New beginnings….

Normally anyone would expect to see a plethera of yao yao which would basically say nothing. I will do my best to be sure that when something is posted that it has some kind of substance that anyone can use.

This beginning is a start of a new company venture. The partners involved asked me to come aboard to help with strategies and ideas to help with a new version of Appointment setting for Financial planners and Insurance agents with series 6 licenses. This in itself is a great opportunity, so why did they need me?

Well, apparently when the idea came about there was a pre-test done to see what the response would be to marketing this kind of service seeing that there was already a few out there doing it. Unfortunately as a lot of online deals go, there are a few companies not doing business honestly. So, credibility had become an issue. Of course those things can be easily remedied, but what about fulfillment? What do the customers actually get? Where is there value perceived or realized? what will be the companies Return on Customer? short term and long term?

Coming from a mixed background of Marketing and Operations(what a conflict of interest wouldn’t you say?) I now had the opportunity to address true marketing strategies after setting down an actual footprint for the operations and cost analysis, and what funds would need to be appropriated to ensure a sufficient budget would be in place to cover unforeseen costs of marketing and acquisition. (which there were many)

When all was said and done, actual profit of the “test” run came out just under even. (actually they lost a bit of profit on the first deal)

After sitting with the partners and explaining what the challenges were, one partner decided it was not a profitable idea to continue pursuing this venture and returned to a former client contract to continue producing revenue for the company. I had suggested against this but was not really allowed to explain what remedies they had that would turn this seemingly unprofitable venture into one that could become a self running branch of their company.

Speaking further with the second partner revealed, that it was always an intention to research further before running the test. They wanted to see if there was any feasibility in pursuing this venture as it was already making a different similar size company quite a healthy profit. They were doing so well with fulfillment there was no reason to think it was not a good venture to pursue.

I looked a bit further into what the company was doing with the second partner and found out that the fee structure was a bit different and that if costs were to be controlled more, that this company would have to restructure its fee schedule to cover initial costs. Then a fee for residual income and actual long term profit would be needed.

Return on Customer was being reviewed now and seeing that a long term commitment to a per schedule appointment for continual revenue generation allowed for greater returns on existing clientèle.

Once the partners began to see the actual response rates of the first test run, it became clear that this was still a viable venture to continue with, which allowed for new suggestions on how to attract new business through both conventional and Innovative methods in marketing. This now includes online optimization of their website and future PPC advertising, along with networking referrals which started to come in even before appointments were being set for the first test run client. This was a large indicator that because pricing had been set higher than normal and even though process and unforseen procedures and licensing issues arose, that honesty and integrity held the test client in place and kept them confident that we could produce what was guaranteed.

Closing ratio is up to the agent or planner of course, but as far as client acquisition and appointment setting goes, the process now has an actual path, and the marketing methods that are now in place are already producing a flow that is both manageable and profitable.

Statistically, increases should be noted within the next month or two, to a point that outward conventional marketing methods may not be needed, and only online optimization may need to be employed. Even with a conventional 33% fallout rate, with a base of 300-400 clients per salesman and two appointment setters per agent, profit margins for the company should still hit anywhere between 25%-45% depending on operational costs.

SO, what does this have to do with anything? I value professional opinions. It’s how I learned a lot about marketing and operations outside of school…I like hearing real world experience talking rather than theory. I’d like anyone’s opinion on how they think this pans out for the partnership. I’ve left a lot of details out so that everyone else can throw down and give their professional opinion. I value perspective, and honesty. Have at it!

Where’s the money flowing…

Seth Godin makes a real interesting point on his latest blog; where the money is there you’ll find the people working.

Interesting to me that it starts as an end still and then the means justifies it. (almost sounds like the torture debate going on right now)

Here’s a tag to Mr. Godin’s point; if there is money to be made you can well believe that someone is going to be searching for it.

He wrote that things change around once there’s money to be made in any particluar field. He related it to writers becoming publishers which is the reverse of what was. (When the Writer Becomes the Publisher / Seth Godin – 05/2009)

It would seem pretty logical that once the public wants something, they are willing to pay for it, so what is it that you have that they are willing to pay for? What message can you get across to them to tell them what you have is what they need? Many times I see “the best blah blah” or “Number 1 blah blah in the state” C’mon, do you really think that is going to attract attention? If it does, I’d be pretty surprised. Nowadays it’s just not enough. Mr. Godin back in 2003 made refernece to being remarkable(the purple cow). If you have a pizz,a shop fine, so does almost every other coner strip mall, what makes yours so different?

Here in Las Vegas, NV , a local pizza chain by the name of Metro pizza decided to become the “purple cow” of the valley by holding pizza making classes. Their pizza is great, but now they are the teachers of pizza making, and it’s doing very well. People are paying for classes and more are hearing by word of mouth how great their pizzas are. Do you think they can charge a bit more because of that?

Here’s the bottom line: You have to find the flow of money where it is moving and get in front of it. It’s the one time you want to get run over by the flood. Even if you can’t handle it you’ll have known what is was like and can most likey prepare for it better next time. Pizza makers to pizza making teachers,writers becoming publishers, what else can you think of that would set you apart and find you more income for your business through the right marketing message?

Keep it rolling!

The Power of Green Marketing

Green marketing is no longer just for the “deep Eco aware” kids that only buy green anyway. (which by the way is less than 15% of the populace in the US). It’s become an awareness that is definitely growing but has its limitations due to lack of creativity. This is where the marketers come in. That is by the way you and I. It takes all of us to really come up with new ideas to drive this new awareness. So consider yourself a part of the marketing crew now.

Marketers have the creativity to produce new and exciting concepts that excite the consumer, and ultimately get an Eco friendly product out to market that everyone will at least be interested in. Example: http://tinyurl.com/ak9kqt

Read through this (http://tinyurl.com/czq8tl) article and you will see the process that has to occur in order for a truly “eco friendly” product can emerge. Then to think that a chemist is creative enough to come up with what is necessary to market that product is pretty far fetched.

In come the young creatve types that are ready to put a good spin on everything that is “green”. Here’s an example of one company going green with its product line. (no fillers no artificial this and that etc.):

www.ogilife.com

By returning to the ocean, and utilizing ingredients that are proven through scientific study and have approvals by the FDA, (you know how they get when you start talking about anything healthy) they have come up with some really good Eco friendly products that are also packaged Eco friendly and of course they have a non profit that contributes to the ecology.

Point: they have taken a “whole approach” to green marketing and have simply cut out a niche market that is not overly specialized, and yet not over diluted either. One way or another they will drive the “Green” awareness through their efforts to promote a healthier lifestyle.

Bottom line, Green marketing is in its growth phase and is on the grow and yet it will need us the public to continue driving the economy towards more Eco friendly awareness as well as buying green. After all, we are the marketers…

…and by all means, Keep It Rollling!

Wealthy Idiots Meet Idiot Reporter – The Plank

Wealthy Idiots Meet Idiot Reporter – The Plank

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Just groovin…twittering a little @loicly.

Ok, so the @loic effect has begun. He unfollowed something like 23K in followers to unclutter what he had been following….ummm yeah??!

I think I would do the same. It is an interesting approach, and to someone like myself, that doesn’t want to have to follow and read every tweet all day long,( I do have a job to do you know) I would probably do the same thing just to keep it simply simple.

There are some seriously killer tweeps that follow hardly anyone (@wilw, @charleneli, @ambermacarthur) and have major followings. I guess they have a lot of followers that either followed from their blogs, or just figured that following them they can get some good info, or just a great laugh.

Here’s the thought on this though; the old way of following a ton of people and waiting to see how many follow back, and then trying to figure out who is real and who is a bot, or a service…not the real person is a bit much to deal with. Especially if you’re new…where do you start? You could start at www.search.twitter.com or another tool. However, how do you keep up with everyone? Tweetdeck? Tweet Manager could help you …oh wait. now you just became what the “gurus” are trying to filter out. Damn! How does this work so you have a ton of followers without having to follow so many? Guess we’ll have to plod along until someone finds the next best app when we’ll all be tweeting from our brains ‘at will’, to get everyone’s attention…wait…don’t we have a technology like that already? (implants?)

Personally I like trackin’ down the ones I wanna hear from, and then if they follow back kewl. But mass unfollowing? Is this to be the next big trend? and is this really a good thing? what does this do to Twitter in general? Does this defeat the purpose of what Twitter is for? or was this just the ploy of the Allstar tweeters(@guykawasaki, @scobleizer) to get all they can and just kind of read whatever they want and ….I don’t know….you know? Does that pre-suppose a type of “collateral damage”? (too many tweets going nowhere) Yet, this seems to be a part of Twitter.com’s culture. Seems a bit confusing when there are these others that follow less than ten percent of the number that follows them…fame? purpose?

Wait…

If there’s to be a trend you would hope that its relevance connecting to relevance, but of course people like being entertained too…so…why are we on twitter again?

We’ll have to really see what the trend leads to. For me? I think that mass following has its purpose, but if I can keep it narrow and focused, I will…not

I love the little pieces of info I can get from certain Tweeters, but I don’t always enjoy the randomness of it. I am glad there are tools and apps that help me to “screen” out the tweets I don’t need or want.

What do you think?

Oh and I’m listening to pandora.com I think Diana Krall’s been playin “The Look of Love”. Oh nope, it’s Nancy Wilson, “Who Can I Turn To”.

Nice to have music playin while I write…easier to do.

Wi-fitv launches!

So there’s this company called Wi-fitv.com that is offering a tool that is like YouTube on Steroids.

The concept is simple really; any business, organization, or individual can now own their own online “tv” station.

This is definitely a step in a new direction away from antiquated mareting strategies that have ben in place for so long, and the fact that most everything is headed to the internet anyway, it’s about time that tv did too.

This is in effect a great tool for any business, organization, or even individuals that want to have an internet presence either live or pre-recorded.

With the release of Wi-fitv.com and it’s ability to get a station up and running in literaly a couple of hours without technical savvy, multiple ways to monetize your station,(pay per view/advertising, etc)you now have a YouTube on Steroids.

This will prove very beneficial even to those that don’t have their own website as this will act as a minisite right off the bat. IT can be integrated or used as a stand alone.

Point: You now have access to the rest of the country or world…live.

For the cost of about a cup of Starbuck’s a day, you can have this up and fully functional and ttally under your control. so long as you keep within their terms of use, your station will broadcast just fine.

This is one of the new tools found out there in Web 2.0…what will be next?

 

 

Some healthy news for us all

One of Natural Astaxanthin’s many benefits in human nutrition is its ability to enhance the immune response. While more famous for anti-inflammatory conditions, as an internal beauty supplement, for cardiovascular protection and for eye health, there has also been a considerable amount of research demonstrating Natural Astaxanthin’s positive impact on immunity.

Dr. Boom Chew and Jean Soon Park expanded upon this early work in a series of experiments starting in 2003. After proving immune system enhancement in mice, Dr. Chew moved on to study the effects in humans. In a double blind, placebo controlled human clinical, Dr. Chew amd his team showed that at dosages as low as 2mg per day, Astaxanthin is a strong immune system stimulator. The study showed that Astaxanthin:
Early research in this area was led by Dr. H. Jyonouchi in the early 1990’s, first at the University of South Florida, and later at University of Minnesota’s School of medicine. In a series of published experiments, Dr. Jyonouchi demonstrated first in-vitro, then later in a rodent model, the mechanism of action for Astaxanthin’s immunomodulating effect.

Later work went on to demonstrate that Astaxanthin enhances human immunoglobulin production. The final study in this series measured Astaxanthin’s and several other carotenoids’ potency as immune enhancers.

Astaxanthin did considerably more at equal dosage levels than all other carotenoids, including lutein, lycopene, zeaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Other researchers from Japan found similar results.

In short it has been found that Astaxanthin helps with:

• Stimulating lymphocyte proliferation
• Increasing the total number of antibody producing B-cells
• Produceing increased number of T-cells
• Amplification of natural killer cell cytotoxic activity
• Significantly increasing delayed-type hypersensitivity response
• Dramatically decreasing DNA damage

 

To summarize, these results show that Astaxanthin works through many different pathways to 
support healthy immune function in humans ( Chew, et al, 2003).

Financial help

I was looking at my financial statement earlier this evening and I was thinking…” what the? I’ve got a LOT of empty spaces here…where the heck is my 401 I had from IAB? Why didn’t that get rolled over when I left? Who’s got my money now? CRAP! I have no idea where my money is!! How  does this thing tell me where that…WHAAAT?!?! UGH! SOMEONE HELP PLEEEAAASSEE!!”

Well, I just learned that an unsuspected financial expert has emerged and is going to be blogging on playboy’s site giving the layman a fair shot at making things work, and taking down the man.

Duff McKagan is Playboy’s new Financial Guru, and I for one believe after reading his story about why he was chosen, and a believer that he will be worth more than his weight in gold nuggets!

He comes from a background that most would think he doesn’t know squat. Well, he knows squat and a hell of a lot more.

Keep up on his blog at:

http://www.playboy.com/mt-tb.cgi/20942

Definitely a place to learn more about finances, what works what doesn’t and one of his objectives is to expose the BS in the industry that loves to confound and confuse. I LOVE IT! Finally some straight talk on how to keep it together!

Now where’d I put that last bank statement…..

Open mic..speak up!

Hey gang! So much has been goin on lately that I’ve kinda fallen behind. I apologize for that, and promise to keep up a bit better.

In fact, I’m going to have some guest writers posting about sales and marketing.

They will be young in some cases, some will be veterans…just keep an eye out. Every bit can be of benefit to you whether from  the seasoned vet or from the college intern. (Yeeeess I’ve learned some stuff from them too)

Today though, I wanted to do an ‘open mic’ talk about sales and marketing.

I’d like to know:

What do you do when you approach  a new concept? Where do you take it from there?

How do you formulate a ‘position’ on a new product? Once formulated, how long does it take to get it to market? Does your marketing plan introduce the product as it is ready or do you ‘pre-launch’?

What experiencecs have you had? Successes? Failures?

How did you recover from the hard ones?

Did the good ones last? How long?

This is really a means for you to ‘discuss’ what you found as good and not so good in your experience. I’m not asking for company names or product specifics. You can be vague and general to protect the innocent…lol

I would like some honest input though and perhaps I can take one or two of the examples and stretch them for everyone to see how those experiences can benefit their profession or business.

Keep it rollin!

What is this SEO thing anyway?

So what is this SEO thing anyway?

What wonderful news! I got a call from a young Entrepreneur that is CEO of an SEO company called, “Addoptimization”. She wanted to meet with me at the RIO before she left town to talk about some business development venture. Why not? Any “biz dev” stuff is worth checking out right? Not to mention she invited me because of our e-Book, “Power Marketing on A Budget Guide”, and wanted to talk about how to get that further out into the marketplace where it belongs.

So I said, “Sure I’ll see you at the RIO.” This after two invitations to go to the Consumer Electronics Show on Friday and Saturday, an invitation to a private industry party that I couldn’t make it to because of other meetings already arranged on Saturday night, and then finally fitting a time in to sit down and talk with her and figure out what she wanted to propose on Sunday Evening. (by the way the Affiliate Marketing Summit was starting this week…the place was a zoo! It took a few text messages to even find each other.)

Whew! What I got was a great schooling, in such a simple way, that I had to write about it.

What a concept! SEO! WOOHOOO! What the hell is SEO anyway? As I chuckle to myself, I have to think, “When we, the professionals sit there and talk to the “deer in the headlight syndrome” clients, about e-Marketing in general, do they really know what the heck we’re talking about”?

Alright, so, for you veterans, sit down, shove a piece of coffee cake in your mouth from the break room, grab a cup of coffee, and let me get this out for our clients, the business owners, that don’t speak Greek like we do.

SEO as an acronym means nothing to the average Joe. Even when spelled out most think, “huh?” Spelled out it means, “Search Engine Optimization”. Again, “HUH?”

Let me speak in a language you can understand…in fact everyone understands this language; Money. It translates “Lead generation” into “conversion” in other words money, mullah, dolleros, denari….get it? Not necessarily directly into conversion, but definitely greater rates of conversion. I’ll explain.

When someone goes online to find something they used to use what are called “keywords” as a means to find what they were looking for on the internet. In the old days that was easy since there were not so many providers of services and products. That’s of course no longer true nowadays as everyone has a website now. So how does someone find you? In the mess of everyone else that is in your industry, it’s a needle in a haystack search right? Wrong. This is where SEO comes in.

The search engines use certain rules of engagement to sort out who gets to be found. Those rules are applied to the net via their “search engine”. You type in keywords and the engine finds what you’re looking for…about 45,234,635 results to sort through… WHOA!

This is what you do, you hire someone that knows how to tweak your website enough that you get into the top ten, top three, or top spot. If you didn’t know after page one, unless someone else is totally dominating the first page, that most people stop searching, you are most uninformed and at the mercy of your competitors business. So it pays to get on page one ok?

How you get on page one, is through coding, and tweaking, and other tricks of that trade that I can’t even explain, nor do I care to.

This is the bottom line; if you don’t have SEO, you don’t have leads. You remember, leads? You know the thing that brings you sales? The thing that gets your business money? It’s the reason you got a website in the first place remember? To get more leads and get more business?

What you weren’t told by the guys that built your website is that you have to be submitted to the search engine(s), (so they know you’re there) and then you have to get SEO and be monitored so you keep on the top ten at least. If not, you get bumped down continually until NO ONE SEES YOU!

Gosh that’s harsh huh? But here’s the good news; although it does cost to do this, there is a greater substantial return on investment as you are now picking up 80% average of traffic looking for your product or service. If you have the right company doing it for you, you will get the ranking you need, and the right response rate to your site, and if your site is designed correctly, it will get you leads or sales whichever your site is designed to do.

This is a two part series and next round I’m going give you some tips on how to make sure you get the best “guy” for the job.

Keep it Rolling!

Lesson in e-Marketing

Wanted to share a recent experience with you as I think it’s real important e-Marketing stuff. I recently had the distinct pleasure of meeting with one of the e-Marketing Gurus of our time; Jim Lillig. By the way that was today at the RIO Hotel. He’s in town for the Affiliate Marketing Summit to be held next week.

It was an interesting meeting as I had pictured meeting with someone that was a younger guy with a lot of interesting fresh ideas about e-Marketing and perhaps some insight as to how to promote our e-Book, “Power Marketing on a Budget Guide”. What I got was a good education on performance marketing!

First off, Jim was a great guy that is a veteran of the e-Marketing genre. (no he’s not old, just quite experienced, in fact he looks really young for his age…and no I’m not telling) He’s been around since the days when people like Yanick Silver and others were taking the e-Marketing courses in Boulder. In fact, Yanick was in the seat in front of him, along with many others If you go to his blog at www.jimlillig.com you’ll see what awesome info he offers his readers!

His latest invention is Offeratti, a CPA network dedicated to helping many gain more out of their ideas and monetize biz opps much easier. He is in the mix with this right now doing business development.

When Jim got a hold of our e-Book, he immediately wanted to meet with us to discuss what we need to do to present this as a B2C product, versus a B2B product.We thought it a good idea to inivestigate and see what he was thinking.

As I sat and listened to him explain what is needed (which is quite a bit let me tell you) to make something like this be worth while to a consumer that is looking to make money NOW not later (which is business thinking) I began to rack up the hours necessary to make this work…hmmm this is going to take about 3-5 weeks once we get concept in place and then programming which is the real pain in the rear.

He agreed. It is an undertaking that can prove to be really profitable, as it follows my favorite business financial model, ROC (Return On Customer).You begin with something that you’re most likely not going to make anything on. (this follows affiliate style marketing at first) then you work on “conditioning” your new customer on buying continually from you. It begins a step by step process of products you provide to a consumer. It eventually ends up having them buy much larger ticket items from you.

With what Jim saw happening, I could see a great implication of growing a business community from a consumer community and even greater still a whole new database of clients that would need our help in getting trained on how to market both on and off line. (gee idn’t it convenient that we happen to be marketing consultants?)

The point I’m getting so far from Performance marketing is that it’s a killer way to monetize an idea much further into an elongated process of marketing continually to a database that you can monetize over and over. Without having to create a new marketing campaign to re-enliven your database!

Think of it this way; if you have an idea that can be developed into a step by step process, or a stage by stage implemented idea, that flows with ease, and can make money well within minutes, performance marketing can help you do the list build, (database) the continual marketing, (This means e newsletters or auto responders) and then the next thing in line to continue making the consumer money, you have then a formula for success!

Add this to Offeratti.com, and you now have a portal to place that idea into, have it watched over by a company that has the M.O.N.K.S (Monetizing, Optimizing, New idea, Keepers) working for you to make sure your idea gets the attention and distribution it needs to their internal network and a whole bunch more. This means your deal gets out to a whole bunch of publishing marketers online that will definitely get your product or service out there so you can get the money flowing! They’re doing it to make money anyway, If your idea rocks, so will your bank account!

I was very thankful to meet Jim, and am very much looking forward to creating this first step to get our e-Book out to a whole new bunch of home based entrepreneurs. The point is, there are many ways to market your idea, product or service. Question is which is right, and are you willing to develop it enough to make it worth while to your customers? Stuff to think about.

oh yeah

Keep it rolling!