How to Build Your Book of Business…Don’t Cold Call Me!!!

January 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This article is a continuation of my previous article about cold calling financial advisors. If you recall, a financial advisor called me asking “to help with my portfolio?”. I was flabbergasted that they caller didn’t really know much about me, in fact had gotten my name from an old list.

 
As I thought about it, he was doing what many business owners do; he was trying to grow his business. Except he was using a really old strategy, “cold calling”, many would say the problem wasn’t him cold calling but in today’s world I disagree.
 
This guy, was calling a list, he didn’t know anything about the people on the list, the list was old, he didn’t know about their finances, or their needs or their wants, he didn’t know anything.
 
In a recent article, we talked about the effectiveness of cold calling versus inbound marketing and found the following;
So, if cold calling doesn’t work then what does? What is a more effective marketing and sales strategy. How do you eliminate the need for cold calling andhow do you help an advisor build his book of business.
 
Statistics show the best strategy is to start attracting leads based on people’s needs. Here are some suggestions for how to attract clients and in my next post I talk about how you can create content that would attract clients.
  1. Here are some suggestions for eliminating cold calling.Evaluate and eliminate your lowest performing sales staff. Repurpose that budget to begin the process of creating demand for your company
  2. Create video tutorials that are educational
  3. Has a rate of less than 2% of phone calls resulting in a meeting (Leap Job
  4. Invest in making your top sales people speakers at relevant conferences
  5. Develop great content that attracts and educates prospects.
Your prospects have problems that need to be solved. In my case, I’m rebuilding, I know I’m going to be successful financially again and I need help getting there. I need someone that believes I can be successful again and is willing to invest me NOW, knowing they will benefit because they helped me achieve my dreams.
Bottomline, Invest in me NOW and I will be your client.
 
Dedicated to your success. In our next post, I’ll address specifically how to create content and inbound marketing that attracts prospects. Here is a hint “FILL THE GAP”
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Automated Lead Management – Mobile Marketing Made Easy

January 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Attention Sales People, don’t random call me. Don’t interrupt my day. Find another way to market your services to me. (Try some inbound marketing)

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/anng7


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How to Build Your Book of Business… Don’t Cold Call Me

January 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

If your strategy for building your business is cold calling me, don‘t bother, it's a waste of your time and mine.

I got a call from a Financial Advisor, (you remember, a guy that was once a stock broker who now calls himself an advisor). I must admit I was surprised to say the least. When he called he said "Hello, Mr. Miller, My name is Bob Robinson from XYZ Financial Services and I wanted to know if you needed any help with your portfolio?".

What a surprise, my portfolio, what portfolio (like many, my finances have been devastated in the last few years. In fact, my "portfolio" looks more like Nagasaki after they dropped the a bomb), he didn’t waste much time after he heard my state; he ended the call as quickly as possible.

After I hung up, I was still amazed. Here was a guy calling me to build his business but he had no idea about the condition of my finances, my financial goals or anything.

Apparently I was on some list from 2006 and the advisor didn't realize that sh&t had really changed. Had he been on Mars during the last 6 years? Was he living on the space station? Didn't he know or care what has happened to millions of people in the US over the last few years including me?

After I got over myself, I started to think about this situation and his marketing strategy specifically.  This guy was looking for new clients and his "creative" strategy was to invade my day with his need for a more money.

He interrupted whatever I was doing, not knowing anything about my current situation. Not knowing if I had money to invest. Not knowing that my investments were in the toilet? Not knowing if I was still a qualified prospect? He didn't know anything about me and I have NOT expressed any need for his services.

He took a shot in the dark hoping that he would get a bite and that did not work.
As I thought more it occurred to me "how so 1980's", cold calling a cold list without any knowledge of the prospect.

As I thought more, it also occurred to me that despite the fact my current portfolio sucked, I had no intention of staying in this situation. My intention is to resurrect my finances and my portfolio and become more successful then ever.
 
That’s my goal, to rebuild and be even more successful.

Which takes me back to Bob Robinson and the antiquated way he is trying to build (or rebuild) his business. If Bob wanted to “help with my portfolio” he would need to do the following;
  • Clearly understand where I was today financially
  • Articulate a plan to help me powerfully rebuild my finances
  • Understand my needs and how you can help me.
So just a little inbound marketing would have helped Bob.
 
Bottomline, don’t cold call me looking for business, interrupting my day wit your agenda. While in the past I worked with advisors that I didn’t know and didn’t know me now I’ve decided “IF AN ADVISOR DOESN’T INVEST IN ME, I WILL NOT INVEST WITH THEM. INVEST IN ME FIRST.
Filed Under: Advertising, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

The Googleplex Hates to be Scorned. Google Announces Competitor to Groupon

January 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago,Groupon decided not to be acquired by Google. It didn’t take long before Google struck back. Google is planning to launch it’s own group buying service with daily deals. Combine Google offers with Adwords and Google’s other ad platforms makes Google a formidible competitor. Let the competition begin.

BTW, if you are planning a Groupon like promotion check out this post. http://automated-lead-management.com/planning-for-profits-is-essential-when-using-groupon/

Amplify’d from mashable.com

Google is already beginning the push for its new group-buying service, reaching out to local businesses for the first test run of its daily deals program. With its massive reach, vast advertising network and huge brand recognition, it’s very likely that the search giant will enter the local deals market with a bang.

Google Would Be an Instant Player

For Google, the daily deals market is all about developing a stronger local advertiser network. Here’s what I said when the news about Google’s $6 billion offer to Groupon first broke:

“If Google goes through with the biggest purchase in the company’s history, it will have the upper hand in local business advertising. That advantage could be so great that the courts stop this acquisition from ever happening. That’s why Google wants Groupon so badly that it’s willing to overpay by billions; if all goes according to plan, the search giant will be flooded with so much local advertising revenue that it will be able to buy a dozen Groupons.”

Google already has a major advertising network through AdWords and AdSense, but it isn’t focused on local. Still, it’s a very good starting point for launching a daily deals business. By integrating daily deals into its advertising network, Google can quickly and easily gain exposure with businesses. In fact, it probably could get enough local businesses to sign up just through word of mouth.

Getting users to Offers wouldn’t be a big challenge for Google, either. A simple link on the Google homepage would be enough to get the ball rolling, and promotions in local searches, Google Maps and more would help drive even more users. People don’t generally care where their deals come from, but Google’s name recognition automatically legitimizes the service.

If Groupon has proven one thing though, it’s that this market is huge. It’s enormous. It has enough room for not only Groupon, but LivingSocial, which is on fire thanks to Amazon, and hundreds of Groupon clones of all different sizes.

Groupon also has a huge head start, thanks to its massive sales force, home-grown name recognition and $1+ billion in funding. CEO Andrew Mason and his team have proven that they can outperform the competition, despite having a product that can be easily copied. Google, on the other hand, has yet to prove that it can build a successful social product.

The group-buying giant is also diversifying. It recently launched Groupon Stores, a self-serve deal platform so that businesses can create their own stores. It also released the Deal Feed to combat deal saturation.

After spurning Google’s offer, Groupon had to be expecting today’s news. We doubt Groupon would have rejected Google’s offer if it didn’t have a plan for competing with Google. While I admit that is my own hypothesis, Mason has proven more than capable of predicting major technology and business trends. I think it’s a safe bet to say that Groupon is prepared for (and not scared of) Google’s entry in its market.

The truth is that nobody knows the limits of the daily deals market. It’s tough to tell how many businesses are still interested in daily deals, but there are millions upon millions of local businesses that have yet to indulge in the daily deal phenomenon. We’re about to find out if there’s enough room Google and Groupon.

Read more at mashable.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aniyv


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Who gave away all the Tostitos.

January 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is a great story and example of creativity. My friend Eppie Vojt is a talented and smart Internet entrepreneur and while watching a game he heard “all the Tostitos”. He not only heard the words but he heard an opportunity. Here is the story of how a creative entrepreneur capitalized on a trend and made inroads into a major food company

Amplify’d from www.flipwebsites.com

I Just Gave Frito-Lay AllTheTostitos

How I Got All the Tostitos in the First Place

As soon as Musberger said it, I knew it would go viral — so I jumped right on it, registering the @allthetostitos Twitter handle and http://www.allthetostitos.com.  A lot of domainers and developers would have stopped there — maybe putting a parked page up on the domain and cashing in a bit… not me.  Instead, I built out the website (staying up until 4:30 am after the BCS championship game) paying homage to the meme (using Twitter’s API, YouTube’s API, and some static content).

Traffic, links, and social mentions started to roll in.  Then I did something that a lot of domainers would think is crazy.  I contacted Frito-Lay and told them I wanted to give them @allthetostitos (and the accompanying website).

What Becomes of All the Tostitos?

Today Frito-Lay started using the @allthetostitos Twitter account as the official Twitter account for the Tostitos brand.  They’ve wasted no time in putting the account to good use, as they’ve been giving out free bags of Tostitos today to some of the folks who mentioned them (@allthetostitos references).  I’ll be interested to follow the account and see exactly how they put it to use.

What Did I Get Out of It?

So I don’t have @allthetostitos anymore, and I don’t have allthetostitos.com either.  No truckloads of Tostitos have been unloaded at my house as of yet, either, though you never know what may come.  Frito-Lay hasn’t offered me a job (though, if they did, I’d be all ears).

It’s possible that as Frito-Lay begins using the account (and hopefully the website), that I’ll pull some press coverage, which would certainly be welcome.  Quite frankly, that’s the most I’m hoping for in terms of tangible benefit to me out of the whole deal.

ike a fair trade for all the Tostitos.

About Eppie

But primarily, I get the satisfaction of knowing that I helped a brand connect with its consumers in a fun, community-driven way.  I get a great story out of the whole thing — a positive life experience.  If that’s all I get out of it, that’s enough for me; seems like a fair trade for all the Tostitos.

See more at www.flipwebsites.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bn331


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Mobile Ads So Effective Company Directs 25% of Budget

January 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Defender Direct ran a Click-to-call campaign targeted to WAP mobile phones, giving users the option to place a call directly to their call center or visit their mobile site. After this campaign performed exceedingly well, Defender Direct’s next move was to target high-end devices with full Internet browsers including the iPhone and Android platforms. The results were impressive. ROI for Defender Direct mobile campaigns exceeded the ROI for their desktop campaigns by a factor of two. By running Click-to-call campaigns on both WAP and high end devices, Defender Direct succeeded in driving more qualified leads to their call centers.

With an overwhelming 75-80% of Defender Direct’s online advertising clicks coming from mobile devices, they have now allocated a quarter of their total online advertising budget to this platform.

Let us help you develop an Inbound Marketing Strategy for Your Business. Schedule a Call Here http://goo.gl/WWyhe

Amplify’d from googlemobileads.blogspot.com

Defender Direct sells affordable security systems to individuals who want to keep their homes and loved ones safe. To stay ahead of their competition and to ensure client satisfaction, Defender Direct staffed their call centers with consultants educated on the intricacies of their security systems. To drive more calls to their call centers, Defender Direct decided to implement Click-to-call mobile ad campaigns.

Driving calls to the call center is critical to Defender Direct’s business model and a primary goal of their marketing efforts. With this in mind, Defender Direct turned to mobile advertising to generate new, better qualified leads. Google suggested their Click-to-call mobile search ad unit, which prominently highlights the business phone number in the ad result (see example below).

See more at googlemobileads.blogspot.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmjwd


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2011 Home Remodeling Trends

January 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Looking to remodel your home. Here are some current trends

Amplify’d from marin-contractor.com
  • Kitchen Cabinet Organizers. One of the best things to do for the New Year is de-clutter and if your kitchen is like ours, kitchen clutter is a problem. So this year we will be looking for kitchen cabinet accessories like cabinet organizers by Grayline Housewares 57101 6-Piece Cabinet Organizer Set “>Grayline. Either buy organizers or throw away unused stuff and de-clutter for the New Year.
  • Open up Rooms. Is your house divided. living room, dining room, kitchen tear down the walls. An open floor plan  is very practical for todays family where work, play and food often merge together. So if your house is divided, be revolutionary, remodel your by home tearing down the walls.

Read more at marin-contractor.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmgtz


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Inbound Market vs Cold Calling. Which One is Better.

January 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Cold calling is how many businesses generate leads but cold calling is now much less effective. In today’s market cold calling is being replaced with Inbound or attraction marketing.

This article demonstrates how Inbound Marketing is more effective than cold calling and a better use of sales peoples skills.

Let us help you develop an Inbound Marketing Strategy for Your Business. Schedule a Call Here http://goo.gl/WWyhe

Amplify’d from blog.hubspot.com

Since 2007, the social web has dramatically shifted power from sellers to buyers. Today’s buyers resist interacting with salespeople until they are good and ready.

So, why do we take our expensive salespeople and insist they must be good at “cold-calling” when the buyer doesn’t want anything to do with this? Don’t get me wrong. A salesperson needs to be able to communicate in an effective and compelling manner over the phone. The purpose, however, of the communication should not be getting the sale today, but finding potential customers.

Cold calling is an exercise in futility and the least efficient way to find potential customers. I’m absolutely amazed at how many pundits and sales consultants recommend this as a viable approach to sustainable demand creation.

I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but who would buy a product with the following traits:
  • Has a rate of less than 2% of phone calls resulting in a meeting (Leap Job)

These are horrible statistics for people whose salaries typically cost a company more than $60,000 per year.

Stop using your salespeople to find potential customers, and start making investments that will help create demand for your sales team and your company.

Regardless of your executive title, you must realize that the rapid rise of the social web has changed buyers’ expectations. The fact is they do not want to deal with salespeople until they are 70% down the path of the buying process.

Here are several practical ways to enable your the salesforce to create demand and eliminate the need to cold call:
  1. Eliminate the lowest performers on your sales team and repurpose those resources at the early stages of the sales process to create demand for your company.

  1. Invest in inbound marketing software, such as HubSpot, and build remarkable content that attracts buyers to your website.

  1. Develop a strategic TED-like conference for your industry and feature your best and brightest staff and salespeople in a non-informercial way.

  1. Invest in tools like Visible Gains to build educational video marketing apps that are not like infomercials.
  1. Invest in making your top salespeople sought after speakers regarding industry issues. Investments might include enrolling them in the national speakers association training courses, or hiring someone to market your top salespeople as speakers.

  1. Write a series of must-have industry guides your top salespeople can give away. 
  1. Invest in crowd-sourced lists with detailed meta-data to target your marketing efforts on the phone and the web. One of my favorite list companies is NetProspex.

What other ways have you succesfully created demand for your sales team? What’s stopping you from being successful at demand creation?

Read more at blog.hubspot.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmfrn


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Why Inbound Marketing Is Important to Your Lead Generation

January 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is a great article about how brand building and direct marketing is changing. As the article says brand building now almost always requires that the results be measured. Direct marketers are learning that just writing a long sales letter doesn’t any longer guarantee a sale. There are other factors at work

Social Media like Twitter and Facebook now allows marketers to market to prospects using additional challenges, but bottomline, the best marketing comes from helping customers solve a problem.

That’s inbound or “attraction” marketing. Attract prospects when they are looking for a solution to a problem or challenge. Help them solve or understand the problem and they will move toward buying fom you.

Amplify’d from www.entrepreneur.com

That’s no longer the case. Branding promotions today look much more like direct-marketing campaigns in their drive to measure, to segment the online audience and to target the highest-converting consumers with the most relevant ads, content and campaigns.

On the other hand, classic direct marketers now recognize that the prospects they once thought they were converting with a single targeted deal or offer may actually have gone through a much longer sales consideration. In other words, that apparently brilliant e-mail campaign or dynamite web offer–the one that got such a large number of prospects to sign up for their newsletter or download their white paper or take up that trial offer–may actually have been just the lucky last step in a much longer sales conversion process.

In terms of the lead-gen tactics they used most, optimizing web content to be found in a natural or organic search–the standard blue links that come up in a basic Google or Bing search–ranked as the most favored tool. Ninety percent of respondents took the search engine optimization route to finding prospects, compared with 77 percent the previous year. E-mail came in second (83 percent, up from 74 percent). And pay-per-click ads–the text ads on the right margin of Google pages that are linked to the keywords visitors type into the search box–were used by 73 percent of marketers.

The heavy reliance on search as a lead-gen tool makes sense. As journalist John Battelle wrote years ago, Google is our “database of intentions.” If people are searching for information on your category or product, they’re ripe for a pitch from you.

But the Econsultancy stat I find most interesting is that two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said they were using social networks as a channel for generating online leads. That’s up from only 40 percent who said the same thing the previous year.

Some of these marketers might be relying on Facebook ads to put offers in front of interested parties in classic “Hey, you!” direct marketing fashion. But it’s more likely they’ve realized that lead-gen efforts have added oomph when they’re directed at consumers whose attention may already be engaged by valuable advice or other content they’ve found via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

At a minimum, it’s pretty certain these marketers are using social networks to test the appeal of content and other offers before mounting a more conventional lead-gen campaign via e-mail, snail mail or other channel. And they’re using what they learn through social networks to segment their prospects and tailor offers to specific groups, based on everything from intention to buy to lifetime value.

In other words, marketers are coming to see that effective lead gen isn’t just about firing out the most messages. It’s about getting the right message to the right prospect at the right time–which may only come after that prospect is already engaged in a relationship with your company. 

Read more at www.entrepreneur.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bm0eq


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Small Business Should Start Using Text Messaging to Reach Customers

January 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

The advantages are far more than the costs. If you start using text messaging in your business your business will

1) Have a direct way to talk to customers with their permissions

Not like other marketing media, your customers will have demonstrated their confidence in your business, they trust your business and they believe your business adds value to their lives.

A great way to build a business with recurring customers.

Let us help. Call us 267-940-7504 for a 15 day SMS marketing Trial NOW

Amplify’d from www.mobilecommercedaily.com

But there are aspects of mobile – specifically, SMS text messaging – that have inherent value to a wide audience of consumers, which makes it a natural fit for all businesses.

Consider that SMS is a direct communications technology that millions of consumers across a wide range of demographic groups use every day.

Consider also the far greater potential reach of SMS – more than 270 million mobile devices nationwide – than mobile Web, applications or mobile advertising.

Finally consider that the costs for entry are relatively low, and the resources required to manage multiple successful programs can be low, too.

So how do small and midsize businesses leverage SMS effectively on a pragmatic day-to-day basis? How do they visibly affect customer relationships and drive bottom-line value?

Customer acquisition
• Use SMS to leverage existing offline media and promotional campaigns. Get more out of your campaigns and drive foot and online traffic with a convenient direct-response component

• Give customers the opportunity to opt-in for ongoing communications such as upcoming promotions, discounts and event notices

• Given up on event marketing? Instead of trying to capture email addresses, let consumers opt-in quickly and easily with their mobile phone and deliver instant value with a text message discount that they can use today

Recurring revenue
• Remember, 160 characters can dramatically affect a consumer’s impression of a brand or product, and SMS is ideal for providing laser-precise timing for offers and updates directed to your customers in a highly personal channel

• By simply using a handful of different key words you can create very simple lists targeting distinct audiences.

Think of the difference between families at sporting events and community fundraisers, as opposed to college students at a nearby campus. Now you can target the right information and offers to the right people at the right time. News flash: college students keep different hours and spending habits than families

• SMS is great way for encouraging customers to trial new products and visit new locations. If a customer likes a certain brand of clothing or soap, for example, send an SMS letting her know when you have new products that she might be interested in

Differentiated customer experience
• In-store SMS campaigns allow for on-demand access to information and savings. Provide the customer with an instant coupon for use in-store or simply allow the customer to receive more information about a product

• Provide alerts and reminders for key events such as payment dates, account balances and status, delivery status and appointment reminders

• Stimulate engagement with polls, surveys and simple games or trivia, and reward those who participate

The cost of entry is low, and the resources to manage successful programs are budget-friendly.

Read more at www.mobilecommercedaily.com
 
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/blh5w


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