7 Things Clients Should Avoid Doing When Working With Consultants

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client discussion

Follow this advice for a great Client/Consultant relationship.

More and more often, business owners are discovering the benefits of hiring consultants to help them in various areas of their business. It allows them to accomplish goals without having to hire full time staff, only dishing out payment for specific tasks and projects.

But, unfortunately, sometimes things don’t go as smoothly as expected. Each side has their own perspective, and problems can arise.

Here are 7 things that can interfere with a good working relationship:

1. Not creating an agreement between the two parties that outlines the terms of the project.

While it may be true that an agreement is often only worth the paper it is written on, it is always a good idea to have the terms of the project formally written. This gives a reference point for both parties, should there be any question of the scope of the responsibilities of either party, payment terms, or how to end the project.

2. Not being clear on expectations.

Communication is not always easy! We all like to think that we are great communicators, but the reality is that nearly all of us miscommunicate something in most discussions. Psychologically, this is because although we are always clear in our minds of exactly what we mean, getting that thought out of our heads and into the minds of others is not always that simple and straightforward. Be sure that each side states what they understand the expectations to be, and clear up any misunderstandings before moving forward.

3. Not understanding that things sometimes take longer than expected.

Unless you are trained or experienced in certain areas, it can be difficult to understand how long certain tasks can take to be completed. A finished product, such as a newsletter, can look like it is fairly simple to produce, however there is often a lot that goes on behind the scenes. For instance, if your newsletter is electronic, all links have to be created and tested, layout has to be verified across different browsers, etc. Try to level your expectations about how long it will take to have the final product delivered, and work closely with your consultant so you know what to expect.

4. Not providing information or materials in a timely fashion.

The ability for the consultant to deliver on time and on budget is largely determined by the cooperation between themselves and their client. If you are hoping to have a website created and live within 2 weeks, but are failing to deliver information, pictures, and approvals on the build, it becomes impossible for the consultant to complete the project within your anticipated time frame.

5. Changing expectations mid-stream.

As projects move forward they often lend themselves to changes. This is to be expected and should not be ignored. But when these opportunities arise, be sure that both parties are included in the discussions about how to move forward, ensuring that expectations are leveled on both sides and everyone is clear about the new expectations.

6. Stopping a project before it has had a chance to prove itself.

No one wants to waste time and money! But cancelling a project before it has had the opportunity to prove its worth does exactly that. Decide on the plan, including timelines and an exit strategy when, and if, it appears as though the project is not producing the ROI expected. Until you reach that abandon point, don’t blink! Keep moving forward. Many times, things will take a bit of time to gather momentum.

7. Not paying your consultant on time.

Payment for services provided should be outlined in your initial agreement. Sticking to payment schedules allows the consultant to focus on delivering a quality product or service to you, without turning them into collection agencies. Reluctance or delay in paying on time can also start to create a negative energy between parties, making it difficult to move forward with trust and confidence.

So there you have it. The 7 things that clients should avoid doing when dealing with consultants.

But there are two sides to every story.  My next article will address the top things that consultants should avoid doing when dealing with their clients, so stay tuned for part 2 of this story.

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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How To Use Video For Lead Generation

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video marketing

Are you using video yet?

When people think of using video in their marketing, they often dismiss it because they think it has to be flashy or funny or expensive to produce.

Nothing could be further from the truth! As explained in our previous post, creating a video can be as easy as capturing something on your smartphone and uploading it to social media, YouTube, or your website.

And video is becoming an outstanding tool for lead generation. With the use of things such as email gateways and calls to action, this format is quickly becoming an essential part of your marketing and lead generation arsenal.

Let’s take a look at how video can help you with lead generation.

1. In-Video Gating

Gating is not a new concept. I am sure we are all familiar with being asked for lead information prior to obtaining something of value. For instance, many businesses will ask for an email address prior to releasing a white-paper or an eBook. In fact, we do this ourselves. In order to get our Business Evaluation, we ask for information to add subscribers to our newsletter. Generally, in-video gating is used the same way as text-based gating like in my example, and is used to obtain contact information before a video can be watched.

Some gateways are very simple, asking only for an email address, while other are more complex and ask for name, company, email and phone number, etc. Regardless of the information gathered, the concept is the same; a visitor to your site/landing page who was previously a stranger has now become a known, viable and valuable prospect. By obtaining this information, you now have permission to engage them in a conversation through email or an actual sales call.

2. Calls-To-Action (CTA’s)

Just like in video gating, you are most likely familiar with CTA’s. In fact, it is probable that you are already using them on your website.

CTA’s are used based on the concept that ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’.

Using CTA’s for video is no different than using them on your website. If you simply load your video and allow it to fade to black without at least asking your viewer to interact, you are missing an opportunity. If a viewer has watched your video to the end, capturing that interest and directing them to your site or an offer only makes sense. Typically, video CTA’s come in three forms:

A) Annotations:

An annotation is a method of adding text and links to your videos on YouTube. You can create these annotations to appear at any point during your video, and you can determine how long it stays on the video. Annotations are great to get people to subscribe to your channel, other video content, or link them back to your website.

B) Pop-Out CTA’s:

Because annotations are limited in design capabilities, you may wish to use a pop-out CTA or embed a form to encourage engagement and to collect contact information.

C) End of Video CTA:

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to allow your video to simply fade to black. An end of video CTA has the same purpose as the pop-out CTA or annotation, except that they appear at the end of your video. YouTube calls them Cards, and although they can be placed anywhere within the video, it is more effective to use them as an end of video CTA. Use end of video CTA’s to direct your viewer to your desired next step, such as visiting your website. Or, try embedding a form to capture their information and offer a free download in exchange. Research by Vidyard has demonstrated that viewers who received an end of video CTA for a free trial of their product converted at 21%, vs. only 1% of viewers who did not receive a CTA. Clearly, the inclusion of an end of video CTA can have a huge impact on your marketing efforts.

So, as you can see, once you have decided to include video into your marketing plan, the next logical step is to engage your viewers by integrating some form of lead generation strategy.

Simple and powerful, start using them today and see how your marketing results improve!

You can also visit our YouTube Channel.

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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The Top Five Reasons You Should Be Implementing Video In Your Marketing

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video marketing

You’ve heard about demand generation, right?

Just in case you are unclear of what, exactly, this means, demand generation is the focus of targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products/services.

This article points out the top five reasons why video marketing has become a key component of content marketing and demand generation strategies.

1. Video has higher retention rates and initiates higher engagement.

It is no surprise to any of us that attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter as technology improves and advances. In fact, latest studies have defined our attention spans at a mere 8 seconds. So that’s it! That’s how long you have to capture the attention of your audience. This means that you should be strategic about the content you are providing for your audience. According to a report by Invodo, more than 65% of viewers watch more than three quarters of each video, which is considerably higher that text-based content.

2. Video as a marketing medium drives more conversions.

We all love to share information and help others. But at the core, we are in business to make money. And, without sales, there is no money. Using video to deliver content to your audience can be a key driver in building trust, awareness and interest in your company and its offerings. In fact, over 70% of marketers believe that video is the most effective way to drive conversions, with product videos increasing your prospects purchasing intent by up to 85%.

3. Video enhances the results of additional content and marketing efforts.

As stand-alone content, videos have proven themselves to be incredibly effective. Used to support other content assets, video can boost the engagement factor considerably. Consider the effectiveness of a video landing page. The integration of video into a sales page allows the prospect to engage more personally with the company and helps to build credibility and trust.

4. Video helps you gain insight into the behaviours of your visitors.

Let’s face it; we love to sell our products. Perhaps you have an eBook that a prospect has downloaded. But we have no way of tracking what the prospect did with the eBook once it was downloaded. Did they read it? Did they find it useful? There really is no way of knowing. But with video, you can track how many viewers it had, how much of the video is being watched, and if viewers are interacting with any clickable links within the video.

5. Video is more accessible than ever to companies of all sizes.

Prospects and clients are expecting more and more video content. In fact, according to Cisco, nearly 80% of all internet traffic is expected to be video based by 2018. But with the increase in demand for video, the tools have become less expensive, allowing any business to create video for their prospects and clients. Although high end video productions still have their place, newer technologies have brought the ability to shoot and edit video within the reach of any business. The biggest obstacle seems to be getting over the ‘camera-shy’ part of video production.

You don’t need any expensive or highly technical equipment or software to start creating video today. In fact, you can even use your smartphone to record a video. And online video tools such as Camtasia and GoAnimate help you to create a professional video right from your own desktop. As for hosting and distribution, you can easily share video across a number of networks such as YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc., as well as embedding them in emails and on your website. You may want to investigate video marketing platforms as well, to provide you with metrics for measurable ROI.

So there you have it – the top 5 reasons why you should be doing video marketing. What are you waiting for?

You can visit our YouTube Channel here.

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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The Top Three Considerations When Developing Your Brand

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The Top Three Considerations When Developing Your Brand

Once upon a time, businesses were encouraged to work on their mission statement.

This sometimes entailed marathon meetings to try to develop a statement that would encompass and describe the company’s goal.

But wait! The company also had to have a vision statement. How were they going to get there? What will it look like?

Sometimes these efforts resulted in a defining, clear-cut statement that told clients and prospects exactly what the company’s goals were and how they would deliver on those goals.

Sometimes these efforts resulted in a muddied, long-winded phrase that used a lot of words that really meant nothing to the company’s clients and prospects.

And, sometimes, it uncovered an inability for the company to clearly identify their purpose and communicate anything!

Now it’s all about branding!

Sounds fancy, right? After all, for years, we identified ‘brand’ with mega corps like Coke, Nike, and IBM. No one really stopped to think that all businesses should have their own unique brand.
After all, branding is simply an embodiment of all those elements we worked so hard on in the ‘90’s, creating a unified message that makes your business easily and instantly recognizable.

If you are looking to develop your brand – or if you already have created your brand but want to ensure it is strong – consider these top three elements.

1. What is your business?

Seems obvious, but sometimes we are so busy working in our business that it can be difficult to take an outside view. Take the time to really evaluate what your business is, and what that looks like. Perhaps you offer a variety of products or services, but what is at the core of your business? Ask yourself what is the key motivation for your business? Why do you do what you do? If you could only do one thing, what would it be? Questions like this can be very revealing, and you might be surprised to discover that your reason for being in your chosen business is very different than what you initially thought. Be sure to write your answers down.

2. Who is your ideal customer?

Another apparently obvious, yet often overlooked, question. If you sell tools and nails, sure you can sell to anyone who comes in the door, but who is your ideal customer? Do you cater to the contractors or to the handyman? I have a client who is a financial planner. He offers everything from insurance to mutual funds to education funds – and everything in between. But who is his ideal client? Where does he want to focus? Is it on the young families, becoming established and raising children? Is it on the middle-aged crowd who have children in college and are now starting to build their net worth? Or is it the retirees, who are now empty-nesters with pensions and an asset base, who need help with planning for their retirement years and the transfer of assets to their children and grandchildren. Once you have identified your ideal customer, you will better understand how you need to communicate your business services to capture their attention.

3. What is your marketing plan?

A marketing plan is not the same as an advertising campaign. A marketing plan is a strategy that is thoughtfully created and executed. It needs to embody things like your logo and corporate colors. An ideal logo will do one of two things; it will be a symbol that tells your clients instantly what your business does, or it will be a symbol that becomes synonymous with your business in the eyes of your clients and prospects. And remember that colors are important. They need to be visually pleasing and create a sense of warmth and trust. Colors that fight with each other or are too startling create subconscious ‘eye-fatigue’ and turns prospects away.

But remember that a marketing plan is much more than this!  Once you have created your logo and determined the corporate colors, your marketing plan needs to be built around this foundation, ensuring that they are used consistently to build your brand. How will you communicate your products and services to your clients and prospects? What methods will you use, and how often will you reach out to them. If you are unsure about how to develop a marketing strategy, it would be beneficial to hire an outside consultant to help establish the structure and to assist with keeping it on track.

So get started today! Implement these 3 fundamentals of brand development and you’ll be on your way to building a solid brand for your business.

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.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

Are You Differentiating Your Business?

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Are You Differentiating Your Business?

How do you differentiate your business?

There is no denying that there exists a plethora of businesses that all offer the same services or products as yours. So how do you attract clients to your business instead of having them choose your competitor?

If you are a small business owner, it is imperative that you find or create a strategy that differentiates your services from all those other businesses claiming to do the same thing.

Although this isn’t a new concept, it is often one of the most difficult things to get a small business owner to do. After all, we all like to think that what we offer is special and unique. But, unfortunately, this is seldom the case and, in most instances,  is something that many others can and do offer as well.

An interesting way to demonstrate this is to take the first paragraph of five of your competitor’s websites and black out any references to names. Chances are, the descriptions for each of these companies will be nearly impossible to tell apart.

So what can you do to differentiate yourself? Read more

Likes, Tweets, Shares, and Subscribes …Oh, My!

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social media marketing

Social media accounts are important, but…

I was having a discussion with a business colleague the other day and the topic came up about how clients perceive their followings on social media platforms.

During this conversation, he mentioned that one of his clients was not satisfied with the number of subscribers she had on her YouTube channel. She has lots of views, just not too many subscribers.

That led us to an exchange about social media engagement in general.

So let me play devil’s advocate for just a minute.

Read more

When Marketing Wears A Cowboy Hat…

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Calgary stampede

It’s that time of year!

For those of you who don’t know, I am a proud Calgarian.

Calgary, Alberta is world-renowned for 3 major things: hosting the 1988 Winter Olympics, its Oil and Gas industry, and the Calgary Stampede.

Well, today marks the fifth day of the 2015 Calgary Exhibition & Stampede.

This article isn’t intended to be an advertisement for the Stampede, but it’s a great example of how marketing can wear a different hat.

For those of you who are not familiar, this is an annual event that celebrates the tradition of ‘the old west’. It lasts for 10 days, and during this time, business activities slow to a crawl – at least in the downtown area.

Calgary is also well-known for knowing how to throw a good party, and that proves true every year during this event.

This is the time of year when Boardrooms take a backseat to Bars and Barns!  Business folks drop their power suits for western wear, including cowboy hats, casting aside the worry of developing ‘hat-hair’. Read more

Balance, Budget and Belief: The 3 B’s of a Successful Business

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balance

It’s not easy to run a small business.

Demands come flying at you from all directions.  You have to have a general knowledge of many things, not just related to your business, but also related to operating a business.

Too many small businesses fail before they have a chance to flourish. And many more flounder for years before they either complete a slow death or, on a more positive note, get it figured out and go on to be successful.

There are tons of elements that make a business successful. But at the core, you can always find these “3 B’s”: Read more

How Being A Creature Of Habit Can Cripple Your Business

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How Being A Creature Of Habit Can Cripple Your Business

It’s true. Whether or not we like to admit it, we are all creatures of habit.

Sure, sometimes we can get over it and change things up a bit, but one of two things typically happens:

1. We revert to our old, familiar ways
2. The new approach becomes our new habit

I remember taking a night course several years ago. Maybe it’s a holdover from our school days, but as anyone knows who has taken a night course, most people (all people) tend to find their seat and that becomes “their’ seat for the rest of the course.

So for this course, I thought I’d try something different, partly as a social experiment and partly to make an effort to interact with different people during the course. Read more

To Tech or Not To Tech: How Technology Impacts Your Marketing

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technology

As I’ve said in the past, the term marketing is often used interchangeably with the term sales.

However, marketing actually defines a process as opposed to an action.

One of the main functions of marketing is to provide effective communications, which is an important part of helping businesses grow and prosper. Communication is about creating relationships, strengthening an organization’s effectiveness and, and helping people learn about one another.

Enter technology.

Current technologies, including such things as the Internet, smart phones and tablets, social media platforms, apps, and CRM (customer relationship management) systems are impacting the way companies communicate with clients and prospects, and the marketing strategies they employ.

More and more consumers and business professionals are using their portable devices to obtain information and to connect with other people and businesses. Thanks to the accessibility of the internet, prospects and clients have the ability to acquire tons of information in mere moments, including information about your competitors!

Despite lots of talk over the years about the benefits of things like telecommuting, technology is helping that to evolve. More people are working from virtual offices, using their cell phones and various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to communicate with others. These changes will affect the way business spends money on different forms of communication as we continue to move forward and technologies evolve and improve. How a company communicates the features and benefits of their products and services will also have to evolve or the company runs the risk of fading into oblivion.

One of the most important things a business can do is to continually deliver a consistent message about their brand to their clients and prospects. Integrating their brand into every aspect of a business’s communications – whether TV, radio, print, internet, mobile platforms or social media – establishes recognition familiarity, developing strong customer relationships while developing a solid impression for prospects.

The younger, up and coming generation, is driving this change. These consumers have never known a world without cell phones, computers, and other technologies. As a result, they are quick to embrace using these new forms of business communications, such as ads on their mobile phones, social media ads, YouTube, etc. Traditional forms of media, like newspapers, television, and radio, are being forced to adapt to compete with the emerging changes in communication in order to remain relevant.

But these changes do not come without challenges.

Although technology has been implemented for years now, using it effectively for marketing still manages to evade many.

Results can be hard to measure, since the traditional measurement tools don’t necessarily apply. For instance, at one time, a business might run an ad in a local daily newspaper. Obviously, the reach of that ad was primarily limited to the local town or city where it appeared.

Fast forward to advertising on the internet. The reach of the World Wide Web is, indeed, just that – worldwide.

Technologies do improve, however, and advertising on the internet, whether pay-per-click or social media advertisements, are able to be more targeted. In fact, you have probably noticed that some of the sites you visit will now automatically load ads on the sidebar based on your previous browsing behaviours.

There is no question that technology is having a huge impact and is changing the way business communicate their message. Don’t fear this, but instead embrace it. Clearly define your message, your audience, your budget and your marketing plan, and how you will measure your results. Refine and repeat to come up with the proper recipe for success.

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.

If you like the information you are receiving, please consider forwarding this post.

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