What is the one thing that you do to go out and get customers to try your product, or purchase it again.
The catch is it can’t be a magazine ad or a traditional media buy. No mass mailed coupon or such.
Is it a unique card you personally hand out? Some social campaign thingy? Do you reach out personally on Facebook?
What works for you? Tell me @spirocks on twitter.
For people who start new businesses and build brands from scratch, limits are the lifeblood of creativity. It is frequently said that ‘It would be nice if money were no object.’ Well it is, so is the employee talent pool, getting the best locations, the customers in your market, and about a thousand other things. The entrepreneur recognizes all these things, finds a niche and builds an offering that delivers value people are willing to pay for.
All these things are limits, they are the parameters of the current possibilities for the business. Embrace them, squeeze them like your own child, they are yours and they are the reason you will succeed. It is important to feel that way about them, for they should be the fostering ground of your creativity, the hurdles that create what is unique about what you offer.
To train your brain that way is to embrace the limits, and to dominate them. It may be easy to get lost in the day-to-day functions of your business, and lose sight of what parameters you are working within, but that is where discipline should kick in and get you back on the path you know you need to be on.
The ancillary benefits of that discipline are many. It is easier to train your employees when you have a defined framework to work within, and what you do will be clear to your customers. It wont be a messy collection of exceptions, it will be clear, concise, and easy to understand.
In Employee Training: Due to our size we carry three brands of the major liquor varieties, for instance for Vodka: Grey Goose, Tito’s, and Reyka, These three represent three price points and all offer exceedingly high quality. Grey Goose is the leading ultra premium vodka in sales, Tito’s is an excellent American made and gluten-free vodka, and Reyka is a small batch premium vodka from Iceland. With these three we will be able to deliver vodka drinks in three price points, $11/$9/$7 — make notes of any customer complaints about this selection and be sure to include the brand requested, as managers will tally them and adjust the three brands if needed. Be sure to offer the customer a taste of the brands we carry if they are not familiar.
I believe that too often a new business creator focuses on the limits as reasons why they can’t make a situation work, instead of embracing them as the guideposts to help navigate them to success. The first step is identifying your limits, then planning to deliver value within the parameters. That discipline will give the business the matter of fact nature that it needs.
In the above example, if someone wanted a dirty vodka martini and they were unhappy with any of the three vodkas offered, they would be in a tiny tiny minority, say 3% of the population of vodka drinkers. Yet every bar has a plethora of vodka bottles, many which do not sell much at all, taking square footage, time to inventory, store, and clean. If you multiply that over and over in various undisciplined categories, what is the true cost of not staying within limits? I would wager that it is far greater than any profit you will make from serving the ultra-picky 3%.
Thoughts and comments?
I can imagine that may seem like a strange question. I truly understand that, but really, at what level/threshold do you take a moment away from anything else you do to celebrate something? I believe people benefit from celebrating things at a lower threshold than is common.
As a business owner, manager, really anyone over entry level you are a leader of people, try not to forget or ignore that for too long. You will benefit from celebrating true steps forward with your people. Yes, celebrate steps, that is the basic tenet of this argument.
Let’s not wait for a year end goal, or a doubling of sales, or the ‘ends to any means’. I want to note: this need not be a business only idea, why wait until a year after a wedding to celebrate a ‘Real’ anniversary, why not send flowers to her for months on end to celebrate your monthly anniversary of the first kiss you shared?
Identify what the first step is to getting where you dream of going, when you take that step celebrate it. Whether that is launching your business into a new market, or marrying the person of your dreams. Celebrate the first kiss, celebrate the new menu with the team that will deliver it, celebrate the first deal of a new salesperson.
Time is your most valuable currency, don’t waste its value with inaction. -CP
Doing that has two huge negative effects, and a million (or so) smaller drawbacks. The first big one is that by waiting you require the team to rely on inner motivation to get where you want to go. That doesn’t sound like a good start to me. The second big drawback is that the celebration seemingly has to be bigger the farther along you go. For that matter, celebrating can be as simple as sincere compliments, acknowledgement of a person or team in front of their peers, sharing a few beers (after work if need be). That’s the thing when you celebrate smaller things; the celebration is easy and fun.
Celebrate accomplishments they may not know you noticed, do something impromptu or without fanfare that celebrates, and in doing so recognizes, accomplishments. Those small steps to the goal you have set. Motivation pours out of actions like that in many forms. Your team will feel appreciated, taken care of, and free from worry about if their toils are noticed.
Lower your threshold and enjoy life more. This is your life remember, you can build an environment that works for you.
Instagram has held the distinction as the fastest growing social media network for over a year now. For brands like yours, it puts the ability to get close to your targeted local audience in the palm of your hand.
This requires a healthy dose of inspiration be it artsy, humorous, insightful etc… it also requires you to have a solid understanding of the ins and outs of Instagram. That is what this post is about.
Start by finding those that have tagged your business in a post, either by mentioning its name, or by geotagging photos at your place of business. These are happy customers who you must follow and interact with. Like their photos and let them know you are fans of them too, that good feeling is the beginning of an amazing instagram relationship.
Look for others in your community who are active on Instagram and follow them, like their content, get to know what they find interesting, finding customers that will sing your praises is a great thing. Remember you are great at what you do, once they give your business a try you will make them wish you had found them on Instagram earlier.
While I have a post devoted to this topic on its own, I will give you the cliff notes version here. Focus on finding the relevant hashtags for your post, making up a funny word may be entertaining for your followers but it isnt going to get searched for often if at all. Consider a fitness related post that included the hashtag #beeeasstmodelegdaaaaze versus #squats #legday #workout… clearly the latter post would transcend and be found more often. Studies have shown that including three or more hashtags in your post drastically increases how many people find it. In fact up to 7 are acceptable to Instagram users.
As far as local marketing goes, use hashtags that relate to the town/state/university that makes up your target audience. For instance I use the #andover hashtag frequently for my restaurants in downtown andover. It both relates to those who live in town, and to the prominent boarding school Phillips Academy Andover that is in town.
Intersperse images of what you are selling with behind the scenes pics of your team, your office, previews of future offerings… let your audience feel privy to your process and in turn they will feel a part of it. For instance showing pictures of our recently launched sunday brunch dishes is a good way to let people know how amazing they are, but showing them pictures of a bar full of people having a blast eating them is another angle. Those ‘product in motion’ or ‘experience’ images are often even more impactful. Try something different and let your audience look forward to finding your next image… be you, be human, share you business story. It may be your everyday, but to a lot of people it is very interesting and your providing a window into the happenings can make them feel much more comfortable taking the plunge and becoming a customer.
A Realtor needs to maintain an online bio in several places, here are five tips to help you execute one that works for you, not against you.
Explaining what you have done is better than telling them what your title is. You will see a lot of ninjas, enthusiasts, philosophers, and worst of all gurus on people’s social media profiles. Wouldn’t it be better if they told you how they grew sales, orchestrated their teams to produce more ideas, and led change in their organizations?
The “show, don’t tell” rule results in focusing on what things you actually make happen, not who you say you are. Phrasing this way means using words like these:
These are doing words, action verbs that give a sense of what you get done. That is key, this is the value you bring to those that hire you. Remember that.
What are you an expert at? Specifically. That should be in your bio using the keywords that describe the skills and expertise that you hold. They will be searched for and increase the likelihood that your bio will help you get found. So how do you come up with these keywords? Think about what the client you are targeting would be looking for, and then how they would type that into Google. Those are your keywords.
Like we mentioned above, there are words we see over and over. I for one do not want to hire a social media guru any more than I want to hire a marketing ninja. Those words say nothing other than the fact that you think you are either smarter or cooler (or both0 than the reader. Trust me this is not a good approach.
Linkedin which is pretty much the greatest authority on professional web profiles presented this slideshow on the most overused words of 2013. If these are in your bio it is time to change it up.
Ahhh the Value proposition, you must include this. Accomplishments demonstrate ability but they are the past, your bio is speaking to people who want to know what they get from working with you; in the future. This is essential to answer: what can these readers expect from you? What value do you add to the equation?
Stale bios are the old headshots of the digital age, now not only do we get to see your old headshot when bangs were big, but we get to read about where you were in your career in 2001. Let’s go, ge tit up to date. Make a note in your calendar of choice (Google is mine) to remind you to read and edit your bio every three months. That way you can tout your recent developments and expunge things that no longer apply.
It is important to understand the terminology when dealing with technology, in this case a responsive website responds to the screen size and makes the content easy to consume. Think about the sites that make you zoom in desperately to read them on your phone. Those ARE NOT responsive sites.
Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors). — Read More On Wiki
You don’t have to take my word for it, in the real estate world the momentum is undeniable, just read the headlines:
Ok you get it, this is where we are headed, so why haven’t you made the switch? Its complicated, its work, its not what you do for a living. I get it, there is always something else to do. This is important, this is more important today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.
When you are ready to talk about creating a responsive website presence online, I am here to discuss what you need to make it happen.
So that was fast, but in reality you should either plan on converting soon yourself, or you should find someone to help you do it.
Maybe you thought it was leveling off, or maybe you thought it was overrated before, but there is no hiding from the recent numbers. Traffic to real estate websites is rocketing upwards. Experian Marketing Services’ rankings of top real estate websites in January revealed that overall traffic to US Real Estate websites grew by 25% to a whopping 364.4 million.
No matter how you measure it, quantify its effects, or feel about the change, it is happening. The internet is delivering the results and information that your clients want, when they want it, and at a speed they have grown accustomed to in their everyday lives.
If you want to compete with the best, you need a strategy and a desire to shake free of yesterday’s practices and move straight forward into the new real estate order.
Quick answer these questions:
1) Do you have a stand alone website for a company you own or for yourself that contains unique content you and your team create?
2) Is your website built with a responsive design?
3) Can your visitors search for property easily on their mobile device with your site?
4) Do you focus on delivering the information you are the best resource for? Your local community statistics and sales data?
Now are you building a lead generating website that makes it worthwhile for visitors to opt in?
Are you pushing the envelope and allowing your personality to be part of the message?
What role are you using video in your marketing of homes but more importantly yourself?
If you want to talk about where you are today, and where you can be working towards, reach out to me. This is what I do.
Hashtags are now universal, they are recognized by all the major social networks and are a part of our cultural vernacular that has established itself as more than a fad. You see them everywhere and that is a good indication that they are working for those who are using them.
A hashtag connects you to people you don’t follow and who don’t follow you, whether a topic or event that dominates the days news like: #superbowl or a more obscure topic like #pollenation, or even something cheesy like #whyIlovecheese will make an informal bond between posts that share the hashtag, and consequently the people/brands that created the posts. When the Hashatag is clicked on, new people/brands are discovered that share a common interest in most cases.
Research done by Piqora shows that there is a sweet spot for hashtag use. There is a limit, where too much hashtag use is perceived as spammy.
This chart from Piqora illustrates their findings on Instagram hashtag use, it clearly shows increased engagement with increasing use of hashtags to a point. After which the effectiveness drops off because it becomes a spammy message. A rule of thumb I like to use is:
Work Hashtags into the normal text of your message, if it reads like a sentence the effectiveness will be magnified.
For Example: Introducing the #Patriots #buffalo #wing #party package, get together for the #game and bring the #heat with 100 wings.
That way it reads like a sentence instead of: #patriots #buffalo #wings #game #heat #party
Like everything else you do for your brand, consider the end user. What are they interested in seeing, what is trending right now, are there current events that I can relate to my brand?
Have any interesting Hashtag stories to share with me?