Archive for the ‘Marketing Strategies’ Category

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Why calling your leads is a BAD idea. (This is radical)

Monday, January 30th, 2012

 
 
In today’s post, which is on the topic of calling your leads, I want to briefly discuss a ‘radical’ idea. I first posted on this topic a few months back and, as someone who’s wasted a lot of precious time in the past on the wrong activities, it’s one that I’m quite passionate about.
 
But be warned: This idea goes against what a lot of other industry leaders will tell you. (You may even think I’m nuts for saying this.)
 
Ultimately, it comes down to how your prefer to work your business. I’m not saying that mine is the only way. If you enjoy calling leads, then by all means, go ahead. Personally, I don’t.
 
The reason I don’t enjoy calling leads is NOT because I don’t like talking to people. It’s because calling leads is, for the most part, a total waste of time… And if there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s wasting my time.
 
Most of the leads that you end up talking to are not at all qualifed to work with you. They are tire-kickers, not business builders.
 
No surprise there: If they were good prospects, they would be action-takers and they would have clicked on your link and gotten started already. They wouldn’t need you to call to “guide them along”, would they?
 
If your leads need to hear from a “real person” before they take action, then you’re targeting the wrong prospects, my friend.
 
The way I see it, there is only one reason why you should call your leads, and that is to become comfortable talking to them. Once you are comfortable with it, there is no reason to continue the activity.
 
At this point, instead of wasting precious time on the phone, you should be working on polishing your sales funnel and your internet presence so that your business can grow more and more automated.
 
So that your funnel, increasingly, does the sorting and filtering for you, and your leads either qualify or disqualify themselves as they go through the process. Your funnel should be doing the selling and telling – not you.
 
Does this all sound very “cold and impersonal” to you? Not like a “people business”?
 
It’s not that you stop dealing with people. Not at all. Only that you stop wasting time on all the people that are wrong for your business and instead talk only to the ones that are actually qualifed.
 
I spend a lot of time with my consultants that work with me in my primary program. In fact, I see them more as business partners than as my “downline members”, that’s how close we are. I train them, I coach them, we get together at live events and so on… We are building real relationships.
 
I hope you see the difference…the difference is like night and day.
 
Spend your time where it’s wisely spent, save yourself the headaches of trying to build a downline of grown-up babies who aren’t going to stick around long anyway, and rather invest yourself in serious people who are ready to fly and who simply need a little push from you in order to take off…
 
I think you will find that building your opportunity becomes a lot more rewarding this way – personally, as well as financially.
 
 
 
<----- SHARING IS CARING. If you think this post on the topic of calling leads could benefit others, consider re-tweeting, sharing or "liking" it. Also, as always, feel free to leave me a comment below.

 
 
 
Successfully,
 
 

 
 
More here:
 
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Automate your Business
 
 
 
 
 

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Posted in Marketing Strategies, Sponsoring & Recruiting, Time Management | 2 Comments »

Are Facebook fan pages silly?

Friday, December 30th, 2011

 
 
Isn’t it too soon for me to create a Facebook fan page?
 
Occasionally, I’ll get that question from one of my students. It’s really more of an objection. “Nobody knows who I am,” the argument goes. “I’m not a top earner yet. I’m not an expert. I’d feel silly having a fan page.”
 
Of course, what they’re really saying is that they’re afraid to step outside of their comfort zone.
 
I was in the same boat for a long time, believe me. The idea of having a fan page on Facebook before I had significant results made me cringe: Wouldn’t that just look foolish? Why would “little me” need a fan page?
 
What I now realize, is this: It is your task as a marketer to make your future customers aware that you exist. A fan page is one of the best ways to do just that. Present yourself as a leader worthy of being followed, and you will soon start to attract a following.
 
Knowing what I know now, I would have created a Facebook fan page from the get-go and not have waited as long. Because when you have a fan page, you get “likes”, and “likes” are social proof.
 
Even if your page just sits there and you’re not actually advertising it by creating Facebook ads, even if you’re collecting a “like” only once in a blue moon, you’re still slowly building a following!
 
In a few months this fan base may have built to a couple hundred. And at some point you’ll start driving traffic to your page with Facebook ads, which will help collect “likes” much more quickly.
 
When you have built up your fan base to a few hundred, it’s time to add a plug-in to your blog for social proof – like I have on my blog here, down to the right.
 
When your blog visitors see proof that all these other people like you, they’ll be more inclined to like you, too – and to opt in on your blog and become a lead in your funnel.
 
Because everyone wants to work with and buy from those that they know, like and trust!
 
At this point you may even be a successful marketer and people now know who you are! And – get this – for an industry leader, having a fan page is pretty much required!
 
But while most other emerging leaders would now just be starting from scratch, building their fan base on Facebook after they’re recognized, you, on the other hand, are ahead of the game!
 
You’ve been building your fan base for months, anticipating your breakthrough! You saw the bigger picture.
 
Focus on giving value. Speak with posture and authority. Offer help and solutions. Be entertaining, think outside-of-the-box, and be outspoken, but in a way that is attractive.
 
Remember, people see you as you see yourself. Instead of claiming that you’re “not an expert yet” and therefore should wait to create a fan page, commit to raising the bar on yourself and to working as hard as you can on becoming an expert as soon as possible.
 
This naturally becomes easier the more knowledge you gain. However, chances are you already know more about marketing than 90% of your peers out there who aren’t as committed as you are to their self education!
 
Because if you weren’t committed, you wouldn’t be reading this blog post, right?! ;)
 
 
 
<----- P.S: If you enjoyed this post, feel free to re-tweet, share or "like" it...or leave me a comment below!

 
 
 
Successfully,
 
 

 
 
More here:
 
Meet me on Facebook
 
Watch me on Youtube
 
Learn to market like a PRO
 
 
 
 
 

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Posted in Lead Generation, List Building, Marketing Strategies, Social Media Marketing | 4 Comments »

“Empower Network” w/ David Wood: why promoting it could kill your brand…

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

 
 
Okay, so over the last several weeks I’ve been watching all these people jump on the “Empower Network” bandwagon. But I haven’t really been giving it much thought, to be honest. Not until now.
 
There’s obviously heaps of new opportunities being launched all the time, and this one didn’t seem much different to me than the rest of ‘em.
 
Besides, one of the secrets to success, I have learned, is to stay focused like a laser beam on what you are doing – and that doesn’t just go for newbies but for top earners, too!
 
“Empower Network” may be good, or it may be bad. I really have no idea because I haven’t looked at it.
 
Let me also hurry to say that I don’t know David Wood personally (yet). From all I can tell, he’s a good guy. I have nothing against David Wood. It’s not him or his “Empower Network” I have an issue with.
 
No…what I found troubling was when just the other day I noticed that some aspiring industry leaders, even rising stars within my own entrepreneurial community, were promoting “Empower Network” and David Wood. That’s when I felt I had to weigh in on the topic.
 
I don’t care if you’re a marketer or an affiliate with his opportunity and you stand to earn commissions on the sales you’re generating through his system/funnel/pages. If you – as an up-and-comer who’s actively working on building your own brand – are at the same time unabashedly promoting “Empower Network” or David Wood, you’re missing the big picture.
 
Now, it’s a little different when you’re first starting out and you haven’t began building your own brand yet…when you don’t have any results of your own yet. Then you do need to “borrow” someone else’s success story while creating your own.
 
But when you’re an aspiring leader yourself?! When you’ve got your own personalized sales funnel, when you’ve got some income results, a growing downline and a flourishing internet presence, when people know who you are…
 
Yet you’re promoting “Empower Network” and sending your prospects to a landing page that portrays David Wood as a guru, and has his branding all over it? Huh??
 
David Wood is happy about that, I’m sure. You’re helping him build his online presence, his following, and his brand…
 
But what about you? What about your internet presence, your following, your brand…?
 
You’re gladly giving up the time, energy and advertising budget that should be invested in building You Inc. You’re handing it to David Wood and “Empower Network”. Or whoever or whatever else it is you are promoting.
 
If you are an up-and-coming leader in the network marketing industry, then please, please pay heed to this! You don’t need to jump on another opportunity!
 
You only need to continue building your brand…!
 
Building your own brand is the only thing that has true and lasting value – and it has value regardless of what happens on your team, in your company, the industry, or the world economy.
 
And that’s the GOOD news!
 
 
 
<----- P.S: If you enjoyed this post, feel free to re-tweet, share or "like" it...or leave me a comment below!

 
 
 
Successfully,
 
 

 
 
More here:
 
Meet me on Facebook
 
Watch me on Youtube
 
Get “Her Success Blueprint”
 
 
 
 
 

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Posted in Attraction marketing, Leadership, Marketing Strategies, Sales Psychology | 7 Comments »

How to do social media marketing RIGHT and stop embarrassing yourself.

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

 
Social networking is a lot like going to parties: People go there to have fun, socialize, talk about themselves, get to know one another and engage in silly behavior.
 
And that’s why talking about your MLM opportunity on the social networks is a BIG mistake.
 
Going on places like Twitter, Facebook and Linkdin and start telling people about your products or biz opp is no better than being at a real, physical get-together and walk around the room trying to get the other guests to buy stuff from you.
 
I guarantee you aren’t going to be the most popular person at that party.
 
The “softer” approach of inconspicuously sneaking your website link into a Facebook greeting or blog post comment, is not as subtle as it may seem like to the newbie doing it.
 
In fact, it’s about as subtle as shaking hands with someone at a party and “accidentally” dropping a business card into their coat pocket while they’re looking the other way.
 
Oh sure, they’re going to discover your card later and go like “wow, I’m so glad his business card dropped into my pocket…lucky me – let me buy some stuff from this guy right now.” And they’ll neeeever put two and two together…
 
Yeah right.
 
Now, let me ask you this:
 
What if, instead of plastering their links on people’s Facebook walls or “discreetly” sneaking them into messages and signature links, the network marketer continued to build and nurture the relationship they started with the person at the party…just somewhere else, in a different venue?
 
What if they invited their new contact to hang out at their home? “Home” as in their BLOG?
 
Your blog is your “house”, your home base. While you’ll never want to send the person you just met at a social media party to your store (replicated company page), inviting them to your home (blog) to continue socializing makes all the sense in the world.
 
Your blog is where your new contacts get to learn more about you and what you stand for. Here, they have an opportunity to connect with you at a much deeper level than they did at the party. This is where they really get to know you.
 
They see your pictures, they read your story, they relate to you…
 
The more interesting they find your blog to be and the more valuable the content posted on it, the more inclined your guests will be not just to stick around, but to come back to visit.
 
And with every visit, with every interaction, the more they will get to know you, trust you and like you. This, again, will make them more likely to buy from you. (Attraction Marketing 101: We all prefer to buy from those whom we like, trust and respect.)
 
The social networks are not a place where people go to shop. They go there to – drum roll, please – SOCIALIZE.
 
If you want to get business from social media marketing, the #1 rule is to keep social media etiquette:
 
Don’t try to sell at parties. Instead, invite your new friends to your home (blog) where you serve them lots of tasty appetizers (free training, tips & tools), which will make them hungry for more.
 
Some are going to enjoy the appetizers so much they’re going to want to order the main course (joining you in your opportunity)…
 
Yes, indeed: chances are that before long they’re going to start asking you questions about what you do. Where you learned all this great stuff…how they can get to work with you and really tap into your knowledge and resources.
 
And, of course, when THEY ASK, it’s perfectly okay to talk about it…!
 
 
I really hope this makes sense – good luck!
 
<----- PS: Feel free to re-tweet, share or "like" this post if you think it can be of help to others...and/or leave me a comment below.

 
 
 
Successfully,
 
 

 
 
More here:
 
Meet me on Facebook
 
Watch me on Youtube
 
Get “Her Success Blueprint”
 
 
 
 
 

Posted in Attraction marketing, Marketing Strategies, Sales Psychology, Social Media Marketing, Sponsoring & Recruiting | 9 Comments »

How to date your customers and market happily ever after

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

 
Are you guilty of proposing marriage to multitudes of strangers who don’t know you, and who, quite frankly, don’t give a hoot?
 
Here’s why an expensive suit and designer shoes will not automatically turn you into a Master Marketer….
 
I’m currently reading a book by Internet marketing pioneer Seth Godin – the founder of ‘Yoyodyne’ (later bought by ‘Yahoo’) and the creator of ‘Squidoo’ — and there’s an analogy I’d like to share with you from the book that’s sure to put a smile on your face (even if you’ve heard it before!)
 
The following is from chapter two of “Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, And Friends Into Customers”, and this particular segment is called, “The Two Ways To Get Married.”
 
I’m quoting:
 
“The Interruption Marketer buys an extremely expensive suit. New shoes. Fashionable accessories. Then, working with the best database and marketing strategists, selects the demographically ideal singles bar.
 
Walking into the singles bar, the Interruption Marketer marches up to the nearest person and proposes marriage.
 
If turned down, the Interruption Marketer repeats this process on every person in the bar.
 
If the Interruption Marketer comes up empty-handed after spending the entire evening proposing, it is obvious that the blame should be placed on the suit and the shoes. The tailor is fired. The strategy expert who picked the bar is fired.
 
And the Interruption Marketer tries again at a different singles bar.
 
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the way most large marketers look at the world. They hire an agency. They build fancy ads. They “research” the ideal place to run the ads.
 
They interrupt people and hope that one in a hundred will go ahead and buy something. Then, when they fail, they fire their agency.
 
The other way to get married is a lot more fun, a lot more rational, and a lot more successful.
 
It’s called dating.
 
A Permission Marketer goes on a date. If it goes well, the two of them go on another date. And then another. Until, after ten or twelve dates, both sides can really communicate with each other about their needs and desires.
 
After twenty dates they meet each other’s families.
 
Finally, after three or four months of dating, the Permission Marketer proposes marriage.
 
Permission Marketing is just like dating. It turns strangers into friends, and friends into lifetime customers. Many of the rules of dating apply, and so do many of the benefits.”
 
A couple of pages later, as he goes more into detail on what he calls “the five stages of the dating process”, Godin says (– and, again, I’m quoting):
 
“The Permission Marketer must work to reinforce the incentive, to be sure that the attention continues.(…)
 
Along with reinforcing the incentive, the fourth step is to increase the level of permission the marketer receives from the potential customer…”
 
(And here’s the part that really cracked me up:)
 
“Now I wont go into detail on what step of the dating process this corresponds to, but in marketing terms, the goal is to motivate the consumer to give more and more permission over time…”
 
Some of the “permissions” that a marketer can obtain from his customer are, according to Godin: permission to gather more data about them, permission to offer a new category of product their consideration, etc.
 
The marketer – again, according to Godin – uses the permission he has obtained to get the customer to eventually say, “I do”….turning permission into profits.
 
Okay…gut check time: Are you a Permission Marketer or an Interruption Marketer? Are you remembering to build a relationship with your customers and distributors-to-be?
 
Or are you “proposing marriage” to soon?
 
I challenge you to take a long, hard look at the way you are building your business and answer those questions for yourself. If you are struggling to get customers, this may help you understand why you are facing so much rejection.
 
 
(The “work with me” link below will give you more information on how you can work directly with me and learn to market your business more effectively.)
 
 
 
 
Successfully,
 
 

 
 
More here:
 
Meet me on Facebook
 
Watch me on Youtube
 
Get “Her Success Blueprint”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Posted in Attraction marketing, Marketing Strategies, Sales Psychology | 5 Comments »

Are you paying yourself what you’re worth?

Monday, June 20th, 2011

 
Well, are you? I’ll share with you a simple 60 second exercise you can do right now to find out.
 
By the way, this post was inspired by an email I received from a subscriber… she told me about how she works her business for 14 hours a day…and how exhausting it is.
 
Then she went on to say a few words about how she’s building her MLM and asked if I had any tips for her.
 
Well, first of all, I appreciate the email, and I have to say that my subscriber certainly sounds like a go-getter and is clearly not afraid to work for what she wants. For that I applaud her.
 
She also mentioned in her email that she’s experiencing exactly that which I talk about on my websites; in order to find just a few of the right people, one really has to sift through heaps of unqualified prospects.
 
I don’t think I’m putting words in her mouth when I conclude that she feels like she’s working too hard for too little money.
 
How about you? Do you ever feel like you are working too hard for too little pay?
 
Well, surely everyone feels that way from time to time…
 
But let’s do a quick little exercise together to find out whether this really is so. Whether you really are “underpaid”.
 
So get out your calculator. Ready? Ok – here we go:
 
Take your average monthly income for the last 90 days and divide it by the hours you put into your business on average, per month.
 
For example, say your average monthly income is $700, and you put 14 hours a day into your business for, say, 5 days a week. That’s 70 hours per week. Multiply with 4 weeks to get work hours per month, and that gives you 280.
 
Now take your average monthly income ($700) and divide it by 280 (work hours per month). That comes out to $2.50.
 
$2.50…that’s what you’re paying yourself, per hour.
 
Wow.
 
Chances are you consider your time to be worth a lot more than $2.50 an hour.
 
Whatever the hourly rate is that you got from this exercise -whether it be $2.50, more than that, or less – I’d like you to consider this amount for a moment and ask yourself whether you agree that this is, in fact, what your time is worth.
 
And if the answer is NO, then the next question you need to answer for yourself is why you are settling for so little.
 
In my case I had been led to believe that this is the way it is with any business in the beginning…that you have to work for basically nothing. And then you get it back later in the form of residuals once you’ve built a big team.
 
I later discovered that that, in fact, is a bunch of baloney.
 
You don’t have to slave for peanuts, crossing your fingers and hoping and trusting that “one day you will get it all back”.
 
You can make money now. Today. Good money. Without burning the candle at both ends:
 

  • You can leverage your work by using the internet and get your marketing message out to thousands upon thousands of interested prospects with a simple click of your mouse.

    •  

  • You can hold online webinar presentations with hundreds of people in attendance and introduce your business to all of them at once, leveraging your time and quadrupling your chances of someone responding to your offer.
     
  • You can use a marketing system to do the selling and telling for you, and to sort and qualify your leads so that you only speak to the ones that are serious and ready to get started.

    •  

  • You can have automated, yet personalized, email messages set up to follow up with your prospects for you whether you are in front of your computer or not.

    •  

  • You can put articles and videos and blog posts out on the Internet and then create a following on sites like Twitter and Facebook – and then have these same followers help you make your content go viral so that you attract even more leads to your business.

    •  

  • You can pre-condition your prospects through your sales funnel and your online presence, making them so sold on working with you that they take action and go shopping on your website without even having spoken to you first.

    •  

  • You can sell high end products that you earn several thousand dollars on on a single sale…which means that with just 2 or 3 customers you’ll make the same kind of income that you otherwise would have to need a dowline of hundreds to achieve.

    •  
    You can do all this to free up your time so that you can build your business and have a life at the same time (!)
     
    Learning all this takes some work but it’s NOT as time-consuming or difficult as it may look at first glance.
     
    In my opinion, it’s if you are not doing the above, that you’re making it hard to build your MLM – much harder than it needs to be!
     
    Which is likely the reason why you’re exhausted.
     
    Which is likely why you have to work your business every waking moment to see even just a little bit of growth.
     
    Which is why it feels like you’re fighting an up-hill battle, and for every step you move forward you take two back.
     
    So…are you ready to hear what the solution is?
     
    The solution is to learn 1.) Attraction Marketing, and 2.) to automate and leverage your business using the Internet. (The two go hand-in-hand.)
     
    This is what took me from making a couple hundred bucks a month to earning multiple five figures a month.
     
    Give me ONE good reason why it can’t do the same for you…
     
     
    (The “work with me” link below will give you more information on how you can work directly with, and be coached by, me.)
     
     
     
     
    Successfully,
     
     

     
     
    More here:
     
    Meet me on Facebook
     
    Watch me on Youtube
     
    Get “Her Success Blueprint”
     
     
     
     
     PS: Feel free to re-tweet this post and/or to leave me a comment!
     
     
     
     

    Posted in Attraction marketing, Marketing Strategies, Marketing Systems, Mindset, Sponsoring & Recruiting, Time Management | 2 Comments »

    Is it okay NOT to call your leads? (Why callling your leads may, in fact, make you LESS profitable.)

    Thursday, June 16th, 2011

     
    I just got off a training call conducted by a respected, successful industry leader, and was surprised to learn that he in fact calls all his leads.
     
    He joked, “You better call all your leads or you can be sure they will opt in to my list, and I will call them…and sign them up!”
     
    That remark really got me thinking.
     
    That you’ll generally see a higher conversion rate if you connect with your prospects on the phone as opposed to leaving the whole follow up to your auto responders (automated emails) can hardly be disputed.
     
    Some people just won’t sign up for anything unless they get to speak to a “real person” first.
     
    But is calling your leads always what’s most profitable?
     
    Now before you accuse me of speaking with a forked tongue, hear me out:
     
    I believe that every network marketer needs to earn the right NOT to call their leads. Until you get to the point where you’re producing 50 leads a day, or $10 000 a month in revenue, you need to call your leads.
     
    Otherwise you’re leaving serious money on the table. Otherwise you aren’t maximizing your chances of seeing those leads convert to sales. (Not to forget, otherwise a certain industry leader will call your leads!)
     
    At that stage in your business it’s not really an option: You gotta get your elbows greased. And you gotta learn to become comfortable talking to people.
     
    But if you’re of the opinion that a person should always call their leads no matter what (as the leader insisted on his training) – even when they’ve established themselves in the industry and built a big downline – then you’re basically saying, “don’t scale your business”, “limit your income”.
     
    Because calling leads and talking to prospects takes a heck of a lot of time.
     
    And even if you work every waking hour of the day, your day still only has 24 hours.
     
    What I’m saying is that if your business is set up so that in order to sign distributors and move product, you have to call every single person who leaves their name and phone number on your web site, then you can’t produce an unlimited amount of leads.
     
    You can only generate as many leads as you can work it into your schedule to call.
     
    And even with cool software like Phone Burner, which helps you with your dials, it’s still you that’s got to engage in the conversation once that prospect picks up the phone. And you are still only one person.
     
    And you still have only 24 hours in your day.
     
    Which means that when you’ve generated a certain number of leads, you’ll have to stop. Because that’s all you can handle.
     
    Now since the number of sales a person will see is in direct proportion to how many leads they produce, limiting your lead flow means limiting your profits.
     
    So what’s the solution, then?
     
    You need to find a way to handle massive amounts of traffic, leads and prospects. One way to do this (the only way I know of) is to use an online marketing system.
     
    A system that consists of landing pages, sales pages and auto responder messages.
     
    A system that does the telling and selling, sorting and filtering for you, so that you don’t have to.
     
    So that you only need to spend time talking to the individuals who have gone through a qualification process online and in essence proven that they are serious.
     
    And the beauty of an online marketing system is that it works for you 24/7. Because the Internet, of course, never sleeps.
     
    Which means you won’t have to limit your lead flow.
     
    There are of course many, many network marketers who have built successful businesses without using a marketing system. Who are doing it the traditional way, making the phone calls and doing the one-on-one meetings.
     
    I’m not saying that they’re wrong. There are many ways to build a network marketing business. I’m not saying that mine is the only right way.
     
    I’m sure you can reach five-figures a month without using a system…and if $10K/month is all you’re after, and you also don’t mind calling leads, then great!
     
    But if you want to reach a multiple five-figure, even six-figure, monthly income and at the same time have a life (i.e. you are not chained to the phone)…the answer is to automate your business as much as possible.
     
    Ultimately it’s a matter of how you prefer to work your business, and of the size of your income goals.
     
    I just thought it was a bit ironic when on his training call, the leader claimed you are leaving money on the table if you aren’t calling your leads:
     
    It made me wonder if perhaps HE wasn’t the one leaving money on the table by having to limit his lead flow, and therefore also his profits.
     
     
     
     
    Successfully,
     
     

     
     
    More here:
     
    Meet me on Facebook
     
    Watch me on Youtube
     
    Get “Her Success Blueprint”
     
     
     
     
     PS: Agree? Disagree? Feel free to re-tweet this post and/or to leave me a comment below!
     
     
     
     

    Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing Strategies, Marketing Systems, Sponsoring & Recruiting, Time Management | 3 Comments »

    Prioritizing your priorities (practical advice for overwhelmed marketers)

    Thursday, March 31st, 2011

     
    As we all know, life can be pretty hectic sometimes: we simply have too much to do and not enough hours in our day.
     
    Building an online business is no different:
     
    Driving traffic, producing content, talking to prospects, conducting business plan calls with new members, testing, tweaking, polishing, updating…it all needs to be done.
     
    And it seems everything needs to be done now. Everything is important.
     
    So what’s a poor marketer to do in those situations?
     
    When your to-do list is so long you don’t even know where to begin? When everything seems to be a priority?
     
    Answer: You prioritize your priorities.
     
    Huh…?
     
    You take a step back and look at where the money is really made. You look at the front, middle and back end of your funnel and ask yourself where you have the most to lose and the most to gain.
     
    And that’s where you go to work. That’s what you focus on.
     
    Say I’ve got the following on my to-do list:
     
    1. My Google campaigns need to be optimized: I need to split test ads, and I need to scale everything, to build out what’s working.
     
    2. I also need to work on my auto responders; to add more messages to my existing list of messages.
     
    3. Then I’ve got to do a training for my brand new members, presenting them with upgrade options; helping them get positioned to maximize the comp plan.
     
    4. I also need to coach my new members on how to get set up to start marketing so that they can begin to make money.
     
    5. I also need to update my blog…it’s looong overdue.
     
    6. It’s also high time I published some more articles and videos – it’s all part of my long-term strategy of building a strong, dynamic internet presence.
     
    7. And then there’s that banner ad course that’s been sitting there for months gathering dust on my shelf, which I’m just dying to dig into…
     
    I’ve got all this (and more) on my to-do-list, and I know there is simply no way I’ll be able to carry out every single one of these tasks in the limited time that I have available.
     
    So now what?
     
    Well, my natural inclination would be to just “go with the flow” – go with whatever seems the most fun and exciting to me at the time (here, the banner ad course would be a certain winner).
     
    The tedious stuff I would leave for later. Or for “never”…
     
    The problem is that that which is the most fun and exciting isn’t necessarily what’s the most profitable. In fact, more often that not, it’s not.
     
    In contrast to the newbie, what the seasoned marketer does – because he/she has developed self-discipline and discernment – is to look at the big picture. Not just at the parts but at the whole.
     
    The expert marketer always plans and works with the END in mind.
     
    He/she focuses their time not just on profit producing activities but – at those times when they simply have too much on their plate – they focus on the most profit producing of the profit producing activities.
     
    And they don’t just focus – they hyper focus.
     
    They know that although they might save themselves a good chunk of money by running split tests of their landing pages now rather than later, if this leaves them with insufficient time to follow up with their newest, most excited, most sales ready prospects and members, they would indeed tripping over dollars to make pennies.
     
    The further into your funnel your prospects move, the more committed they become. And the more committed they become, the more money there’s in it for you:
     
    An opt in page leads to a free ebook or report, which leads to an inexpensive start up product, which again leads to one or more high ticket back end products…
     
    There’s a reason why the sales funnel is structured that way. There’s a reason why we don’t lead with $5000 product offers!
     
    It’s at the back end of the funnel – after the advertising dollars have been spent and the hours put in – that you stand to gain, or lose, the most.
     
    Looking at our to-do list above, this would clearly be points 3 and 4…this is where you’d be making the bulk of your ROI.
     
    Prioritizing your priorities…
     
    It comes with experience.
     
    And what is so great is that once you’ve mastered this discipline, then you can be okay with the fact that even if all the items on your list aren’t getting checked off as quickly as you would like them to, you are still moving forward.
     
    And, most importantly, you are profitable.

     
     
     

    Successfully,
     
     

     
     
    More here:
     
    Meet me on Facebook 
    Watch me on Youtube 
    Get “Her Success Blueprint”
     
     
     
     
     PS: If you enjoyed this post, feel free to re-tweet it and/or to leave me a comment below!
     
     
     
     

    Posted in Marketing Strategies, Time Management | No Comments »

    What Are The Best Marketing Strategies And How Many Should You Focus On, Starting Out?

    Monday, March 14th, 2011

     
     
     
     
     

     
     
     
     

     
     
     

    Successfully,
     
     

     
     
    More here:
     
    Meet me on Facebook 
    Watch me on Youtube 
    Get “Her Success Blueprint”
     
     
     
     
     PS: If you enjoyed this post, feel free to re-tweet it and/or to leave me a comment below!
     
     
     
     

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    Posted in Marketing Strategies, Time Management, Videos | 4 Comments »

    Marketing strategies vs. marketing budgets…some helpful pointers

    Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

     
    I recently conducted a Q&A call for PRO, the online community of entrepreneurs that I belong to, and one of the new members asked if I could post something on my blog about marketing budgets vs. strategies.
     
    So here we go – here are my recommendations:
     
     
    $500 – $1000+ /month: Primary strategy for traffic generation is direct response: Google or Bing, even Twitter or Youtube Pay-per-click (not to be confused with social networking on these same platforms). Set out to become a master at one direct response strategy.
     
    Combine this with content marketing (articles, blog posts, press releases): Content marketing will help build trust and credibility for you with your prospects, and thus, help turn traffic and leads into sales and profits.
     
    Depending on how much time you are going to be able to invest into your business and where your strengths are, I would consider outsourcing some if not all of your content marketing.
     
    This doesn’t have to be expensive by the way – use Odesk.com, Guru.com or the Warrior Forum. These all have some very reasonable outsourcing options.
     
     
    $100 – $500 /month: There are a couple of different schools of thought on what is the best way to spend a smaller startup budget… One has it you should always invest it in direct response – for two reasons:
     
    1. You learn best in the trenches – even if you don’t generate any profits at first, your skill set will improve…and
     
    2. It is very possible that you’ll be able to generate some traffic even with a limited marketing budget, get a sale or two, and now, suddenly you are in profit and have money you can reinvest into your marketing…and then you just continue to build this way…
     
    The other school of thought says that if you don’t have a decent marketing budget to spend on pay per click, it’s better to hold off, or you’ll simply find yourself starting something that you won’t be able to keep up if your limited marketing budget doesn’t produce any sales for you…
     
    Because when that money is gone, it’s gone.
     
    Better to invest your limited marketing funds into content marketing, they say: get as many keyword targeted articles and press releases outsourced and published as you possible can. Do a bunch of videos.
     
    When you run out of money, that content will still remain on the world wide web, help build your online presence and likely also produce traffic for you over time.
     
    (My personal note: The downside is that content marketing is nothing like direct response when it comes to producing massive amounts of traffic quickly and consistently. Whereas direct response traffic flows, content traffic comes in sprinkles and trickles.)
     
     
    $0-$100 / month: If you are on a shoestring budget, you are going to have to focus on “free” content marketing for a while.
     
    (I put “free” in quotation marks because there really isn’t such a thing as “free traffic”: What you lack in andvertising funds, you will have to make up for in time…and seriously, what is more valuable than your time?)
     
    As soon as you have generated some profits through these “free” methods, you’ll want to put what you earned right back into your marketing budget.
     
    I tell my new consultants that for the first 90-180 days they should be prepared to put 100% of what they make right back into their business…yes, on top of their existing marketing budget.
     
    And that’s regardless of whether they are starting out with free or paid strategies.
     
    You see, one of the worst mistakes you can make as a new marketer, is to lose momentum. It’s always bad to lose momentum but it’s especially bad in the beginning.
     
    You don’t want to get started and then have to stop because you didn’t plan ahead properly and ran out of marketing funds – that’s a mistake a lot of new marketers make.
     
    I strongly recommend that you plan your advertising budget for the next six months.
     
    Ask yourself, “what can I commit to spending per month over the next six months…money that I have coming in from other sources, not profits from my business (since I don’t know how quickly these will be coming in) but other funding. Funding I can rely on 100% for my marketing, and which will go toward building my business no matter what…?”
     
    It’s no different than paying your mortgage or your car insurance every month. The money is there because it has to be. It’s in your budget; it’s a necessity.
     
    That’s how you want to look at the funding of your business, too. Even if the amount you can spend in the beginning is very small.
     
    Hope this helps!
     
     
     
    Successfully,
     
     

     
     
    More here:
     
    Meet me on Facebook 
    Watch me on Youtube 
    Get “Her Success Blueprint”
     
     
     
     
     PS: If you enjoyed this post, feel free to re-tweet it and/or to leave me a comment below!
     
     
     
     

    Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing Strategies | No Comments »

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