all – focus.

Here are four ways you can turn your flaws into proof positive authority in your market:

1. Admit the list of everything you are not

If you let people know what you are not good at, it helps manage expectations and set the direction for what they come to you for. Understanding of what you aren’t is actually more important than stating what you are.

2. Be explicit about your passions

Let people know what you are passionate about, and don’t try to lie. Passion is something deep within that is often very difficult to hide and people can pick up on this. If your audience knows what makes you tick they are exponentially more likely to trust you and be drawn to you for your areas of interest.

3. Give your audience relatable examples of your experience

As humans we desperately want to to identify with those around us, so giving your audience relatable examples of what you do is going to both help them understand what it is and give a feeling that you understand your content completely because you can relate the information in an abstract way.

4. Let people know that this is your business

The easiest way for people to believe that you are an expert? Let them know that this is how you make your living, and that you do it everyday. If you wanted to learn how to build a house, would rather ask someone who just talks about housing equipment all day or would you want to ask the person who is framing, sheetrocking and roofing homes for a living day in and day out? The tactical hands on experience is second to none.

In the past, just about every email contained some sort of sales pitch, but times are changing rapidly and so is the consumer’s tolerance. Developing a well balanced email strategy is key to building and maintaining a list that will drive sales in your business. Here are a few strategies that are often overlooked but are working well today.

1. List Segmentation: Segmenting your list is nothing new, how you do so effectively will make a huge difference. Are you going to market anyone else’ products? If so, how often and how much do you need to make to keep it effective? Unless you are a total affiliate marketer, you will want your JV list to be perfectly cleansed from your buyers unless you wont ever be promoting products that don’t accentuate your own.
2. Personal Email Campaign: Every company should have a campaign set up that sends out personal emails on birthdays, holidays, etc… This is easy to set up with any list manager so get to it. Be sure to change the message every year also, keep it fresh and current. Oh yeah, and NEVER SELL IN THIS CAMPAIGN! Matter of fact, for the best results, since this is a special occasion campaign, give them something valuable in each send.
3. Engagement Emails: Getting your customers involved is one of the main purposes of having email marketing, keeping and encouraging an open line of direct response communication between you and current and/or future customers is what it’s all about. Create email campaigns that solely serve the purpose of customer involvement. Coming out with a new product? Celebrating an event? Whatever the reason, get their input. Ask them to participate in polls or actually respond to the email. This is very rarely used by most marketers today. But it works!
4. Consistency: None of the marketing that your business conducts should be overly spontaneous and unplanned, including your email campaigns. The only obvious exception to this should be current events that effect your readers. With this in mind, your emails should follow some sort of content calendar. How often you “touch” your list can be a bit different for every company, but the consistency that your readers should expect should be solidified and stuck to. Over time, your readers and their reactions to your emails will help you to dictate the frequency of your emails.
5. Time Release Content: The most common email marketing strategies that I have seen going around are unfortunately sales call to action emails. Inevitably, and testing shows, that after 3 sales pitch emails in a row, readers will either opt-out, complain, or simply move you to their spam folder. Believe it or not, just because customers may be interested in being on your list, they aren’t interested in constantly being sold to. Develop several time released content driven email campaigns that through a planned funnel, prospects and customers will flow through one right after the other. Delivering actionable content that is useful to your readership will draw them in closer every time they receive one, and cause them to look forward to the next one. Crafting these to coincide with your product offerings will boost your sales and retention rates in your email campaigns.

Never rest on your laurels when it comes to email marketing. Creating a highly profitable list takes time and some testing to find the right formula for your business. Try and ask yourself with every campaign and email you develop, what is the benefit to the reader, other than the benefits they will receive by buying what I’m selling. Following a simple Ask, Teach, Offer model is a great place to start. More on that in a future post. Stay tuned!

Only problem? Klout’s algorithm means absolutely nothing.

Why do people care about a meaningless number?

Klout does one thing very well though, which has led to it’s explosion in popularity across the social media world. You need to understand that there is one thing social media is notorious for… the “me” syndrome.

The power of focusing on “me” is undeniable, and Klout lets people who obsess about themselves put a number their ability to chit chat, but nothing to do with moving the needle in their business. The fact some people are even filtering who they will @reply on Twitter based on their klout score is idiocy, because they don’t understand the real mechanics to influence.

Have a lot of Twitter followers or Facebook friends? That may drive you a bunch of off-hand traffic. But what about conversions?

In our projects one thing has always been evident when it came to controlling actual buyers who move the needle and propel your business forward actually aren’t from social media or any of the places that that Klout can measure.

What about controlling a massive email list? The personal cell-phone number for celebrities in your field? Klout doesn’t know.

What constitues real “Klout”?

If you want to create legitimate influence, you won’t find Klout useful. Instead you follow a few simple things that will get you real, tangible influence.

1. Be super cool to your existing audience

If more than just your immediate family and friends follow what you do (because they *want to*), then be grateful. Thank them for following your content by publicly or directly thanking them on your social network, commenting on their blog etc.

2. Find some unique value to offer key players in your industry

You can usually do something for the people who have rallied an audience arounds themselves. Figure out what you can do for them to earn some good-will, but don’t do it in a way that makes it seem like they owe you. Instead, give them value and make sure they realize it’s just you being super cool to them so you can earn good-will in the future.

3. If someone even a little “smaller” than you needs help, give it to them if you can

You never know who the players will be in the future, so make sure you try and take care of the up and comers when you have the bandwidth to do so. In fact, chances are.. at least a few of those people are going to be bigger than you ever will be and unless you take care of them now you are building your own success ceiling.

Keep it real

The real moral of the story here is that you need to be super cool with your network, provide value for the obvious influencers and ignore the meaningless numbers that services like Klout give you (even if they are addicting fun to try and game).

Too bad life’s not quite that simple anymore.

There is one thing I remember most about school, more specifically, the actual classes I liked… or not. I had a few really awesome teachers. I also had some not so cool teachers. Funny how the classes that I always did the best in were the ones that had the most awesome teachers.

This struck a chord with me recently when comparing our modern day teachers (they might call themselves “Guru’s”) and how we relate and ultimately learn from them. And by learn from them, I mean really learn from those great and horrible examples in terms of how we are viewed by our customers and potential customers.

What was so awesome about the teachers we loved in school?

1. They treated us like people, as equals
2. They were genuine
3. They were open, they really wanted to help
4. They never once made us feel like we were inferior or stupid, no matter how much it took to get what they were giving

What was so unbearable about the “bad” ones?

1. They always looked down upon the students
2. They never really cared if you learned anything
3. They continually treat students like they are stupid
4. They were mean and unhappy
5. They never cared to teach, just to present information in one way, their way

Wow, really that just scratches the surface, but those are the things that jump out to me. You can probably relate.

So how does this apply to running a business online?

Well, simply put, in the information age, most of what we are selling is ourselves and our expertise. I mean sure, we sell products and services that are created to help change lives, make things better etc… But when we market those products online, we are the experts, this is how others see us. Like it or not, it’s how things work.

Where many “Experts” go wrong

Unfortunately, we all have ego’s. No matter how big or small they are, we all have them. You’ll notice when someone get’s really popular or really successful their entire personality seems to change. The same goes for many of the “Experts” we see today.

They become the bad teacher.

We all know (by experience) that the “bad” teacher doesn’t really teach us anything. Matter of fact, when we get to a point in school that we can actually choose our teachers, the “bad” ones get a reputation and everyone dreads ending up in their class. A bad grade is eminent!

How To Not Become The Bad Teacher

It’s as simple as listening to yourself. Of course, this can take an act of Congress for you to really be able to see yourself how others see you. Here are a few tips that will scream out at you, red flags if you will.

1. You find yourself blaming the customer when your products / services fail to do what you promised
2. You never have time to actually talk to your customers anymore
3. You don’t even know the login to your facebook page
4. You have no idea what your last tweet was
5. Your go to answer to solve a customer service issue is to sell them more stuff
6. You create products because you need more money

That’s just a small amount of red flags but probably the most common and easiest to spot. Take a close look at your operation my friend. Stay true to being the lovable, accessible friend that you once were, that’s the teacher everyone loves and ultimately learns from.

Mad Men’s Don Draper heads to college for freshmen orientation.

How exactly do you pick the first words that capture them?

There are a number of questions like this that go through your mind when you meet someone new. Choosing something that will stick is increasingly more difficult with amount of “noise” we all encounter day in, and day out.

We want to be incredibly clear about what we are are.. and what we are not.

The icebreaker

To make sure we got off on the right foot, we wanted give you some insight into what our vision is for the Web Startup Academy so you have a better idea of what motivates us and more importantly what keeps us up at night.

We were tired of seeing (first hand) the failures of the modern business schools in America, how they charged insanely high tuition fees only to teach you outdated information that would have made you a brilliant marketer in 1993 by using case studies from businesses who can no longer compete, and simply don’t follow the modern rules of engagement.

Things are quite simply moving too fast for a teacher-only role to work.

The arrogance in many of the colleges also left a sour taste in our mouth, many (not all) of the professors had an air of being too good for their paying students time and would even offload the teaching to their TA’s instead of delivering the high impact content themselves.

To make the state of the union for business and marketing even worse, those who sought out information online have been up against a traditionally slimy ecosystem of people who tout their multi-thousand dollar courses as “high value” when in essence the course literally only exists as a way for the “guru’s” to cash out on methods that no longer work.

Changing the variables

When you don’t like any potential outcome from a rigged system, what can you do? Some would say give up (non-entrepreneurs), some would suggest you claw your way to the other side of the table, but we simply want to change the variables so it’s a completely different game.

Web Startup Academy is a usable how-to guide for starting and running a successful business with the help of the internet. We understand that there is a lot of competition in the space of creating how-to’s, webinars, blogs and other information resources but we still feel we can do things better.

Who said crushing it in business has to be dull and uber expensive? Narrow minded individuals.

Our goal is to be a bit different. People all have different ways of learning, believing and implementing what they have learned takes practice beyond just intellectually stimulating conversation. Because of that, we aim to bring you the freshest, most up to date information not just on theory but what is actually being practiced by today’s most successful online businesses, what tools are being used and how to implement those tools in creative ways to increase your chances of success.

You’ll be learning what others are actually implementing, but not teaching you.

Deliverables & Guarantees

Time to cut the crap – you want to know exact what you’ll be getting and what to expect from us, so here it is:

Free Content

All of the information presented here at Web Startup Academy will be delivered using the same industry leading tools we use to run and scale some of the webs largest campaigns. Our always free content will be available in formats such as:

1. Blog posts by our team on relevant industry information and events
2. Hands on how-to’s that will help you make a material difference in your business
3. Monthly webinars that guide you through implementation strategies
4. Frequent guest posts by specific industry experts (Think SEO, PPC, SEM etc)
5. Downloadable interviews, white papers, blueprints, mindmaps and instruction sets
6. Monthly newsletters highlighting key information and a schedule for the following month

Affordable Courses & Monetization

So, you’re probably wondering… How will Web Startup Academy make money? Surely nobody can present all of this fantastic information for free and stay in business. Well, we’ve asked ourselves some of those tough questions and came up with a delicate balance we think you will appreciate.

There will be an infrequent amount of ads appearing on the website for products we plan to stand behind for longer than just a click. These prodcuts are tools we use, love and will create many pieces of content around how to use them better.

You won’t find AdSense or shitty blinking ads here.

From time to time we will present affiliate links (basically we get paid if you buy a product or service after clicking on one of our links), we’ll always tell you which ones are affiliate links and would love your support. All of our information and recommendations will be our honest opinions and knowledge, the choice is yours whether you want to support us while using tools and services or not.

We will from time to time offer reasonably priced courses that are available on specific skill-sets but will in no way hide the information from non-paying people. The courses will be hands on walk through’s and follow along presentations. The information isn’t what we will be selling, that is available through all of the other things we do.

Instead, what we will sell in these courses is our hands on guidance and expertise of others. Whether you need or desire to attend these trainings is up to you, once again we would love your support.

In the end yes, we will need to make money, but never at the cost of sacrificing our viewers experience or ability to find something here that will help them with their success.

What we aren’t

Constantly being sold to sucks ass, it’s a poor user experience and we hate it as much as you do. Does it make publishers more money to constantly be asking for a sales?

You bet your ass it does

But we care more about earning your trust for the long haul.

We’ll also never with-hold information from you, simply to try and sell you the good stuff later. We think that’s super un-cool of people to do, and we are treating you as we would like to be treated – fairly. In that same tone, we will never present information to you that is only in-service of getting us rich. There needs to be actionable value in anything we present to you, so expect that and call us out on it if we ever waiver.

Our last promise of what we aren’t, is that we will never put your success last. For us to win does not mean for you to lose, as one of our favorite sayings goes, “A rising tide floats all boats.”

Community – What we expect from you

We hope each and every reader engages with the content presented and others by way of comments, social sharing and being involved. We know by experience that the more engaged you are, the more you actually learn.

Take a moment to introduce yourself to us in the comments if you are feeling brave by telling us (in 3 sentences or less) what business you run, or what business you’d like to start.

Who are these jokers?

At this point, you’re probably wondering who we are.

Well, first and foremost, we want this website and your experiences with it to be all about you and your success, we never want this to be all about us.

Of course, with that said, you’ll be asking at some point, whether we have the skills and experience to teach you. So, at the risk of sounding arrogant, many authorities in our field know that we have the skills to deliver.

So here’s who we are:

Andrew J. Gay and Travis Ketchum are experts on many aspects of web businesses and are frequently employed by famous Authors, speakers, marketers, and several web business both big and small to solve real problems with real solutions.

Andrew is a constant student and expert in marketing, design, and branding. Putting together sales and marketing funnels that convert into sales from happy customers. Andrew has worked in Marketing and Design for the last 15 years and has been behind and worked with many online success stories, bestselling books, authors, celebrities, mom-and-pop’s, huge Corporations, artists and even bands. Andrew has a unique ability to see the delicate balance that exists between what a user wants and what the company wants in a mutually profitable manner. Creating an experience that changes the game for everyone is what really matters.

Travis is an absolute expert in networking, sales, business development and joint ventures. He has worked with a wide range of celebrity online businesses, large companies ranging from marketing companies to education and e-learning to charities. Thinking of ways to blend core competencies across very different businesses is how he solves most creatively some of his clients toughest problems.

That should cover everything. We’ve put together a few posts to get you started and offer you taste of what’s to come. Feel free to dig around in the site and make sure you are on our newsletter list. As promised, your inbox will only ever be graced by pure actionable content you’ll love.

Welcome to the Academy!

Andrew J. Gay & Travis Ketchum

You may have had some wildly fantastic results with some of your campaigns, then drastic failures on others. You can bet most of the big companies out there that you see getting gang-buster results, have several tragically lame campaigns as well. Unfortunately that’s the nature of the business, of any business really.

Don’t sweat it though, you’re definitely not alone.

After all, marketing is just as much of an art as it is a science. Getting all of the ingredients just right takes experience, research, testing, re-testing and a ton of creativity. It doesn’t hurt if you’ve studied human behavior, psychology, economics, religion… matter of fact, in order to be a crack marketer, it really helps to be a bit of a jack of all trades. Sort of like an Entrepreneur is.

The Magic Formula

Everyone has and always will be looking for a special formula, a magic pill, special potion or recipe that produces the same, fantastic, repeatable results every time they use it. You want guaranteed results and you want them now!

If you truly want that and truly believe it’s out there, its going to take a lot of wasted money, time, energy and of course your sanity to come to this simple realization…

There really is no such thing. Sorry, but that’s the real, crappy answer. Hey, the truth hurts.

Of course, there are two little things that you can remove completely from your marketing that will give you a guaranteed boost in any campaign you run. But, a word of warning, this exercise is incredibly challenging, but it’s free and it works.

So What Are Those Two Things?

Those two things are “I” and “me”.

Okay don’t get all up in arms yet. OK? This is serious business and it’s the only thing close to a magic pill that really does work. The trick is knowing how to do it and why it works.

First, why it works:

Look at the most successful products on the market, the best services, the most fantastic marketing campaigns. They all have one thing in common, they were built for people. They were entirely dreamed up and created with the end user in mind. They solved a problem that someone (usually large masses of people), improved lives, made things simpler, they all gave the end user something big.

So, if you go to all that trouble to create a product in service to someone else, why would you ever need to mention yourself when you present it to those target buyers? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not about you, customers don’t actually care about you, they care about themselves.

It’s human nature really. You are no different, you only really care about yourself. Be honest, take away all of the altruistic ideologies that you’ve been trained to have because they will make you a cooler person. Deep down, at some point in your daily life you are a consumer and as a consumer you are one selfish individual. There’s nothing wrong with that though. Just realize that being a selfish individual will never help your marketing, or your business.

So the first part is simple. The realization that its all about them. The next part will be super easy once you are able to fully put your mind at ease with part one. The more you struggle with that concept, the harder it will be for you to create marketing campaigns that work. Remember, you want marketing results and that has nothing to do with your customers wants. So stop thinking from what you and your business needs and start thinking about what the customer wants.

Second, How To Do It

How the hell do you remove yourself from the equation?

It’s a simple exercise that you will find very beneficial on your journey to putting yourself in the right mindset to tackle your marketing properly. Once you get through this (because simple was really a lie), you will be amazed at how much your marketing results improve.

Here’s your homework

Get out your your mission statement and your about page. You’re going to simply rewrite these documents, but this time you are going to remove any mention of yourself, especially the words “I” and “me”. No cheating either be rewriting in the third person. This is serious, and just think of all the time and money you’ll save on the volumes of regurgitated content that quick cash crack dealers would gladly sell you.

Do this again and again until you are truly happy with what you’ve come up with, try to also add as many you’s in there as you can. Make these documents as much about your clients and customers and their problems as possible. Once you’re done, get some input from others on how they like the new and improved versions. Preferably some of your key customers that you have a good relationship with.

Everyone will have some trouble with this, but you wanted a magic pill. This is as close as you’re going to get. Don’t worry, it is quite possible to craft a message that is all about the person intended to read it.

Don’t Believe It?

Well, you just witnessed it. Re-read the post, it’s just over 900 words and you wont find one single reference to me until now, and it really didn’t take much more than 30 minutes to write. Now it’s your turn.

Post what you’ve come up with in the comments, the community here will definitely love to give you feedback!

So there I was, sitting in a clients office, and I can overhear a phone call that the customer service person was having with a new customer. The call started out nice and all, the customer was unhappy with a variety of things. First, the customer bought the product/service at a certain price and found out that he paid more than double what it sells for on the companies website (are you fucking kidding me? more on that later).

As you can imagine, the customer felt he was overcharged by the phone sales person and was a bit disgruntled to say the least. As the call progressed, things got a bit more uncomfortable, voices started raising and the tone of the conversation (from what I can tell hearing only one end of it) got sarcastic, and downright angry on both sides. Oh, did I leave out the timing, sorry. The call changed course drastically when the customer service person informed the unhappy client that not only would the company not honor the lower price, but when he asked for his money back, that was also refused.

Is the money more important to you than a happy customer?

Now, before I go on, know that I was not at all shocked about the conversation, I’ve heard conversations like this before. But this call struck a chord with me, and I had to write about it. I know some of you out there think that giving a refund should only happen on a case by case basis. You’re out for the money, hell, we all are really. What separates you from me and many other reputable companies is that every day my business will get easier, because my reputation will continue to increase it’s value, your’s will get harder.

Is a guarantee necessary?

That’s probably the stupidest question I’ve ever heard. Of course a guarantee is necessary. You all know that though, we all know that a guarantee helps us make more sales and that’s a good thing, a great thing even. We love more sales!

Do you believe that giving a refund will get you more sales?

Or, do you believe that offering a guarantee is what will get you more sales? There’s a huge difference that many, dare I say douchebags, just don’t get. Now these companies have huge sales forces that are constantly beating down prospects for their wallets, and they are making money. But for how long? These jerks (you may be one of them, keep reading) use a guarantee as a sales tactic and make sure it’s full of holes so they don’t ever have to give a refund. Yet, they wonder why it gets harder and harder to make more sales.

Wait, lets back up…

Back to the caller. First off, how many fucking prices do you need to have for a product? Now look, I understand a small range during trial split testing periods before really launching a new product. But this guy paid $4,500 more than the product is listed on the companies website. I don’t need to tell you (if you have a small piece of a brain) how idiotic this is. This get whatever you can from a customer mentality screams to the world that you don’t give two shits about your customers, you just want every last bit of money you can get from them.

I can guarantee you that if you treat your clients like this then your products suck and your services are even worse.

Okay, lets say you are one of these ruthless, heartless individuals or you work for one of them. How hard would it be to just give the guy back the difference immediately? He would have gladly taken it and gone ahead with his purchase, and perhaps purchased again from you, if you handled it like a human being.

Here’s where it really went south…

After the call, the customer service person was bitching about how much of a jerk this guys was, he threatened legal action etc… No shit. I would have probably driven down there and taken my $4,500 out of someones ass! And companies like these are in the business of teaching others how to run businesses. Kill me now!

Okay, so what did we learn from this? Simple, treat people like people!

Giving back money is always a winning game folks. Here’s the simple way to build a rock solid business.

1. Build products with the end user in mind, build it for them
2. Offer rock solid guarantees 30, 60, 90 hell a year depending on the product
3. When someone wishes to obtain a refund, do it, quickly, and make them feel good about it

Look, I know there are people out there on the other side of the fence as well. People that would scam you out of your products. But these people are so few and far between they are hardly worth damaging your reputation with the rest of your customers by being greedy.

Pissing off a customer will get you nowhere, every time. Learn to love giving refunds, you’ll be amazed at how few you get. I have other clients that offer amazing refund policies, and they never get any requests for them.

Don’t sweat the small stuff people, don’t be afraid to be a great company that people can trust. It’s not going to break the bank. Be smart about it, if it actually costs you money to give a refund (like on a physical product) who cares. If you make a good product or provide good service you have nothing to worry about.

Now, go and write your policy for refunds. Make sure every member of your organization understands it, and make sure it puts humans first.

Disagree, please leave a comment so I can re-educate you personally and publicly!

There, I feel better now.

Courtesy of Superman Returns 2006

Superman references on a business website? Has it really come to this?

Well, in a word… YES!

After more than 15 years conducting and managing sales and marketing operations and key leadership roles in companies ranging from Mortgage Companies, Moving Companies to Bestselling Authors and Speakers, one thing I have come to realize one thing. Most all of them didn’t really know much about running a business, a successful marketing campaign, even basic market research.

The reality is that most of what you learn about starting and running a business in school just plain doesn’t really apply to real world application. At least not in ways we think they will when we read about them in bloated overpriced textbooks.

You see, most business school professors, and entire business school programs teach a certain way to satisfy alumni and investors, which are normally large companies that want a training program designed to cultivate their future workforces. Keep your eye out for agendas my friend, everyone’s got one!

So, do the same principles apply to all companies? Well, some do actually.

The trick is, being able to decipher them and apply them to your specific situations. That’s where Superman and Lex Luthor come into the educational formula.

In my experience, most business owners and leaders typically don’t look too far outside their own backyard (or brain) when they make decisions about their customers, their products, even their competitors. This is a recipe for disaster unless you are just insanely lucky my friend.

Back to Superman and of course the villain Luthor.

Remember in each and every Superman movie, Lex always gained the upper hand when he made proper use of Kryptonite (a chunk of mineral laden rock from Superman’s home planet) which rendered Supermans powers useless. Of course, Superman was always able to come back and win ultimately because Lex could never get past his villainous desires which strayed him from the course of victory.

Each time Lex got out of his own way, got away from just his agenda of world domination and a whole series of felonies and crimes against humanity, he was applying one of the greatest tools in competition. Research. Granted Lex had a ton of time on his hands (imprisoned for previous crimes), but he was able to (with far less tools at his disposal than we have) find out everything he could about his nemesis including his greatest weakness.

That’s exactly what you need to do if you’re going to compete in today’s marketplace.

You MUST find your competitors weakness, they all have one. That’s right, there is no such thing as an invincible company, product, service or person. Really, don’t believe me? Well, too bad for you. It’s true.

The first trick is finding the weakness…

Here are some really cool and creative ways to find where your competitors are really missing “it” short of corporate espionage:

Competition Finders:

Google Search: Using keywords to find companies that directly compete for your customers attention. If you an Italian food restaurant in San Francisco, CA you might use a keyword search phrase like restaurant+italian+san francisco

Google alerts: Using similar keyword searches, you can set up alerts as well to keep tabs on those competitors you find, whenever they update their offerings online, you’ll be the first to know!

Competition Finder Tool: Search Engine Genie’s easy to use tool will help you locate websites that compete with yours and allows you to compare them.

Next, Company Info:

Hoovers: This tool will give you a bunch of really good info on your competitors, but usually only has info on publicly traded companies so may not apply to all.

Better Business Bureau: This handy service can be a massive fly in the ointment of a companies reputation if you don’t pay to play, but makes an excellent Kryponite finder for most any company that has customers.

Company Profile Report: Dun & Bradstreets company info tool offers tons of info on any company that wants a credit profile.

Now you have some basic info on who your competitors are, now the easy part.

What do they do well, and where do they, ahem, leave a lot to be desired?

Start with their website. Comb over this crucial piece of information about the company, it’s values, core beliefs, products and services etc… Next, find problems, holes in their game.

Company online store: Try and view most of this stuff as a customer, take your head as a competitor out of the mix for a moment. What jumps out at you that screams “DONT BUY ME”. Are the product images professional and pleasing? What about the product descriptions, prices… and the piece de resistance, customer reviews. Does anything jump out at you? Are there ANY negative reviews? What are they, do they matter? Pay special attention to what they don’t say also. For instance, if you’re competitors store has no product reviews, that could mean they don’t have a large customer base or that they don’t allow reviews. This say something about the type of salesmanship they employ. Also, if there are a bunch of reviews and zero negative ones, odds are that they don’t publish them. Another huge bit of information that will prove useful.

Next, social networks: Comb through their social communities, what does the public have to say about them? Do they have raving fans? Do they have any flies in the ointment? PAY ATTENTION!

Okay, now that the basic easy stuff is done, use that info to find more company kryptonite. This part is what I like to call tabloid research. Search for the company name with the inclusion of negative words like scam, the truth about, complaints, reviews, rip-off, etc… Many companies go to great lengths to conceal unhappy customers from the public eye, these are the places that are the hardest for these companies to cleanse their public image.

Tech tools, super website spy tools:

SpyderMate: Use SpyderMate to crawl your competitor’s site and find the strengths and weaknesses of what they offer.

Robots.txt: Take a look at your competitor’s robots.txt file (generally located at www.yourcompetitor.com/robots.txt) to find out what parts of their website they’re hiding from search engines.

Archive.org: Look through the history of a website and see how the domain has changed over its lifetime. This will help you get a better idea of the weaknesses that they have overcome in the past, or just plain hidden.

At this point you should have a pretty good idea where your competitors are failing and give you an ample amount of kryptonite to use.

If that’s not enough, go to some extremes. Hire a secret shopper to shop your competitor objectively and rate their experiences.

It’s a really small world…

Chances are you may have people in your organization that have worked for a competitor. Find out everything you can about their experiences with that company. Learn about their culture, the way they treat employees, company policies etc..

If all else fails, go to the public and flat out interview them. Be creative though, use polls and fun gamified tools to do this, people won’t like it and may not participate if they think your are dirt digging. Worse yet, they may give you false information. You want the truth!

Realize that less than 10% of your competitors do intense market research such as this to position themselves or their products in the marketplace.

Those will be the easiest companies to surpass. The ones that do will be your greatest nemesis, so remember, don’t make the same mistakes Lex Luthor did. Don’t let your greed and lust for power drive you to be the best. Dominance in and of itself is not what you are striving for. Being the best at what you do in the eyes of the customers is.

What is the goal of your business? Why are you in business? What crazy thing happened to make you want to be in business for yourself, in this business?

Tough questions right? Hopefully not too tough. Before you can get to know your prospects and turn them into customers you first need to know why you exist. Seriously, if you don’t know why you exist then you don’t really have a target market. So, it seems that before we can look into the hearts and minds of others, we first need to look at our own.

Why? Your reason for delivering the products or services that you offer should be closely aligned with why people will buy them in the first place.

I know, it’s so easy to just jump in with both feet and go, but what’s the hurry? Seriously, nothing is making you start selling today. What you need to do first is to understand your business, your customer, your products and services. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to take forever, and the great part is, the more time you take now setting things up properly, the more time and money you’ll save later trying to get people to buy.

We’ve put together a short list of “Ten Things You Must Know About Your Target Customer” to get you started on the right foot. These may seem silly at first, try not to overlook their importance though. These 10 things will answer a ton of questions about the very people you plan to sell to, and remember, this information is priceless!

1. Who is your target customer?
   Clearly define who your target customer is. Be detailed like you are telling a story about them. How old are they, where do they live, is it a boy or a girl, what does their typical day look like?




2. What kind of lifestyle does your target customer lead?
   Lifestyle marketing can be a huge benefit to your marketing arsenal. What kind of lifestyle does your target audience lead? Are they social, active, do they have kids, are they single, married, dating? It is crucial to know as much as you can about your target market’s lifestyle so you know how they think and feel.




3. What are their interests, what activities do they participate in online and offline?
   What kinds of things does your target market actually do? Do they go dancing, do they go to sporting events, are they on twitter, facebook, linkedin, other? Are they actively reading and researching things online, blogs, yahoo answers? Are they political, what movies are they in to, what books do they read?




4. What are their problems, what do they want that they don’t have now? What would make their life better and why.
   Emotional attachment to a product or service is the driving force behind why people buy. It’s not practical usually to buy a convertible red sports car, but it does make people feel a certain way. What are they lacking in their life know, how can you and your product or service make their life better?




5. What does your product or service do to ease their pain?
   Does your product or service make them feel a certain way, does it help them make more money, get career advancement, does it help them better serve their customers, does it save them time? How does it make their life easier?




6. How can your product or service inspire and help them personally / professionally?
   Basically this is about what impact your product or service has on their lives. Does it change their personal life? Does it change their professional life? What does it move them to do differently in the future? For instance, the cell phone changed the way people communicate, the iphone and android changed the way people communicate ten fold more than just the cell phone.




7. How is your product or service positioned or how can you position the product in the marketplace?
   Does something like this already exist? Are you first to market? How will the public perceive your product or service? First impressions are everything, how will you win them over on the first look?




8. Who is your competition?
   FYI, you always have competition in some form or another. Even if you are first to market you are competing with something. When the model T came out, even though it was groundbreaking and there was no real competition for cars, people still had transportation needs being met in another way. Identify as many of your competitors as you can and study them.




9. Where is your competition failing?
   How are they not meeting the needs of your target customer? What are they failing at? This is a key point that you will be able to exploit later in “Find out your competitors kryptonite and use it against them”. For instance, AT&T was the leader in the cell phone market, but have always been notoriously bad at customer service. Verizon focused heavily on customer service and are now the number 1 competitor to AT&T. They deliver essentially the same exact product / service, but their customers feel better about being treated decent.




10. What is your “IT” factor?
    Put your product or service right next to your top competitors. How does it stack up? Does it? What is the one thing that makes your product better than theirs? Be honest with yourself, then ask others what they think. If they don’t see it then you need to figure out how to make that one thing, the “IT” factor noticeable going forward.

That’s it, just 10 things that will make all the difference in how you go forward from here. Focus on those 10 things every chance you get, this isn’t a one time experiment. This should be part of your corporate culture. These 10 things will give you the specific recipe for how to create products, how to market them, where you will sell them and more.