Hi, thought I’d do something different today and do a Video Blog (or Vlog as they are called).

Enjoy!

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WOW! That’s all I could say after I heard the results.  Twelve inquiries and 3 sales of a downloadable e-book from a series of classified ads – that was pretty good for just about three hours of work.  I had almost forgotten completely about classifed ads until I was speaking with a small business owner who uses them regularly — but now I’m beginning to use them for my own business, and helping more clients plug into this little marketing success secret.

Online classified ads are a very simple, but often overlooked, marketing technique to get your business message out.  It is easy, it is inexpensive, and a recent study showed that 47% of all internet users browse at least one classified ad site a week. It takes a little bit of time to register and submit your ad to alot of sites, but if your competitors AREN’T taking full advantage of those potential inquiries, you may want to consider at least testing a few sites to see what happens.  Some of the sites offer a paid submission service and it is my understanding that for a winning ad, it pays to use a submission service.  But don’t do it until you are convinced the ad will pull in response.  No reason to pay to have a non-performing ad mass distributed.

Besides generating sales and inquiries, another great use for classified ads is testing of offers, headlines, and messages.  You’d be better off failing to connect with customers with a classified than with a pay-per-click ad.  Many of the top internet sellers use classified ads merely as a testing ground before they launch a PPC campaign.  Put out several different versions of ads and see which ones garner the most response.  Then keep tweaking the ad until you have the best ad you can make.  Then transfer it to a pay-per-click campaign, and you’ll likely see better response than if you had started with PPC.

As with all online marketing strategies, you need to use target keywords in your ads.  Most classified ad sites are searchable, so make sure you are using words your potential customers are looking for.  And yes, major search engines like Google and Yahoo scan the classified ad sites and will note your backlink. 

Try to grab attention of your readers.  Funny or odd subject lines that cause people to stop and go “Huh?” often work.  I recently stopped and read an ad with the headline “If a frog asked you to go to the movies, would you say Yes?”  It caught my attention at least. 

Here are some of the bigger Free Classified sites that you may want to try:

• http://www.inetgiant.com
• http://www.ecki.com/links/advert.shtml
• http://www.usfreeads.com
• http://www.boconline.com
• http://www.craigslist.com
• http://www.kijiji.com
• http://www.backpage.com
• http://www.sell.com 
• http://classifieds.excite.com
• http://classifieds.yahoo.com

 Each site has their loyal following, so you have to research a little to find out where your product or service would perform the best, but it’s worth trying.

Good luck and let me know if you have had any classified ad success stories.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Special Offer:  I’ll write 5 versions of a classified ad and submit them to all ten of the classified ad sites listed above for only $100.00.  That’s 50 submitted ads.  What’s your time worth?   If you are interested, please email me at Trina@SuccessPointConsulting.com.

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Congratulations!  You’ve now thought about keywords and should be beginning to see the impact they can have on your online success.  But doing the research is only half the puzzle — now you have to use them. 

The first step is to review of your list of potential keywords  and keyword phrases and pick the one or two, but no more than three, of them to target.  You may have a list of 25 potentially dynamite keywords, but you cannot effectively go after all of them at once.  For each keyword or keyword phrase, think about how you would use it in a headline or sentence.  Sometimes keywords pop up that have a decent number of searches and almost no competition — because they are almost impossible to use in regular language.  You can choose to target those — but understand that it will make your job just that much tougher.

Before you do anything else, pull up a Google search box and type in the keywords or keyword phrases you have chosen.  Make note of the top ten results.  You want to be one of them within the next 60 to 90 days (or sooner).

Now get to work on your copy.  If you have a traditional website, ideally, all three keywords will appear on your website’s home page:  include all of your keywords at the top of the page; put at least one keyword or phrase in a headline or a subhead; at least one or possibly even two of your keywords or phrases should be in the first paragraph of the page; and make sure you add at least one in the last paragraph of the page.  If you can make the targeted phrase a logical hyperlink to another page in your site, Google will give you bonus points in your search rankings.  Note:  Make sure your keywords are in text, not artwork.  If your headlines and subheads are graphics and not text, Google may ignore them.

Make sure you include one, two, or all three of your targeted keywords in your page’s title and meta description and of course, include them in your web headers as meta keywords.  You can target different keywords on different pages of your website if each page is indexed separately.  That may be a little advanced for a basic website, but it’s something to keep in mind.

If you are using a WordPress or other blog format as your platform instead of a traditional website, you will want to make sure that each post has one or two keywords in it and that your targeted keywords are included as Categories and Post Tags.   If you have added an SEO plug-in for your WordPress blog, make sure you include your targeted keywords in your Title and Meta Description.

But don’t stop with your website or blog.  Now go into every directory your site has been listed in and re-write the description to include your keywords.  Pull up your profiles in LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook and add your keywords.  Begin a concentrated, targeted online campaign emphasizing those keywords.  Try to use those targeted keywords in your Twitter updates, on your Facebook wall, in articles submitted to article directories, and in press releases.  Add your website or blog to different social bookmarking sites and include your keywords in your profiles.

Finally, set up Google alerts to track your keywords or keyword phrases.  As you start to use the phrases more and more, you should start to see your site or marketing efforts pop up.  This will give you an idea of where Google is recognizing the phrase and you can adjust your copy or marketing efforts accordingly.

Give it a shot.  I would love to hear your success stories in a couple months.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  SPECIAL OFFER:  

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We produce a different kind of website analysis report, one that’s actually relevant to your goals. Most SEO analysis reports are canned. They use stock software to ”analyze” your website based on computer driven formulas, or even worse- copy and paste information from a grab-bag of resources. They produce results that have been predefined and offer nothing more than useless information.  Heck, a lot of them don’t even really look at your website.  They plug your URL into a software package and take what gets spit out and hand it to you, expecting it to make a difference.  Their reports might as well land in the trash for all the good they do.

Unlike the competition, we actually go on your site, read the content and check all the links.  Sure, we’ll run a software program or two to get us some baseline information from Google, but the meat of our report is a result of over 20 years of sales and marketing experience, including the last 5 years heavily invested in learning SEO and online marketing strategies.  We give you an ACTION PLAN of steps   you can implement right away to improve your website’s performance.  Not listed in enough directories?  We’ll give you a list.  Not utilizing social media effectively?  We’ll get you specific suggestions on how to improve.  Don’t know what to say in a forum?  We’ll provide you with a suggested topic list, as well as suggestions on what forums and how often you should participate.  Every website and market is different, and every Action Plan should be, too.

Satisfaction is completely guaranteed. If you don’t see results in 60 days after implementing our suggested changes in your Action Plan, we will refund your $179 investment. We produce results, or our services are on the house.  Our ACTION PLANS are effective. We guarantee it.

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PART I of Three-Part Series:  Finding Your Keywords

The key to getting your site or profile found in an online search is keywords.  Period.  Whether it’s on Google or Bing, or even LinkedIn or Twitter, what words you use and how you use them will have a major impact on your results and ultimately, your online success.

Choosing the “right” keywords is part art, part science.   There are dozens of programs out there that will generate words and phrases for you.  I’ve used WordTracker, Market Samurai, and Good Keywords, in addition to the very accessible free Google Keyword Tool.  They all have their flaws and their biases.  But like so many programs, the outcome is only as good as the input.  “Garbage in, garbage out” as the saying goes.

The place you have to start is getting into the mind of your potential site visitor.  What words or phrases would they type into a search box if they were specifically looking for you but didn’t know your company name?  I don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble, but few people with any sort of search engine experience will type in just “dentist” if they are looking for a new family dentist.  I know, I know, I hear you.  “But Trina, Google says “dentist” was searched 13,000,000 times last month.”  It was.  And those people received in their results the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wikipedia, the ADA, and many directories for dentists.  Plus the local results for Google maps.  If you truly wanted to compete on the word “dentist” then concentrate on getting listed in the right directories, and get a listing on Google maps, don’t try to use the phrase as the keyword on your website.  It is more likely your ideal new patient would type in Dentist Clintonville or Dentist Clintonville Ohio, which had 36 searches.

So the first step is to create a list of all the phrases you “think” a visitor would type if they were looking for you, your products or your services.  Think of phrases that are 2 to 3, even 4 words long.  If you take a common phrase and narrow it, you’ve created a “long-tail keyword.”  Long-tail keywords are going to bring you lots more of targeted, specific traffic than the general, short-tail keywords.  An example of a short-tail keyword phrase would be “family dentist.”  “Family dentist Columbus Ohio” would be an example of a long-tail keyword. 

The next step, if you are running Google Analytics on your site (which you should), go to Traffic Sources report section and look at the list of keywords in the right hand column.  Click on the “View Full Report” under the list to see all of the phrases people have been typing and ended up on your site.  Aren’t you amazed at the variety?  I know I am.

The third step is one that many people skip.  Take a look at your competition.  Type in the phrases you think people are using, and the ones you pulled off Google Analytics into a Google search box (or Yahoo, or Bing, it doesn’t really matter) and then click on all of the competitors.   Put your cursor somewhere on the page near the top but under the header and right click.  Select “View Source” and up pops their site coding.  Near the top, you should see their meta tags.  Look for “meta name = keywords” and then copy down all the words and phrases they are using.  Then go back to their site and read their home page, looking for those words or phrases.  Make a note of how many times each phrase appears.  Now, it’s true.  Some sites will have 20 keywords in their tags, and only 2 of them show up in their text.   That’s not good optimization, but who am I to judge?  Now, with most blogs, it’s a different story, but that’s for another day.

You’ll now have a list of what you think people search for, and what your competition thinks people search for.  Next week, I’ll review what to do next.

So, what tricks or tips do you have to find the “right” keywords?  Do you believe your keyword selection is contributing to your online success?  If you’re willing to share, please let me know.

Until next week,

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Yep, you guessed it.  I’m going to be offering a seminar in July:  “The Key is Keywords.”  Details are being worked out now.  Stay tuned.

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Adventures in Uncovering the Mysteries of Facebook Demographic Targeting

If you are at all in tune with the world of social media, you probably heard about all the changes Facebook has been making the past couple weeks.  One of the big changes is that Facebook   is going to start aggregating the data from all the websites you “like” on the web and is going to make that data available to marketers.

Now, wearing my small business consultant and marketer hat, I’m absolutely drooling at the possibilities of being able to talk to exactly who I want as a customer.  But wearing my advocate of privacy and “no one needs to know that I sometimes visit certain celebrity blogs” hat, I’m leery.

But Facebook already has an awesome database available for marketers.  And my clients and I are proof.  I was working with a client on Friday who showed me the ad she had put out on Facebook last week.  She is selling a customized Sham-moo Shammy package (very similar to the as-seen-on-TV ShamWow) as a promotional give-away for companies like car dealers, marinas, motor home manufacturers, and car enthusiasts.  She had very wisely targeted men in certain age categories, in certain professions, and with certain hobbies.  In about 2 days, she had garnered 161 clicks through to her website but no sales.  But she is only spending $.32 per click, so it wasn’t outrageously expensive.    I suggested some changes to her ad and to her conversion page, and showed her how to get a code for $50 in free Facebook ad credits, and she’ll be running it again this week.

But as we were working on her Facebook page, an ad popped up for a set of exercise CDs.  We commented on how eye-catching the ad was and I said I had never seen it before.  She said she sees it every day and then said, “I think I get it because my husband and I go dancing.”  Wow.  A consumer who knows why they are being targeted.   A few minutes later, it was for a fat-burning muffin.  A little bit later, we noticed an ad for a nutritional supplement.  So on a whim, we pulled up her profile.  Sure enough, among her interests are dancing and health.

Later that evening, I got on Facebook.  And on my home page, I have an ad, no, not for an exercise CD, not for a nutritional supplement, nothing nearly so healthy.  My ad is for Oscar Mayer hotdogs.  Oscar Mayer?    The next ad that pops up is for Taylor-made golf clubs.  That makes sense, I like to golf.  Then an ad for a bouquet of flowers appears.  Ok, I have a mom and it is Mother’s Day next week.  The next ad is for real estate funding.  Great targeting because I dabble in real estate investing and am connected to lots of real estate folks. 

And then another Oscar Mayer ad, this one touting a contest to get a ride in the Wienermobile.  Oh No!  How did they know?   Is it possible that Oscar Mayer somehow has a record of everyone who has ever ridden in the Wienermobile  (which I did in 2001 – see!). 

Never thought anyone would ever find out

 Did they somehow share that information with Facebook?  Believe me, there is nothing in my profile that screams hotdog lover.  Or is there?

Let’s see, I don’t have k ids, so that’s not it.  I’m female. Females tend to do the household shopping. So they may just be targeting females of a certain age.  I love golf, reading, and … Cleveland Indians baseball.  Ah, could it be the baseball?  Nothing else really makes sense.  It has to be that they are either targeting females, people who like baseball, or maybe even females who like baseball.  Or they might just be excluding people with healthy activities and lifestyles.  Whew, at least I think my secret fascination with the Wienermobile hasn’t been leaked, yet.

But the moral of the story:  if you are getting ads that don’t seem to be targeted to you, you may want to look at your profile and figure out why.  Then think about your product or service and try to come up with characteristics that would be shared by the majority of your target audience.   How could you get an ad in front of them?  There is going to be so much data available, it’ll be your own fault if you are talking to the wrong people.

As always, if you need help defining your ideal customer or other marketing needs, just let me know by dropping an email to SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Heather Tapia’s Abundance Marketing Pro series continues tonight (Monday, May 3) at 6:30 p.m. at Raisin Rack in Westerville. Tonight’s topic:  Creating a Plan of Action.  Should be great.  Check it out.

P.S.S.  Most of you have heard, but just in case you haven’t — I’m now the Columbus Business Events Examiner for Examiner.com.  Send me your press releases and event announcements and I’ll do what I can to get your events promoted and reviewed.  Also looking for event-support types of news, like venues, caterers, DJs, event planners.  It’s gonna be fun!

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One of my tasks as a small business consultant is to keep up with best practices in different fields, like online marketing, so I can better advise my clients on what they might consider doing.  So this week, I’ve been studying Twitter, trying to figure out how the best of the best make it happen.  So I began following Ashton Kutcher and CNN.  And I have to admit, I have been amused, intriqued, and entertained far beyond what I was expecting.  I also started checking out all the Twitter analysis sites, like Twitter Grader, Twitter Analyzer, Tweet Stats, Twitter Stats, Twitter Counter.  I put in all kinds of queries, and viewed a lot of Twitter feeds, both personal and business.

I can’t say this is definitive, but as I review my notes, I think I have identified seven things businesses, both big and small, should do on Twitter to make it a more successful platform.

1.  Target a niche, talk to that niche, develop a niche.  So I started research this week at Dell.  I was fascinated by fact that Dell has 34 Twitter accounts, each aimed at a specific market.  Now that’s smart marketing. And each account only follows other Dell accounts — Dell Twitter managers do not read anyone else’s Tweets, except other Dell Tweets.  But between all the accounts, they have over 1.5 million followers.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to know what coupons Dell is offering on what accessories every day, but apparently a lot of other people do.  But each Dell Tweet account manager develops their own following and interacts with their own audience.  They are all different.    

2.  Another lesson from Dell is to use Twitter as a customer service tool.  A lot of the Dell Twitter managers (most of whom are happily pictured on their account pages) have running dialog with customers about back-ordered inventory, end dates of sales, how to special order items, and other customer service issues.  It’s very much like a public live chat.  But it does demonstrate Dell’s willingness to engage and reflects well on their customer service philosophy.  I definitely have a stronger feeling of trust in Dell after reading their Tweets.  That’s an effective use of the platform. 

3.  Have a mix of offers, information, replies, and personal Tweets.  Don’t just Tweet “about” your business, throw some offers out there.  Don’t just send people to other blogs or articles, Tweet about your own business and send them to your own website or blog.  If a customer or client asks a question, respond.  Ask your customers questions and ask for feedback.  It’s OK to have some personal Tweets (just got off the plane in Orlando) but there has to be more if you are presenting yourself as a business.  Mention other people, reTweet, reply.  The more you mix it up, the more engaged your followers become in you and  your brand.

4.  Do not use one of the standard Twitter backgrounds — make your own.  Make it professional, make it reflect your brand and your personality.  I find it odd that I’m recommending this, because really, you mostly see your Tweetstream’s Tweets, not their pages, but as I was researching, I could almost tell if I was going to be impressed by their Tweet activity the second I pulled up their profile.  And most of it was the first impression of the page background. And of course, it goes without saying that you MUST have a photo or logo, not one of the ugly Twitter default icons.

5.  Include photos and videos. The most influential Tweeters use a lot of photos and link to a lot of videos.  It adds interest, it gives the reader a fuller idea of who and what you are about.

6.  Make your profile description match your activity.  If your profile says you are a small business consultant, your Tweets should be about small business things — not ceramics.  If you say you are a mortgage banker, I expect to see Tweets about the financial markets, or home sales, or government regulations, not puppy housebreaking.  Oh sure, throw a couple Tweets out there about your personal struggles with the next Marley, but if that’s all you are going to Tweet about, then make it a personal Twitter account and don’t expect to drive business.

7.  Mention your Twitter handle in all your other online activities and drive people to Twitter to follow you.  Once I found some Twitter accounts I liked, I went to their Facebook, their LinkedIn, their websites, anywhere I could, to see how they were promoting their Twitter activity.  And it turns out that the ones I liked were promoting it a lot.  SO, you can find me on Twitter as @SuccessPointer.  Go ahead, follow me.  I’ll try to engage some of you in conversation. 

That’s Twitter.com/SuccessPointer.

It’s pretty clear that there are no hard and fast rules to using Twitter as professional networking tool, but I think incorporating these 7 characteristics into your Tweets will help make it as effective as possible for your small business.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S. 

  Heather Tapia’s Why2 How2 Abundance Marketing series starts TONIGHT at 6:00 p.m. at Raisin Rack in Westerville.  For more information and to register, go to http://AbundanceMarketingPro.eventbrite.com

P.S.S.  Registration continues for SPEED NETWORKING, coming May 18th at The Meeting Place.  Go to Gemstone Partners to officially register.  It’s going to be fun.  Also, if you have a book, a discount, a do-dah of some sort that you would like to donate as a Door Prize for the event, let me know!  I love to promote my friends and their businesses.

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Like it or not, if you want your small business to be successful online, you need to have an understanding of Search Engine Optimization and you need to take steps to get listed in the organic search results of the major search engines, especially Google, Yahoo, and Bing. 

One of the ways you get noticed by the search engines is to develop backlinks. Backlinks are exactly what they sound like — they are links which directs others towards your site; they are also often referred to as inbound links (IBL’s). In the world of search engine optimization, the number of backlinks your site has is an indication of how popular or important it is according to your peers (other site owners). These are especially important because search engines such as Google will give more credit to those sites with a good number of quality backlinks. So they will then consider these sites more relevant than others in the results pages of a search query and will show your site higher on in the rankings.

Most search engines will want websites to have a level playing field, and so will more often than not look for natural links that have been built slowly over time. Although it can be fairly easy to manipulate the links on a web page in order to achieve a higher ranking in the short term, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from another site. This is why these count so highly in a search engine’s algorithm.

One of the best ways to achieve quality backlinks to your site in a fairly short time is Directory Submissions.  Why don’t more small business owners do this?  I know it may have been some years ago, but you actually had to buy an ad to be listed in the  yellow pages, or at least buy a telephone line.  It’s no different online.  You actually have to DO something to be listed in a directory.

 It takes time, it takes effort, but it gets results. Believe it or not, you actually have to submit the link for your site to directories in order to be listed. Many directories allow free submissions. There are dozens more that want you to pay for the privilege of being listed. If you can afford it, DO IT. There are many sites around which offer a service where you can submit your site details to numerous sites. Do a search, you’ll find them. In some industries (like legal, for instance) there are well over 2,000 potential directories your business can be listed in. Every one of those listings then becomes a backlink.

But another benefit of submitting to directories, in addition to creating backlinks, is getting a boost in traffic. Imagine, some people actually use directories that they know to search for businesses instead of just Google search. The key to getting a traffic boost from directories is to actually write out a good description of your product or service and use your targeted keywords. I know, it begins to sound like a broken record, but if you use the same targeted keywords on your site, in your LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook posts and profiles, in articles that link back to your site, and also in business directories, you will start to become associated with those keywords in the eyes of the search engines. You will start to rank higher and be seen as more relevant. Isn’t that what you want?

I almost feel like the directories I tell clients to submit their site to are a closely guarded secret, but they really aren’t. This isn’t my complete list, but here are some ideas to get you started. You should make sure your business is listed in: Local.Yahoo.com, Google.com/maps, MerchantCircle.com, Brownbook.net, Cityslick.net and if you can afford it, PR.com.

There, now don’t tell me I’m not helping to make you successful online. I don’t get paid to advertise these directories (though occasionally clients pay me to help them listed on all of them ). But because you are friends of mine, I feel like I need to at least give you a hint.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  We’re only 10 days away from the How to WOW! Now Seminar.  Have you registered yet?  HowtoWOWnow.eventbrite.com

There’s now a discount for friends of mywebWOW!com, which I would be glad to share.  Just let me know that you are going to attend and I’ll get you a discount code for 50% off the ticket price.  What are friends for?

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Okay, okay, yes, I admit it.  I have been slow in getting on the Facebook bandwagon, but with small business clients and friends seeing FANTABULOUS results, I’ve been forced to take another look.   

And I’m here to tell you — Facebook advertising is the real deal.  You can target demographically and geographically, it’s cheaper than Google, there’s less competition, and small business owners are seeing results.  I just ran a little ad myself — I had a simple landing page offering a FREE Report and asked the respondents to fill out a short survey about their current online marketing activities – and got 6 very high-quality business leads in about 36 hours, for less than $100 ($82 to be exact).  I’m excited.

Facebook Ads provide two ways to advertise on the pages of Facebook. You can create an ad campaign that links to a landing page within your Web site, or you can advertise something on Facebook, such as your new Business Page or an application you have developed. You can also employ a Social ad. This shows your image and text alongside the social action you take on Facebook pages.

The targeting available for Facebook Ads is awesome.  You can choose  the location, gender, interests, relationship status and other demographics of your target audience.  For my test, I chose to target women, in Ohio, who were business owners and involved with service professions, like attorneys, accountants, insurance sales, etc.  And sure enough, every response I got was from a woman, from Ohio, and all but one is in an industry I was targeting.  And my guess once I dig a little deeper into her background, I bet I find she is or was connected somehow to a law firm.

In creating a Facebook Ad campaign you will need to decide which type of ad you want to run and provide the link the ad will lead visitors to.  The link does not appear in the ad — it’s behind the scenes.  The entire ad is a hotlink to the URL you select.  The ad title is restricted to 25 characters while the  text (body) must fit in 135 characters. If you choose to include a photo (which I recommend), it needs to be 110 by 80 pixels.  And like any good ad test, you should run at least 2 versions, if not 3 or 4 versions, to make sure you are getting the absolutely best response rate you can.

Very similar to the Google model, Facebook Ads can be run on a Pay for Clicks (CPC) or Pay for Views (CPM) model. During the ad creation process, you set your daily ad budget and the maximum bid, which is the most you are willing to pay per click. CPC ads are displayed in Facebook’s Ad Space, Home Page (or both), while CPM ads are shown only in the Ad Space. Facebook selects the best ad to run based on the cost per click or impression and ad performance.

After creating the ads you want to run, Facebook will approve your ads for use and suggest a max bid if you have bid too low.  This seems to take anywhere from 4 hours to 24 hours, which is very comparable to Google.  Through your Ad Management Page, Facebook provides ad data so you can track your progress, change the audience, or adjust other metrics as the campaign progresses.

And here’s a little tip for the day (you’ll never be able to say I didn’t help you out after this) — do a search for FREE Facebook Ad Credits and you’ll find several companies out there willing to give you $50 to $100 in Facebook advertising credits.  I did it — I took a $50 credit to test with — so my $82 campaign only cost $32 — and it would have only cost me $0 if I had shut it down a little earlier.

So go ahead, try it.  You just might find a new PPC platform that really performs for your small business.  If you need help coming up with a strong headline or ad copy, just ask me.  I’ll give you three or four versions for you to test for a very reasonable $80.00 — I’ll even do the set-up for you, if you want.  Call me at (614) 753-5979 or email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com and I’ll do what I can to help you succeed.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Plans for Speed Networking at being finalized.  May 18 is the target.  Stay tuned!

P.P.S.  If you’re in the Columbus Ohio area, make plans to attend the How to WOW! Now seminar on April 29, 2010.  Local celebs like Gabe Speigel, Ryan Bauer, Bruce Heinemann, Shelley Moore, and Andrew Catapano are going to talk through the process of going from having a dream about owning a business to starting a business and then promoting your business online.  A portion of the proceeds from the night is going directly to Junior Achievement.  Make your plans now — it WILL sell out.

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We lost an hour this weekend because of the switch to Daylight Savings Time.  If you are like many small business owners, you need more hours every day, not less. 

Here are a couple ideas on how to get that hour back and build a more successful small business while doing so.

1)  Learn to use the tools and systems you have to their full capacity.  Whether it’s Word or Excel, or HootSuite, so many small business owners could save themselves so much time and effort if they would just take the time to learn how to completely utilize the tools and systems they already have.  I am constantly amazed when I talk with small business owners who have trouble keeping track of appointments, deadlines, and heavens! billing, and yet they have the software that could make it a breeze.  They just don’t know how to use it, or they don’t know what is available.  

One such tool is Microsoft Outlook. It is so much more than an email management system (though it’s good for that).  My good friend, Bob Cich, of Priority Management will actually come to your office and train you and your staff on how to use all the bells and whistles of Microsoft Outlook.  How awesome is that? 

2)  Another area of Bob’s expertise is organization.  He does a seminar titled  “Organize or Agonize” which basically says it all.  Spend the time to get organized today and you’ll save that lost hour over the next few weeks just by being able to access your resources quicker.

3)  Make a list of all the tasks you should perform weekly and daily and SCHEDULE them on a calendar.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to actually schedule time — and stick to your schedule.  But WAIT — before you put them on your calendar, take one more step:  Sort these tasks into “like” activities.  For instance, in my business, I typically have these weekly tasks:  client writing, client research, client promotions, client consultations, new client prospecting, online business promotion, telephone calls, new business development, business writing.   When I sort them, I have the following activities: research, writing, telephone calls, promotions, and prospecting.

When I first take on a new small business consulting client, I create a list of all the tasks I plan to complete for that client.  I used to schedule my work based on each client.  For instance, for many clients I have to conduct research into a client’s product or service and then write blog posts or articles to support their business.  I also need to promote their business by creating listings in directories, posting comments in forums, sending Tweets and such.  I also help them with offline promotions, so I sometimes design flyers or brochures for them.   I used to pull out my client task list and do all of that day’s tasks for that client, then go to the next client and do that day’s tasks.  What I discovered was that I was doing the same activities over and over again.

I had a productivity break-through when I switched from client-based to activity-based scheduling.  I can get two or three times more work done in the same amount of time by focusing on the “activity,” not the client.  For instance, I will now block out a couple of hours to do nothing but research.  I will do research for all of my clients at once, not just one.  While I’m researching, I’m not checking my email, I’m not randomly surfing the web.  I’m focused on finding information and downloading or saving it for reference later.  After the research is done, I’ll schedule a block of time dedicated to writing the blogs and articles.  During my writing blocks, I don’t chat with friends on Facebook, I don’t make or answer phone calls.  If I have done my research thoroughly, I have no reason to go online until my writing is done.  For me, when I’m on a roll, I can write fast and furious and if the research is already done, I can zip through client work.   

Activity-based scheduling has been proven to be one of the most efficient methods to increase your productivity. I highly suggest you try it.  You may be amazed at how much more work you can get done in  day.

Sometimes, fresh eyes can see where you are wasting time.  I recently met with a gentleman who was complaining about not having enough hours in a day to get everything done, yet during our one-hour conversation, he pulled out his iphone and texted at least 3 people.  Not only was it rude, but it was telling me exactly why he’s not efficient.  If that’s you, you may want to consider only checking messages once an hour, not every 5 minutes. If you need someone to help you organize your tasks and suggest some tools and processes that could make you more efficient, let me know.  I would be glad to help.

As always,  here’s to your success,

Trina

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On Saturday, I was in a meeting with a small business owner and three of her key staff members in Grandview Heights, a neat little suburb just west of downtown Columbus, Ohio.  Wearing my small business consultant hat, I was leading the group in a brainstorming session on new offers we could create to generate more revenue for their fledgling small business.  We were in an office suite on the second floor of a, no offense to those who work there, but non-descript, rather run-down-looking office building in the midst of the industrial area of town.

To our surprise, we were interrupted by two young women, complete strangers. “Excuse me, but can anyone tell us how to get to the convention center?”  For those of you who are not from Columbus, you may not know that this past weekend was The Arnold Classic, an international body-building and health & wellness convention started by none other than Arnold Schwartzenegger himself a dozen or more years ago.  These two ladies were from out of town and had gotten lost.  They had zigged when they should have zagged.

We gave them directions, pointed out where the restrooms were in the building, and scratched our head as to how or why they would have chosen this building to come in and ask directions.  We marveled a bit at the gumption of these two travelers, pulling into the parking lot of an office building on a Saturday, going in the door, climbing the stairs to the second floor until they found an office with the lights on and door unlocked.  Finally, one of the ladies in my group said, “Well, I guess they were thinking outside the box.”

Exactly.  They were thinking outside the box.   On that street there are no fast food restaurants nor gas stations.  There are a couple small retail stores, office buildings, industrial warehouses, and apartments.  These two ladies had a need for directions and the usual suspects were nowhere to be seen.  So they thought a little differently and came up with a solution.

If you run a small business, you need to occasionally think outside the box. Determine what outcome you want first (directions) then open you mind up to all the possible ways you can achieve your outcome .   If they had been closed to all possibilities but getting directions from a gas station (which we speculated would have been the case if a man had been driving, but that’s another topic lol), they could have been driving around lost for quite a while because there aren’t many stations in Grandview and they are hard to find.    But they were focused on their outcome, not the method of getting there.  When they saw a group of cars parked outside of this office building, they took the calculated risk that someone inside would be able to help them.

Turns out, it was a successful endeavor because we did indeed know how to get to the convention center, they got to use a clean, uncrowded restroom, and we got them in the right direction quickly.

You will find that there are so many more paths to small business success if you will just be willing to think outside the box and try a different approach on occasion. Sure, tried and true methods still work, but so can new ways.  You just have to be open.

If you ever need someone to facilitate a marketing brainstorming session, or need help coming up with creative and innovative new ways to promote your product or service, especially utilizing the internet and social media, give me a call at 614-753-5979 or email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com and I’d be glad to help.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S. Mark Your Calendars.  SPEED NETWORKING Coming MAY 18, 2010.  MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

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