The most careless approach to building your business is to decide what your marketplace really wants or needs without first talking to them about it. You owe it both to them and to yourself, because what you think is important to your prospects and customers may in fact be totally unimportant. What you could ignore may actually be all-important.
Win more customers by asking the right questions
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The 3 New Pillars of Marketing
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in Decision Acceleration, Featured Articles, Lead Conversion, Lead Generation, Marketing Foundations, Mobile marketing, Online marketing, Outperform Competition, Productivity, Profitability, Social Media, Technology, Video Blogs
The three new pillars of marketing are some of the key components needed to build an effective online presence. You’ll learn how to benefit from today’s new technologies that in many cases have reduced the effectiveness of traditional marketing methods. In many cases your competition still don’t have the answers, or an effective online presence. If you “get” it and they don’t, it represents a massive opportunity for you […]
Million Dollar Copywriting Tips
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in Copywriting, Featured Articles, Lead Conversion, Lead Generation, Marketing Foundations, Online marketing, Profitability, Psychology, Strategy Power Boosters, Video Blogs
These million dollar copywriting tips are so simple and easily applied, yet can dramatically improve your marketing and advertising effectiveness. Not one in a hundred people gets this right. But grasp these simple ideas and it can dramatically improve your marketing and advertising effectiveness. It can also give you a emphatic edge over most of your competition […]
What Picasso can teach you about pricing
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This post is about charging what you’re worth, with a great lesson on pricing from the Late Pablo Picasso. Too many products or services are seen as being very similar to others and as a consequience are treated as commodities. When that happens your prospects and customers will shop around and whoever charges the best price for that product or service tends to win the business. But if you can set your product or service apart from all the others out there, you can charge what your product or service is really worth […]
How to write emails that give you no choice but to read on
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America’s No.1 sales authority Jeffrey Gitomer recently received an email from me. He says the email gave him no choice but to read on. His interest had to do with the subject line, the headline, the design of the content, and the copy. He liked the email so much that he wrote a widely syndicated article spelling out the 11 factors that compelled him to respond. He kindly allowed me to reproduce the article here, and he makes some great points as he analyses what made the email work […]
Marketing your business in our age of mass empowerment
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in Featured Articles, Lead Generation, Marketing Foundations, Mobile marketing, Online marketing, Social Media, Technology
This is a large post, but also an important one if you haven’t fully embraced or adapted your marketing approach to today’s vastly changed business landscape. For 150 years mass marketing was about the ONLY economical way to get your message out there. But today we’re living in a new age of mass empowerment fuelled by commercial clutter, the rise of internet, sophisticated online search, social media, broadband, wi-fi and smartphones. It spells the end of mass marketing as we’ve known it for most businesses […]
Why bookstores have coffee shops and what that means for your website
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Can you imagine trying to persuade Lady Gaga of anything? She is, after all, a clearly determined and opinionated individual. You would be facing up to a fairly formidable personality – you don’t get to be an international superstar by being quiet and open to persuasion. Maybe the reason that Lady Gaga is successful is she prefers tea to coffee. Lady Gaga is one of several […]
The Power of Persuasion
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The ability to influence and persuade others is a critical skill if you’re in business. Some people seem to have an inborn ability to influence others. Those lucky few, who appear able to very skilfully and elegantly engage others are often unable to explain how they have come to possess such an important and essential business skill. But if we consider influence as a science, something else happens: something much more empowering and efficient.
The Influencing Skills of Barack Obama
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The seven critical skills that make the US president so influential. Barack Obama is undoubtedly one of the greatest influencers of modern times. His accomplishment in going from a relative unknown to the most talked about person on the planet in less than 18 months provides a lot of valuable lessons to anyone marketing a product, service or person
Why start-up culture matters
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Much of the job growth in today’s economy is spurred by start-ups. Entrepreneurial ventures often have the energy, talent, and passion necessary to run with creative new ventures. While a good idea and a dedicated CEO are essential to start-up success, corporate culture—the tone and atmosphere of the overall organisation and the relationship between its employees—is also essential. Many fresh-faced entrepreneurs overlook corporate culture, figuring it will work itself out once things get up and running. But experts agree that being intentional about culture is one of the best ways to ensure success.
A Sister’s Moving Eulogy for Steve Jobs
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In this post I want to share with you the most touching of the many tributes I’ve read following Steve Jobs’ sad passing. It was a eulogy written and delivered by his biological sister, Mona Simpson, during his memorial service on October 16, 2011 at the Memorial Church of Stanford University. What can I say about this amazing eulogy? It was one of the most powerful, touching, intimate and heartbreaking pieces I’ve ever read. It is a must-read piece that almost ranks right up there with Steve’s own famous Stanford address […]
Is your brain damaging your business?
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Why do so many senior people struggle to delegate key tasks even when they know they are limiting growth by being the bottleneck in their business? The latest scientific evidence shows that it’s not only down to skill; it’s their brain getting in the way. There is always a lot more to be done in a day than you can achieve by yourself, and the key to success is knowing what to let go of. But letting go creates uncertainty, and your brain hates uncertainty almost more than anything else.
11 easy steps to a best-selling podcast on iTunes
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Every day, your customers, prospects, and employees are inundated with information from e-mail, voicemails, spam and memos. So how do you get your important messages across to them in a way that doesn’t get lost in all of that noise? The answer is podcasts. Podcasts are the new way of distributing audio content. They are audio or video recordings that your prospects and customers can subscribe to, receive, download, listen to, or watch using a computer, iPod, M3 player, iPhone, iPad or smartphone […]
From temp to business owner … my tribute to an amazing lady
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in Other Topics
Unusually for me, this post is not about marketing strategies. Instead I want to tell you about an amazing and inspiring person who has touched my life and left an indelible impression. Her name was Beryl Miller. She was someone we can all learn from. She was my PA in my first two businesses, and a short while ago, sadly, she lost an 18 month battle with cancer. Beryl was a remarkable person. Although she can’t be with us any more, I hope her example will inspire you […]
The Perplexing Nature of Generation Y
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If you’re in business you need to understand the nature of the people born between the early 1980’s and the mid 1990’s, who now make up approximately 20 per cent of the workforce and are vital to our economic future. This fascinating article on Generation Y was written by Dr Charles Woodruffe of business psychology consultancy Human Assets Ltd
What the Pecha Kucha?
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Pecha Kucha is a presentation method, developed in Japan, that is reputed to improve audience attention. It is a method of presenting that ensures both content and length are kept short and to the point, hence the claim of ending the nightmare we’ve all experienced – death by PowerPoint.
An Unusual But Highly Effective Marketing Technique
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The story that follows shows you what phenomenal results you can achieve once you start to truly appreciate yourself and/or your products and services. It comes from Bernadette Doyle, Ireland’s leading marketing maven. I liked it so much that I asked her permission to reproduce it here in its entirety for you to read, and
Innovation is the key
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in Other Topics
The time to innovate is now. It is widely understood that the current global economic downturn is one of the most severe of the past 100 years, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. While some believe that people (and the media) talked the downturn into existence, the realities must still be acknowledged. Major banks and
The most prolific product ever seen
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In the last few years we’ve experienced a world of rapid change brought about by the internet, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. The internet has fundamentally changed what we do on a day to day basis, from the way we communicate and do business, to politics, entertainment, culture, health care and just about everything
Please everyone and kiss your ass goodbye
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Here’s a fabulous story which illustrates the point that you can’t please everyone. It is adapted from Aesops’ fable “The Old Man, the Boy, and the Donkey.” I often quote it (thank you Michael Port) to illustrate the importance of focusing eveything you say and do only on the niche you’re trying to serve, and
