Knowing how to price your product or service appropriately can be the most difficult – and critical – aspect of your business.
If you charge too much, no one will buy; if you charge to little, you’ll go broke. And if you compete solely based on price, you’ll only attract “bargain shoppers”.
This is one of the topics that Frank Thomas and I addressed back in December on an episode of the Small Business Tips Show. I shared the video with you recently, but I continue to get many questions and comments about this topic, so thought I would share the podcast with you, which can be a bit more convenient than watching the video.
So listen in as we reveal the secrets, strategies and techniques to help position your product or service competitively in the marketplace.
Listen to our podcast here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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Those of you who have been following my articles and posts are very well aware of my comments about utilizing video to help market your business.
It’s true that a picture says 1000 words, and video has eclipsed many other forms of communication as the preferred option. And although there are various options for streaming your video, YouTube remains the overall champion.
We all know that YouTube is owned by Google. And we also all know that Google is the number one search engine. YouTube, as an extension of Google, enhances your search results even more.
But, beyond the SEO advantages, YouTube has been around long enough that it is the most popular choice.
Who among us hasn’t Googled YouTube to discover various “how to” videos? I nearly threw out a couple of lamps because the switches weren’t working; a quick search and a three minute video solved that issue. I quickly learned how to replace the switch in the lamps, and now the lamps are working just like new.
So, despite the fact that I had to get used to being in front of a camera and get over my reluctance to be on video, I embraced the concept of producing videos to provide marketing strategies and tips, albeit in an abbreviated version, to all of you.
Therefore, it is no surprise that I nearly had a heart attack little over a month ago when I visited my YouTube channel only to read the dreaded words “channel has no content”!
After regaining my breath, I contacted my techie guy who went into the back end of my channel. He discovered that YouTube had done some updates and had created a new way for channels to display their content. He helped me to restructure the design and layout of the channel, and everything was quickly back to “business as usual”.
The new design features offered by YouTube, in my opinion, are brilliant. You can now structure the video navigation to make it easier for your visitors, and it can be set up so your most recent video shows in the current window. It also allows a special feature for new visitors to the channel, allowing for an introductory or a welcome video.
And that is what I have provided for today’s post: a new video welcoming new visitors to my channel. If you have been on the channel in the past, please check it out anyway, as I explain a little bit about why it is that we are doing these videos and what you can expect to get from. And, if you haven’t already subscribed to our channel, please do so to ensure that you don’t miss any of our new videos.
Communication is at the core of everything we do in life.
And writing is at the heart of all communication.
From very early times, humans have striven to tell stories in a way that is preserved for future generations. From cavemen drawing images on walls, to hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone, to manuscripts and books, and now to abbreviated conversations through the technology of texts, we have told our stories.
Now, I’ll admit that I’m a bit old-school. I’m a bit of a stickler for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I prefer telephone conversations rather than text messages, especially for any conversations of length. And, if I’m looking to memorialize something, I am more likely to rely on email than on a text message.
But I also am a realist.
I recognize that technology has changed the substance of communication, if not the inherent value of it. Probably half of our current population has grown up in a world that doesn’t know what it was like before the age of computers. Although most of the younger generation can type faster than I can, none of them grew up with the experience of learning the keyboard on a manual typewriter. These are the folks who can text nearly as fast as they speak. Which is probably why I still prefer telephone conversation.
Typos and Auto Correct are the bane of my existence!
In so many ways, technology has improved our ability not only to communicate, but to communicate with people at great distances from us. And this communication happens in an instant.
So, how are you communicating with prospects and clients?
The art of writing is not lost. If you are not already providing a newsletter – or at least regular email updates – to your clients and prospects, I urge you to consider starting this immediately. Yes, in a world of messages of 140 characters or less, people still like to engage at a deeper level.
Don’t stop doing your short posts on social media, and don’t stop making and uploading videos and podcasts. But don’t forget the art of writing. There is something permanent about the written word; something that strikes to the core of all of us.
And although I admitted being a stickler for proper spelling, etc., language continues to evolve. Many words that were abbreviated for the purposes of text messaging have now become normal in many areas of our language. Who hasn’t included “LOL” in something that they have written?
So my final thoughts for this article are to encourage you to keep writing, in whatever form makes you comfortable. Just keep doing it! And 100 years from now, people will have an indication of how we communicated, just as we look back in history at others.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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Many words, depending on their pronunciation, have different meanings. The word “content” in the title of today’s article is a great example of this.
To be content is to be satisfied, or happy with the current state of things. And content is also the substance of something, such as a book, website, etc.
So, back to my question: are you content with your content?
We all know that to attract prospects and clients, we have to engage them. One of the best ways to engage them is through content. But not just any content. You have to provide something of value to them, something that stirs emotion and reaction and stimulates their desire to know more.
Many business owners, although great at delivering their product or service, don’t really understand the value of providing good content on a consistent basis. Keeping your clients and prospects interested is the key to keeping them engaged.
Now, I understand that as a small business owner you may not see the correlation between the service or product that you sell and simply writing about it on your website or blog. But just think about this for a minute; if you can provide insights and help educate your client or prospect, what would you expect the result to be?
Consider your own behavior as well. If you are researching something online, do you simply find a provider and run out and purchase from them, or you check out a few different sites and interact more with those sites that are providing a more personalized experience?
We all like to do business with people we like, know, and trust. In our current world of electronic communication, it can be difficult to establish and build that relationship. Therefore, it helps your prospects and your clients understand and trust you and your business by learning about you through your content.
There are many ways that you can provide content as well. Consider sending an online newsletter to folks who subscribe to it on your website. Think about writing articles about topics that are pertinent to your business and posting them on a regular and consistent basis to your website. Determine which social media platforms your clients and prospects use, and post updates and interact with them regularly there. If you are camera shy, get over it and make a few short “how-to” videos, explaining certain processes on a YouTube channel that you set up and link to your website.
These are just a few examples of simple ways to interact and build trust with your clients and prospects. If this is an area that you aren’t comfortable with, consider outsourcing this service. You will find that you will gain a huge advantage from that small investment.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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Welcome! Today we are posting our introductory video for our new series for entrepreneurs.
As you know, I am a regular co-host on the Small Business Tips Show with Frank Thomas. We have developed a number of podcasts and webinars designed to help small business owners build a successful business. Out of this process, we discovered that many of you were looking for something that would help identify and walk through the steps required to build, maintain, and grow your business. Our answer was to create the Entrepreneur Series, and today we start with the ‘Jumpstart” video.
In this first video, we do a high level overview of the issues we will be presenting in the series. We discuss how roadblocks jump into the way, and how to overcome them. In our future videos, we drill down and dissect each component, so enjoy this video today, and be sure to check back as we publish the rest of the series.
To those of you in the financial services business, welcome to our “How To…” series!
This series will provide some marketing tips and strategies for different business sectors. Today, we start this series by giving some ideas to the financial services industry. If you work in any of the areas of this industry, you will want to watch it; if you work in another niche, you will still benefit.
Hi, Nancy Boisvert of Agapi Marketing & Consulting here and I wanted to talk to all of you professionals out there in the financial services industry today.
I know there are some you who are independents, but the larger portion of you do work under the umbrella of a larger corporation, and I do know that many times you folks tend to defer your marketing to the larger corporation. And that’s fine if that’s working for you. But I guess my question to you is, what is setting you apart from all the others? That comes down to branding. So what I’m going to discuss with you today is ways to set yourself apart from your competition.
I wanted to address just a handful of ideas, give you some tips and some ideas that perhaps you can implement.
Now, one of the things that we all know is that people like to do business with people that they like, know and trust. So, assuming that you’re getting a large portion of your prospects from a pool out there, and not necessarily from referral business, how do you get people to like, know and trust you?
Well, that boils down to, first of all, being seen as an expert in your field. And how do you do that? Well, there’s a handful of ways that you can look at doing that.
One of the things that you can do is set up your own YouTube channel. I’m doing this video here in my home office just to show you that you don’t need to be fancy, you don’t need a lot of expensive equipment, and you don’t need a studio to do it. What you need to do is shut your door, turn off your phones, get in front of your Webcam and share a little bit of your expertise and your knowledge with the people who are your target audience. So you can do that.
Another thing you can do is write a book. Now, don’t get intimidated; I’m not talking about writing “War and Peace”. I’m talking about putting together a 30 to 45-page book that you can sell on Amazon – or just give it away to your clients and prospects. But what I am suggesting is that if you do you have it published, that also helps enhance your reputation as an expert. If you don’t have time to do that, consider ghostwriter.
Another thing that you can do is send out newsletters on a monthly basis. Now, I know you’re governing company probably does have some sort of newsletter, some sort of monthly communication that they can provide, but again loses all that personal touch. If I know that you’re just one of 400 agents under the umbrella of specific Corporation, what is it that makes me want to stay with you or do business with you, instead of somebody down the road who has the same shingle? So, set yourself apart from your competitors.
Do “lunch and learns”. Bring in a handful of people once a month. Invite a dozen different people, bring in a guest speaker and present something and give people something that they’re going to remember. They’re going to have a lunch, they’re going to get some information, they’ll have some one-on-one time; a really, really great way to get people to build that trust factor with you.
So that’s just a handful of things that you can do.
What I’d like you to do is connect to my website. I’ve got a link here on this video. You can connect connector there. I’ve got a transcript of this video on there in case you wanted to print it off or some of the ideas. But what I’d really like you do is give me a call or drop me an email. No obligation. Let’s just explore what it is that you’re doing and let’s see if there’s some way that I can help you build your business and become more popular to your target audience out there.
So I’ll leave you with that. Thank you very much for watching the video and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Bye for now.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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So you don’t want to use video for your marketing?
Well okay, let’s outline the justifications for not using video:
1. People will criticize how I look
2. People will criticize what I say
3. I hate the camera!
4. No one will watch my videos
5. It’s too expensive
Do any of those points look familiar to you?
I gotta tell you straight up – all of those points played a part in my hesitation to create video. In fact, prior to the release of my first video series, I actually did a blog post about the camera shy guide to video marketing warning people about how uncomfortable I was in front of the camera.
Let’s examine these obstacles point by point.
The first point is that people will criticize how you look. You think they’ll notice the bags under your eyes, or that you don’t have that perfect smile, or that you’re having a bad hair day. Reality check: no one on this planet is perfect or without their flaws. Those icons of perfection that are paraded in front of us on TV and in print have the help of professional hairstylists and makeup artists, to say nothing of the airbrushing techniques that are used to remove imperfections. If people watching your videos are more concerned with how you look rather than what it is you are saying, then it is unlikely that those people are your audience anyway.
Which takes us to point two; people will criticize what you say. Yes, there’s always the chance that some of the people tuning into your videos will criticize what you have to say. But does that really matter? If you are imparting your knowledge, in your own unique way, you will attract the people who are your target audience. There are always people with more knowledge, or different experiences, or different ways of delivering the same information. But don’t lose sight that you, too, have a level of experience and expertise that can help others. And those are the people you will reach!
Let’s talk about point number three. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t come across that many people in my life who are completely comfortable in front of the camera. But as I learned, you will get more comfortable with it, the more you do it. I know when I first started doing video (as you can see for yourself by watching my first series), I was terribly uncomfortable presenting to the camera. I wasn’t sure where to look, I read from my notes, and I just generally came off as completely stilted. However, I persevered and am now able to focus on the information that I am imparting, rather than how people might perceive me. I am now able to look at that Webcam and not see it as a camera, but rather, I see the people who I am trying to speak to.
Item number four is the belief that no one will watch your videos. My first response is – so what? Now, I don’t mean to be quite so glib. Of course you are producing these videos to provide information and to reach a specific audience. But it is a very, very rare instance (to say nothing of the expense involved) that someone will do one video and it will become viral. You have to exercise patience and persistence. Continue to make your videos, to post them, and to share them via your social media channels, emails, blogs, or whatever other mediums you might employ. You will gain an audience, you will share your expertise, and you will significantly boost your rankings in search engines.
The final point is that it is too expensive to create video. I would agree that in certain circumstances and for certain businesses, it makes sense to hire a professional videographer or a studio to produce a video. But to share nuggets of your wisdom, your experiences, and to help others you don’t need a fancy studio. An inexpensive Webcam – even your smart phone camera – is really all you need to shoot a video. If you want, you can create an inexpensive green screen yourself and edit your background using a video editing software program which, again, does not have to be expensive. Or, create more casual videos in your office and post them on YouTube. The most important thing is to make sure that you have good lighting, good sound and a good message.
As you can see, there really is no reason not to use video for your marketing. It is the most engaging form of social sharing and for imparting knowledge, and, believe it or not, it can even be fun!
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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We all know the recipe for success with your business.
You have to have a product or a service that people want, you have to have it priced appropriately, and you have to attract customers.
It goes without saying that you can have the absolute best product or service in the world, but without clients it simply doesn’t matter. Remember that eternal question? You know; the one that says “if a tree falls in the forest and is no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?”
Well, the same applies to your business.
In many cases, business owners focus on price. They or their team will research their competition and react to the cost of the service and product from their competitor to their end-user. There are many, many problems with competing for clients solely on price.
First of all, you probably don’t know your competitors cost of sales. If they are a privately held company, you have no way of knowing what their financial picture truly is. Are they operating a loss? Are they heavily in debt? Perhaps are offering a lower price but at the detriment to the long-term future of the company.
Another problem with competing solely on price is that you don’t know what your competitor is offering behind the scenes. Do they have any guarantees? What kind of support do they provide to the customer? And what, if anything, is included in the purchase price?
One of the biggest dangers of competing solely on price is that you erode the value of your product or service. If you price your product or service to low, it is perceived as having little to no value. And if you price your product extremely high and then offer discount after discount, it raises the question of your company’s integrity if you can afford to sell the product for so much less than your original price.
In order to be competitive in your niche, you have to provide value to your clients. And, of course, you have to ensure that your prospects know about the value that you provide.
Which of course, all comes back to marketing.
It is well known and well documented that people are willing to pay more for a service or product as long as they believe that they are receiving value for their investment. You don’t even have to have the best product or service, with all the bells and whistles. Customers are looking to do business with companies and with people that they can trust.
By making sure that your clients feel comfortable doing business with you, and that they believe that you will stand behind your product or service, you will stand head and shoulders above your competitors. Simply putting yourself in your clients’ shoes will go a long way to being authentic with your clients and prospects.
But the flip side of this is that people have to know how you treat your clients and prospects. They have to feel engaged and connected with you, your corporate vision, and your business morals and ethics. And this is where marketing comes in.
How do you communicate these critical components to your clients and prospects? Do you have a proper marketing strategy and structure in place? Do you follow through with your marketing plan? Do you obtain testimonials from satisfied customers, demonstrating that you can be trusted to do what you say you will do?
It doesn’t matter if economic times are tough or if you are flying high; the concepts and the principles remain the same continue to market your products and services and be sure to demonstrate your integrity and you will weather any storm.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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Yesterday, while I was contemplating what I would write about for today’s post, I had a telephone call from an associate who was contacting me to pass on a referral. While discussing what the referral was looking for, the conversation unfolded to a general discussion about how a startup gets business. My associate stated, “they just need to hire a sales person and have them pound pavement.”
So now I’ll tell you why that response is a marketing fail.
Don’t get me wrong! A salesperson can be one of the most valuable assets a company has. But simply having a salesperson on your team is not the answer to effective marketing.
Let’s set the scenario.
You’ve just started your brand new business. You’ve opened shop, got your phones in place, and have hired your salesperson. And now, understandably, you expect the salesperson to generate sales for your business. But have you equipped your salesperson with the tools achieve success?
Whether you are starting a new business or running an established business, you have to make sure that you have a detailed roadmap if you expect to arrive at your destination. Simply put, if you expect to get from A to B, you have to consider all of the potholes and signposts along the way.
There seems to be some resistance to the requirement of a business plan from some people these days. Some of the “newer thinking” believes that you only need a written business plan if you are looking for financial support or investment. I would argue that, whether we apply the formal term of “plan” or not, we actually make a plan for everything we do in life.
For example, when you’re going to the grocery store, more often than not you have a list of items that you need – or at least an idea of why you are there. Or… you’re going to take a vacation. Most people don’t just spin the wheel and jump on a plane to the destination that showed up without planning for it.
If these types of every day events require a plan, why should something as important as running your business not need a plan?
So, back to our salesman.
When you created your business plan, presumably you ensured that you have gone through all of the steps, including market research. A large part of any business plan talks to the issue of who you will sell your products or services to, and how this will be achieved. This is the stepping stone for the fleshing out of a more detailed, longer-term marketing strategy.
The reason why so many people claim that “marketing doesn’t work” or “marketing is a waste of money”, is simply because they are doing what I term “ad hoc marketing”, which I wrote about in greater detail in an earlier post.
Essentially, ad hoc marketing is when someone makes a decision to apply a marketing tool without ensuring that it is a cohesive part of a larger plan. Throwing a website up without defining the purpose and the structure. Putting together a brochure without ensuring that the design, layout and content are appropriate for your audience. Sending a salesperson door-to-door without the appropriate materials to support their sales efforts. These are all examples of ad hoc marketing.
Make sure that you are not jumping into the “ad hoc marketing pool”. If you do, I can guarantee you that you will be dissatisfied with your results and will spend money needlessly, with little to no chance of a return on your investment.
Take the time to create an appropriate marketing strategy and review it on a regular basis to ensure that it is meeting your needs as your company grows. And, don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t have the time or the expertise to develop your marketing strategy, if this is the case. It’s better to bring in a consultant to help you develop this strategy and pay them once, than to struggle with your marketing, paying over and over again for things that just aren’t working.
Until next time…
Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, contact us today.
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Back in November, I was invited to give a presentation to the Speaker Series Event for Sunwapta Solutions. The Topic was ” Getting Clients Even in Lean Times.” Those of you who follow my posts know that this is a topic I have written about in the past.
I was one of several speakers that day, and the event was delivered to a live audience as well as an online audience via webinar. The hosts of the Series recorded the session (as they always do) and have now provided me with the video of my portion of the presentation. I wanted to share this with you, and invite you to tune in. Apologies for the quality…
