We tend to take for granted that our customers know how to buy. We think they know who should be involved and why. We assume they know how to get approval, how to contract, how to issue an order. The reality is unless they are in a role where they are shopping frequently, they don’t know these things–yet we assume they do. Too often, our customers get derailed in their buying journey . They want to buy, they need to buy, but they don’t know how to navigate the process and the hurdles put up by t...
Mar 03, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 41
As coaches and consultants , we struggle with determining new ways we can add client value. We wrack our brains for breakthrough products and services or new content and resources to engage our clients. However, we are missing the one thing that we do that adds the most value, which is when we serve our clients simply as a sounding board . All senior executives have a ton on their plates and on their minds...and not a lot of people that they can talk to that do not have an agenda or expectations...
Mar 02, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 40
It’s easy to feel like we’re constantly going from one thing to the next. From our tasks at work, to our responsibilities and commitments at home. There are seemingly endless demands on our time and attention. We can only keep up the juggling act for so long. Soon, some areas of our lives will begin to suffer neglect in favour of other areas. But our lives are more than our work. They are more than our social lives outside of work. In fact, it’s helpful to see our lives as consisting of 10 inter...
Mar 01, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 39
Why Every Coach, consultant or Small Business Needs A Website. A business’s online presence, regardless of industry, can have a massive impact on its success. In this day and age, some coaches, consultants and small businesses still don’t realise that a majority of their customers will visit their website before making a purchase. Having a strong online presence, particularly a website, can be a make or break for generating more revenue. Yes, the quality of your website impacts results, but the ...
Feb 28, 2022•33 min•Season 2Ep. 38
How Do Your Customers Find You ? How do you find stuff nowadays? Whether you’re looking for where to buy the best digital camera for under $500, or the best toaster for under $50, where do you look? I’m guessing that, if you’re like me, you’re searching online. According to Nielsen Media , 82% of consumers and small businesses use internet search engines to find out about local companies. Hardly surprising, in today’s digitally-connected world. How Can They Find You If You Don’t Have A Website? ...
Feb 25, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Time To Outsource Your Marketing ? One of the benefits of the new, tech-driven business environment is that today’s coaches, consultants or small businesses don’t have to have all the traditional infrastructure in-house. You can outsource pretty much every part of your business – accounting, HR, project management, sales – and, of course, marketing. Outsourcing isn’t a new idea at all. The difference today is that it works for any size business. Many people assume that outsourcing business proce...
Feb 24, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Can the industry that you are in , be replicated by your customers? Could your customers do what you do cheaper, better, faster? Every now and again, it’s important to take a look at technologies and systems that are appearing in your commercial environment – as well as in other commercial environments – to see whether your business value proposition still makes sense. No coach, consultant or small business owner is immune to discovering that their – once-lucrative – offering is no longer releva...
Feb 23, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Times are hard. No one’s saying otherwise . Sure, the global economy is in a bad way and may get worse before it gets better. We all know people who’ve been laid off or businesses that have gone under. One of my clients , who is a bankruptcy lawyer, has a four-month waiting list. If your business is still around, however, bad sales are at the moment, then you are to be congratulated. It’s pretty brutal out there. But don’t let the media talk you into thinking that it’s all doom and gloom. People...
Feb 22, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 34
The biggest challenge in marketing is not budget, nor is it the reach-to-frequency rate. It’s the words we use, and how we go about using them. Words matter. In fact, they matter tremendously. The blog article you wrote yesterday. The product/service description on your website. That online ad you placed on Google. People don’t read marketing copy in the same way that they used to. Email, web pages and pop-TV type soundbites have reduced all of our attention spans . Instead, people scan your tex...
Feb 21, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Is your website little more than a glorified sales brochure ? Even worse, are you using pretty much the same text on your website features that you already have in your printed materials ? If your company has a website because you would like to generate sales leads from it, then there are a number of factors to consider. Firstly, few coaches, consultants and small business owners can reasonably expect to compete in today’s business world without exploiting internet-based marketing tools. Secondl...
Feb 18, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Marketing Is So Much More Than Pretty Pictures During the course of my work, I speak with coaches, consultants and business owners pretty much every single day. With very few exceptions, most of them confuse ‘Marketing’ with ‘Promotion’, or ‘Ads’, or ‘Public Relations. The danger, moving forward, is that the historic role of marketing – as a key component of an organisation’s strategic execution – will disappear forever. We’ll be left with Martech-driven, cookie-cutter campaigns producing ever l...
Feb 17, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Understanding how the human mind works and how to attract and hold the attention of your audience will enable you to create content that out-performs the competition and pleases your users at the same time. You can empower them to get access to the information they need quickly and easily and ultimately complete their tasks with as little wasted time as possible. Now let’s take a look at some specific techniques that use knowledge of how the mind works in order to grab people’s attention and hol...
Feb 16, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Being boring doesn’t make you more credible. Even if you have a great product or service that provides value for your customers , a little pizzazz can keep customers engaged. This makes them Hear your message, Make an impact, Remember you, and are excited enough to want to take action. Our customers now have information overload , which has caused them to decrease their attention spans. If you keep your message relevant and always take into account your audience’s interests, tolerance level and ...
Feb 15, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 29
YOU DON’T WANT MORE TRAFFIC. You might think you do, but you don’t. SEO firms will promise it to you. Marketing agencies will show you gorgeous looking case studies: “We increased traffic by 1,115%!” You will read blog post after blog post after blog post promising that if you just do X, Y and Z from their top 10 list, your traffic will explode like a majestic firework made out of money – all your business problems will be solved. And after all that brainwashing, it might even say so in your own...
Feb 14, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 28
If I were to ask you your value proposition – the thing that makes you different from everyone else and the reason people should choose you over a competitor, what might you say? “We offer the very best in customer service.” “We offer a superior quality than our competitors.” “We get to know our customers’ business.” Blah, blah, blah . These tired messages have been rehashed so many times that they are meaningless to readers. They’ve got no personality, no proof, nothing “sticky”. They’re so ubi...
Feb 11, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Commanding appropriate fees speaks to the value placed on your work. But in order for others to value your work, the process starts with you. It begins by establishing credibility and trust prior to ever placing anything on the market. By building credibility first you are then able to sell value. Frequently, it is the lack of self-confidence that is called into question. Review past accomplishments and list them. If you are active on social media, review the nice comments received. What is the ...
Feb 10, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 26
When it comes to boosting your online business, choosing the right combination of digital marketing tactics spells the difference between success and failure. There are many options from which you can choose, and you only have so many resources you can dedicate to this marketing effort. You can get a custom website designed for your business, hire SEO services to increase your presence, or utilise social media platforms to reach a bigger audience. Whatever your choice, content marketing is king ...
Feb 09, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Content is the Key to Connective Marketing. Your content should first and foremost be useful to your audience. It should entertain , inform , and intrigue , helping to build a real connection . Remember that the work doesn’t end when you hit the “post” button, it only just begins. The point of your content should be to start a conversation . To get more calls, to increase website traffic, to bring people in the door so they can face-to-face with you or your employees. It’s all relationship-build...
Feb 08, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Storytelling marketing is using narrative to communicate a message to an audience. The message should make the viewer feel something that drives them to take action. It is considered an art form requiring creativity, insight, practice and skill. It is not an overnight practice or a simple tactic to use in your marketing strategy . It’s an ongoing process that develops your brand and makes you stick out from the crowd by connecting your audience to your brand on a deeper level. But first, why is ...
Feb 07, 2022•33 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Ways To Really Engage Your Brand ’s Followers On Social Media At the end of the day, your REAL goal as a coach, consultant or small business owner , is to help your clients. You want to spend as much time as possible changing lives and solving people’s problems. You don’t want to waste countless hours each week trying to navigate the complex world of online marketing… And you certainly don’t want to spend another minute on the phone having to beg people to hire your services. Fortunately, you do...
Feb 04, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Are you actively working on your personal development ? What techniques do you use? Many people shy away from the idea of personal development. Strangely enough, the idea of becoming a better person and being happier is seen as some silly activity. But, in reality, we all want this, and we resist it because we shy away from personal responsibility. Also, the idea of actually facing all our internal junk kind of scares us, and we would rather not. No matter what type of person you are, you will c...
Feb 03, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Take a step back from your marketing strategy for a minute and think deeply about your customers. What are their interests? What do they love and hate about managing their business and lives? How do they help create or maintain their online presence, balance or relationships? What aspects of it could they care less about? It’s likely that every customer you engage with has a primary business or life that’s not focused on coaching, consulting or the service you provide . Some might understand how...
Feb 02, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 20
The goal for every coach, consultant and small business owner is to get more clients and customers, generate more revenue, and grow their online business. I assume that is also a goal that you want to achieve for your business. That’s probably why you’re here. But how can you achieve that goal? What is it that you should do in order to scale and grow your online business? What you need – above all else – is an actionable Customer's buyers journey that actually works and is proven to get great re...
Feb 01, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 19
The goal for every coach , consultant and small business owner is to get more clients and customers, generate more revenue, and grow their online business. I assume that is also a goal that you want to achieve for your business. That’s probably why you’re here. But how can you achieve that goal? What is it that you should do in order to scale and grow your online business? What you need – above all else – is an actionable content marketing strategy that actually works and is proven to get great ...
Jan 31, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Best practices can be helpful , but they are just a starting point. We have to adjust them to fit our specific situation. Thousands of blogs , books, articles, video’s, and podcasts talk about “best practices.” They cover every topic imaginable. Every nuance of marketing, sales, customer experience, business, dating (oops) talk about best practices. As consumers of information about how to improve, we devour best practices. The thought is, “If I know what’s best practice, and apply it in my orga...
Jan 28, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Dear Coach, Consultant and Service Business Owner , I know that growing your own business is tough. Cold calling potential clients and having them hang up in your face… Sending out hundreds of emails without getting so much as a ‘thanks for reaching out… Wasting thousands of dollars on ad spend without generating qualified leads… Sometimes it can feel like NO ONE wants to buy what you’re selling . And when you rely on your business to pay the rent and put food on the table… It can put an enormou...
Jan 27, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Virtual meetings are here to stay. The technology for holding virtual meetings has been around for a long time. If you compare the last 18 months to the previous decade, the increase is phenomenal. The pandemic triggered an instant shift to remote working . Overnight, businesses all over the world were compelled to switch to something many had been resisting for years; working from home. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes when running virtual meetings and what you can do to avoid them. Which one of...
Jan 26, 2022•33 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Seth Godin is a world-class author and marketing expert . His blog is one of the few that I read every day when it arrives at my inbox . His ideas are worth paying attention to and offer enough inspiration to be profoundly valuable. He frequently blogs about building a tribe , a group of people who support what you do and who are invested in your success – they are part of your personal team. “This is great, we all know that,” you may say, “But how do I devote the time and attention – among the ...
Jan 25, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 14
People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral is the holy grail of advertising – Mark Zuckerberg Referral marketing is known to be one of the best and most trusted marketing approaches applied by both small and large businesses globally. This type of marketing aims at encouraging and increasing the number of new clients through word of mouth referrals. And is usually done by offering incentives, rewards and encouraging cus...
Jan 24, 2022•33 min•Season 2Ep. 13
There is an economic theory that says this: Our capitalist system relies on the ability to continue to expand. We can no longer expand without wars or unethical trade agreements with underprivileged societies. Therefore, we will fail. Those who subscribe to this theory point out that we on planet earth live in a “closed system.” They believe there are only so many resources. And, as our population grows, this means that the increasing population will have less and less. This economic idea has so...
Jan 21, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 12
