Forget bullet points. Discover the Power of Story for Business Success.
I bet that you could relate to me, in detail, the best stories that you’ve read or seen in movies over the years. But how well could you relate to me the details of the best college-level textbook that you’ve read? Great stories stick with us. They become embedded in our consciousness. This is the power and beauty of Bob Burg and John David Mann’s “The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea.” It takes a truly special book for me to toss this label out, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I call “The Go-Giver” a modern classic. Here’s one independent measure: The book gets a solid five stars on Amazon. I point this out because ratings for even the best business books usually end with that little “half star.” But after some 800 reviews (even that raw number tells you a lot) this book rates a full five stars. Further, the book has been among the bestselling business books for years, having sold more than 500,000 copies. (When they hit that mark, their publisher asked them to start working on an expanded edition.) I’m writing about it today because this new edition has just been released. Bob is a friend and mentor and I’m proud of the success he has had with “The Go-Giver.” I don’t make a dime from writing about it here, but if you’re involved in sales or any facet of running a business, investing in this small volume could pay off handsomely for you. The story follows an ambitious young salesman named Joe as he is mentored by a legendary consultant who is most often referred to by his devotees as the “Chairman.” Joe learns a set of values that transform him from “go-getter” to “go-giver” and propel him to business success. It’s a short book with a powerful message, one you won’t soon (if ever) forget. And to make this new edition even better, Bob and John have added a Q&A section as well as a Discussion Guide immediately following the story. As you can imagine, wherever they speak they get questions about the book, so they took the opportunity of the new edition to address those questions. If you’ve never read “The Go-Giver,” now’s the time. You owe it to yourself and your future. If you read the first edition, pull together a group of colleagues, create a mastermind or study group, and go through it together, using the provided discussion guide. Bob has more to say about the new edition on his website. You can also get a sample chapter there as well as links to various booksellers. Do it...
read moreAct, Don’t React: Five Tips to Create a Great Online Reputation
The best defense is a good offense. If you live in a household where TV football broadcasts provide the normal Sunday afternoon ambiance this time of the year, you probably hear that truism almost every week. But while it’s generally true that the best defense is a good offense in football, it’s even more true – and important – in managing your online reputation. And if you think because you’re a smaller business, or because you have really nice clients or customers, that you’re immune to online reputation problems, you’re wrong. The scary fact is that a single person who sets out to harm your reputation can do a lot of damage. Before I serve up the “meat and potatoes” of waging your reputation management offense, let me urge you to keep tabs on what people are saying about you and your business. Monitoring isn’t time consuming and it’s a very inexpensive insurance policy. Set up a Google alert for your name and business. You’ll get an email whenever the search engine finds something new about you. With that said, let me tell you our goal here: To keep positive or neutral mentions of you and your business at the top of Google search results. Sounds simple, right? Frankly, it is, but it requires activity on your part and that’s the guidance I’m going to provide. To achieve that goal, here’s our strategy: Drum up as many positive and “matter-of-fact” online mentions of you and your business as possible and keep working at it. If your Internet web presence is fairly narrow, perhaps your small business website and Facebook page, then Google will not have many results to show. If someone started badmouthing you or your business on one of the free blog websites, for example, that bad publicity would probably pop up in a search. Here are five easy ways to creating glowing search results for yourself and your small business: Establish social media accounts everywhere. Google indexes social media accounts, so if you have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Vine, and others, those will command a lot of territory on the first page of your search results. Be active in the community. Do things that get you and your business mentioned on the websites of other businesses, individuals and media outlets. Volunteer your time. Make donations. Give free talks. Guest post on other websites. What you need to understand here is that one guest post, with an accompanying “About the Author” blurb on 10 different websites is far more valuable than 10 different posts on one website. Post your job openings online. Google finds companies who list jobs in the various online employment sites. Even if you don’t have any openings, go to these sites and create a profile on each one. Actively send press releases to local media outlets. Whenever you or your business does something worthy of notice within your community, write a short press release that gives the details. If there are online community calendars in your area, send them information regularly. If you take these steps, it will be difficult for a lone malcontent to do you very much harm. However, keep monitoring your online mentions and if someone does get on your radar screen with a complaint, make contact and do your...
read moreGuide to Free Online Infographic Services
Several online infographic (and general graphics) creation services have popped up over the last couple of years. They usually offer free and paid plans so you can get a good feel for how they work and the templates and artwork available on each one without having to dig into your wallet. It’s a good idea to find one of these free infographic creation sites that you like and stick with it. They all seem to work on grid systems for their layout and this doesn’t make them super easy to use, but once you get the hang of how a specific site operates, you’ll be able to complete your artwork fairly quickly. You’ll also want to learn how to upload your own graphics so you can brand any infographic you create. I made this simple infographic using Canva. I took a template the site provided, changed the type, changed the graphic in each little box, uploaded by logo and downloaded the finished infographic. The free infographic creation sites provide guides that pop up to show you how things are aligning. It’s the smaller tweaks that take time. It probably took about 30 minutes to create this and if I did this more often, it would go more quickly. Below the infographic are live links to each site. Find one you like and start using it. Graphics will really boost your social media posts if you aren’t using them already. Have fun taking these sites on test drives. Links to free online infographic makers: https://www.canva.com/ http://www.easel.ly/ https://infogr.am/ https://venngage.com/ http://www.visme.co/ http://piktochart.com/ Note: I did a screen capture and some markup to illustrate the guides on the graphic and some resolution was lost. The downloaded, unaltered infographic from Canva is quite sharp:...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: SEO strategies Google loves, ways to perfect email marketing and more
It’s not everyday that we get to mention Rihanna and Jerry Maguire in the same article; today is one of those days. But more important than learning about them, you’ll get insights into marketing, where our economy is headed and how to pilot your small business to the next level of success. Leadership, management and productivity Want to add same-day local delivery to your small business without having the hassle of providing your own vehicle, insurance, etc.? Uber is debuting an on-demand small business delivery service in NYC, San Francisco and Chicago. The new year is sneaking up on us and that always foreshadows tax time. Discover how simple documentation can lower your small business’ taxes. Speaking of taxes, do you know how to report a loss in your small business? The NY Times and Amazon have been squabbling about an unflattering article on Amazon’s management style. We’ll see who comes out on top of that dustup. In the meantime, here’s how to get the high performance of Amazon without the backstabbing, says Jason Forrest. Maximum Performance Strategist Matt Mayberry says that listening is an art and mastering it will make you a great leader. Marketing and sales Have you considered social bookmarking in your campaign to boost website traffic? That’s one of the nine simple strategies listed in this YFS Magazine article. You aren’t going to have Rihanna’s record sales, but you can have some of the strategies she, and other celebrities, use to maximize their social media exposure. Sometimes it’s easy to think that every marketing strategy involves social media. Here are five that don’t. But if you are heavy into social media marketing, you’re probably using Facebook. Here’s how to quickly overcome seven “fatal” FB marketing mistakes. Black Hat SEO is out. Link building from a holistic SEO perspective is in. Online branding or building authority is another Google-friendly strategy. If you’re trying to squeeze cash out of your WordPress site, you need to know about these 10 affiliate marketing tools and plugins. Successful small business owners never stop improving what they do. Here are eight steps for perfecting your email marketing. Two-thirds of the B2C content marketers who use Facebook say it’s effective. Is that high, or low? Here are 5 ways to generate 25 small business blog post ideas in 25 Minutes. (Does that equal 125 post ideas in 125 minutes?) In the spirit of being ecofriendly, efficient and creating less work for ourselves, try these five tips for getting more mileage out of your small business blog archive. But when you sit down to create new blogs, keep these 39 tips in mind. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation Bill Wagner says that critical thinking isn’t essential for startups – rational thinking is! (Preview: critical thinkers are critics, not solution finders.) Politics, government and the economy Boris Schlossberg, BK’s director of FX strategy, says that we’re stuck in a “Jerry Maguire” economy – Show me the money! What this means for the Fed and economic...
read moreMay The Force Be With You: What Small Business Can Learn From the Star Wars Marketing Blitz
It almost seems unfair, doesn’t? I’m talking about the Disney-Lucasfilm connection and therefore also the Star Wars franchise. But instead of sitting here wallowing in envy of this super heavyweight marketing marriage, let’s look at what Disney is doing to promote the upcoming and eagerly awaited installment in the Star Wars series, “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” and outline five lessons we can use in our small business marketing campaigns. 1. Create anticipation The movie itself is being released around Christmas. However, boatloads of collectibles and gadgets tied to the movie were released on “Force Friday” (their moniker, not mine), which was on Sept 4. Further, echoing what they do with the Star Wars movie openings themselves, buyers could get into stores at 12:01 a.m. on that magical Friday. This strategy caused a double whammy of anticipation. The announced release of the merchandise created huge demand for the items themselves and the Force Friday event as a whole created added anticipation for the movie that follows in a few months. Take away: Don’t merely announce a sale on Friday, toss out hints that something big is in the works so you can create interest before you make the actual announcement. Of course, this doesn’t have to be a sale, it could be a new product or service. The point is to milk more value out of it than just making a single announcement. 2. Be clever in your promotion As I said above, the release of merchandise was called Force Friday. The label is easy to remember, it relates to the franchise and it uses alliteration. Looking at the label they attached to this event it seems obvious now, but I can assure you that they tossed around a lot of language before they settled on “Force Friday.” They knew that once they committed there was no turning back; it had to be perfect. Take away: Come up with labels, headlines and hashtags that stick in people’s brains. Make them easy to remember and give them something to hold on to. As you prepare your marketing materials, don’t just slap things on the page. Craft your materials. Have people look at different versions and give you their opinions. 3. Time it right Frankly, most diehard Star Wars fans are getting on in years. They have jobs so they couldn’t line up at stores waiting for the opening on most weekdays, however, they probably could swing taking Friday off. It made a lot of sense to do the 12:01 Friday morning release and then be able to look forward to a big shopping weekend. Take away: Do you think about the timing of your events? There are many things to consider and lots of possibilities. Do you want to time a big event with something else that is going on in your area? Are weekends or weekdays best? Evenings or mornings? The best marketers tend carefully to every detail. 4. Spill some inside information Disney “leaked” images of some of the new action figures that were going to be on sale. First, let me say that whenever you see the word “leaked” in the media – whether the subject is marketing or politics – the better word to use would be “planted.” Note that this is different...
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