I SEE YOU

There’s no doubt that the movie Avatar has captured the imagination of millions. So what does a Hollywood film have to do with business owners? Three words: I SEE YOU. In the movie, Neytiri of Pandora looks straight into Sully’s eyes and says to him, “I see you.” Three simple words, yet such profound meaning. Now think about that for a moment. Imagine taking the time to say that to our customers, our vendors, our employees, our subscribers, and our partners.  My observations and life experiences lead me to believe that people have a desire to be acknowledged and treated with dignity and respect. Once you understand that, then you are in a position to better SERVE the people around you whether it be employees or customers. I realize that sounds so obvious, but I am amazed at how oftentimes, businesses just don’t seem to care. By saying, I see you, Neytiri  acknowledged Sully, she validated him, and she showed him that she cared.

I see you means so much more than its literal connotation. It means:

• I am listening to you, Partners, Affiliates and Vendors
• I understand your needs and wants Mrs. Customer
• How can I empower you, Employees
• How can I help you Fans, Followers, Friends
• How can I support you, Subscribers to my blog
• What can I do to serve you, Database of Prospective Buyers
• How can I thank you, Donors

I See You is about the Platinum Rule

Ultimately, I see you means, I am here for you . I care about you. It’s about understanding the needs and wants of the people around you. I see you is more than the Golden Rule — Treat Others the way YOU want to be treated. I see you is about the Platinum Rule — Treat others the way THEY want to be treated. Now, you might say that giving everyone the customized attention and care of the Platinum Rule is not cost effective or realistic, but what I would encourage you to think about is how you can better understand the people around you that help make your business successful.  It’s a known fact that people do business with people who they know, like, and trust.  What are you doing to see the people around you so that they rave about your products and services and refer more business your way? How are you showing them that you care? If you are having a hard time answering these questions, then it’s time to ask them whether it be your employees or customers. I recommend using survey monkey, an online survey tool. By surveying your team, customers, etc., you will get the feedback you need to guide you in the right direction. Lastly, unfortunately, this lack of caring does not seem to discriminate, whether it be big business or small business. Here is a perfect example of someone who felt like his airline did not “See Him.”

Reminder: Just 9 more days left to win an HP iPAQ Glisten SmartPhone.

Gourmet Food and Wine Tasting

A little over two years ago, I organized a charity fundraiser in my community for children in the foster care system. It was a gourmet food and wine tasting event along with a live and silent auction. The goal was to raise over $100,000.00. Anyone who has ever spearheaded a fundraiser, knows how labor-intensive they are even with hundreds of volunteers. One day, I called on a local French restaurant, Le Bilig and asked the chef if  he would be willing to donate a cooking demonstration class that would be auctioned off during the live auction. He graciously agreed and then signed off on all the paper work that committed him to the cause. The terms stated that the donation was valid for one year. Most donation packages have an expiration date.

Goodwill

Fast forward two years and three months later; I get an e-mail from the high bidder of the French cooking demonstration. She told me that she had never “gotten around” to scheduling the cooking class, which was for twelve people and was hoping she could redeem it now. I then offered to contact the restaurant on her behalf. I spoke to the co-owner, Monica (wife of the chef) and explained to her that I realized the donation had long expired and understood if they said no due to the current state of the economy.  She then shared a short story with me about how she herself had once been the winner of a live auction travel package to Mexico and it too had expired. (She had been pregnant and could not fly.) The donors had denied her request to extend it. She said she remembered having ill feelings about the incident and the way it was handled and therefore, did not want the person making the request of her to feel the same. She then agreed to honor the request being made of her on behalf of her chef husband and restaurant.  Now that is what I call over-delivering! It is no wonder that this little family-owned French Bistro is still in business while many restaurants and businesses are closing shop.  Bottom line? Le Bilig Kitchen CARES! Isn’t that what everyone wants from someone they do business with? They want them to care. Period. That small gesture, which was just a ripple, is going to turn into a tidal wave because of all the goodwill she has now created. That’s a lot of goodwill going around during a time when it is very easy to have a scarcity mentality. Another word that comes to mind is ABUNDANCE. I dislike the overuse of a word and abundance seems to be one of those words that is over used a lot lately, but Monica was definitely coming from a place of abundance.

How Do Your Customers Know You Care?

How are you over-delivering with your customers?  Are you coming from a place of abundance or scarcity?  Are you doing things in your business that will make others talk about your business and create buzz in a positive way? What kind of goodwill are you creating for your customers so that they can go out and refer more business your way? I believe there is a time when small business owners should definitely NOT over-deliver, but I will save that for another blog post soon.

By the way, we exceeded our goal of raising $100,000.00 and were able to place over 20 children in permanent family homes on behalf of Sierra Forever Families.

As an online business training and software company, we often get a lot of  small business owners who come to us asking to help them grow their business online.

So I have put together 7 tips on creating an online presence for entrepreneurs:

1. Have a long term perspective about your brand. Word travels fast on the internet so be intentional about your activities online.

2. Do some market research. Find out where your customers are hanging out online and start contributing to the conversation using social media. If the majority of them are on Facebook, then start networking with them on Facebook. The point is to be highly targeted when connecting with your prospective customers online. Otherwise, you can easily waste a lot of time.

3. Put a simple marketing plan together. Putting your intentions to the written word is a powerful exercise that will help you achieve your goals. Be sure to include an action plan. Keep it simple by writing out who is responsible for what by when.

4. Play to your strengths. The point here is to keep it simple by doing what you are good at. Don’t make it so hard on yourself. If you are great at writing, then start a blog. If you are great at speaking, then start vlogging (video blog). Start with one thing that you are good at and then incorporate another thing once you’ve got the first one down.

5. Join industry groups online. There are a gazillion like-minded groups and industry associations on the internet. Check out what your industry is doing online and be sure to connect and network with your colleagues. You never know when a collaboration can turn into something that is mutually benefitting.

6. Track your results. By measuring the outcome of your actions you will see where you need to make improvements to get the results you are looking for. There are a ton of measurement tools on the internet to track your web traffic. Google analytics is a good place to start.

Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

In traditional marketing (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers. They use techniques that are poorly targeted and that interrupt people. They use cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows.

Technology is making these techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, they attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.

What is Internet Marketing

also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.

The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.

Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies

Search engine marketing, or SEM

is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks,” the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. Go to www.netconcepts.com/learning-center/ for good articles on SEO. Go to www.seobook.com for SEO tools, learning modules.

A web banner or banner ad

is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPEG, PNG), JavaScript program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Silverlight, Java, Shockwave or Flash, often employing animation, sound, or video to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape (i.e. either wide and short, or tall and narrow) hence the reference to banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece. Go to Yahoo.com for examples of banners ads.

E-mail marketing

is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. ConstantContact.com is a company that provides the tools for e-mail marketing.

Viral marketing

is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. One of the most successful examples of viral marketing is the Will it Blend? campaign.

Web 2.0

describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.