Strength In Business

This is the second part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently. Last time I talked about harnessing the power of social media . Today, we’re going to focus on the biggest social network and I’m going to reveal to you a few strategies on how to deploy Facebook advertising in order to boost exposure, onboard more of the right prospects and clients, and increase sales. Fac...

Jimmy forgot to load the truck on time, Helena called in sick today and nobody else can take phone calls, Martha is collecting late payments from clients and on top of everything else, some cables burned out in the product showroom and you need to fix that asap. Small business owners — Does this sound familiar to you? Let me take a guess: Yeah, there are those days when you wished you were l...

“Consumers want to feel better about themselves (Self-Image), escape from life’s stress and have fun, if just for a while (Entertain) and be treated nicely (Pamper).” – Brian Gracon In the midst of the most-recent recession, why couldn’t you find a parking place at the mall on a weekend or get into a good restaurant without waiting for hours? Why were there waiting lines at the s...

Little can rival the sense of exhilaration and peace brought by the jump from a boat into the ocean. Every time you cross from one universe to another, magic occurs. All the troubles and worries of the world are behind you: they’re left on the boat and it’s just you, the ocean and your thoughts. If you love scuba diving just like I do, you know precisely what I’m talking about. For watersports’ fa...

How can you use LinkedIn to build genuine and long-lasting business relationships? Is there a proven way for individuals and businesses to connect authentically on this social media platform? This is a small sample of LinkedIn related questions I received last month during my two day Marketing Systems Master Class (MSMC) in London, United Kingdom. The MSMC is an international live event that we or...

How long can you afford to stay out of the Facebook advertising game? There are more than 50 million Facebook Pages but only 4 million advertisers on Facebook. Why is that? Why is the gap between the number of Facebook Pages and active Facebook advertisers so big? Why are companies (especially big ones) so keen to further dumping large amounts of money into TV ads when Google and Facebook are the...

Do you work with local customers or do you have an international clientele? How do you manage business operations and finances without losing sight of all the atypical needs that business owners from foreign countries may have? Working with clients from different countries, backgrounds and cultures requires a whole set of marketing tools, systems and processes you most certainly won’t use an...

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney Disney World is a magical world. Millions of people visit Disney Parks around the globe to leave their daily worries and struggles behind and tap into the energy sources of the “Happiest Place on Earth” . Disneyland is indeed an amazing place for people of all ages and walks of life....

Instant Articles are a new way for publishers to create “fast, interactive articles on Facebook” . Speed has become a key ingredient in today’s social age. The terms engagement , responsiveness and instant are dominating the space. People seem to be obsessed with likes, shares and comments. Messages are sent to brands without proper reflection. If you manage to pause for a second...

“Your aim should be to set up marketing systems so that people constantly want to do business with you. Think of marketing as getting a horse to water. The job of sales is then to persuade the horse to drink the water.” – Mac Attram What are some of the biggest mistakes small business owners make? Does a small business in the US face different challenges than a small business in...

“It’s important to decide on what types of leads you want at the middle & bottom of your sales funnel.”  ~ Chris Knipper, CEO & Inbound Marketing Strategist at Kuno Creative Marketing funnels… Sales funnels… Website conversion funnels… If you put these words into the Google search box you’ll find numerous blog posts, infographics, videos, software programs and...

“Once you learn the art of promotion and copywriting, you can have a business fail but the skillset of promotion and copywriting can move beyond that particular business.” – Heather Ann Havenwood Dying, transitioning, evolving… Words that are often used to describe the current state of email marketing. A controversial topic as so many gurus, specialists and experts have pro...

Content marketing, social media, affiliate marketing, video marketing, SEO, webinars, teleseminars, podcasting, pay-per-click (PPC), social advertising, and the list goes on and on and on… No wonder small businesses are overwhelmed. Wait, there’s more… Let’s not forget to add all the offline marketing methods to the above and of course, everything that revolves around devel...

“Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.” ~ Chip Bell, Bestselling Author What happens when a pipe bursts in your house? You look for a plumber. So, you check your rolodex… Hm, no plumber in there. The next thing you do is you call a friend, colleague, or you ask your neighbor. Rarely do you...

The Parthenon Philosophy is the most powerful marketing concept I have ever encountered. It was introduced to me several years ago by marketing master Jay Abraham. And since, everything I do in business is based on this very same principle. Most small businesses owners I interact with continuously rely on one or two marketing approaches to grow and sustain their business. Direct sales and / or ref...

Modelling big business isn’t a good thing if you’re a small business. Big businesses have a different agenda. Big businesses have different economics aka they operate with “play money”. One of the biggest mistakes I see small businesses make is copying what seems to be successful. They look at how big brands are advertising and then they try to copy that. They look at how b...

Facebook is the go-to platform for social advertising. The powerful targeting options allow you to reach a highly relevant audience ; people who are most likely to engage with your post, download your freebie and/ or purchase your product. Are you looking to trigger an emotional response, inspire consumers to click and get results from your Facebook ads? Knowing how to create effective ads that ge...

“I think podcasting hasn’t been set up in the most user friendly way – but the fact that they [podcasts] are still popular – despite how broken the system is, shows how well-liked sound online can and should be.” – Alexander Ljung, Founder & CEO of SoundCloud talking to The Telegraph iTunes dominates the game… And there is currently no other podcasting system out there that provide...

“Facebook carousel ads are outperforming link ads.” You hear this statement over and over. Is it true? Will Facebook carousel ads outperform your link ads? To be honest, I don’t know. You’ll need to test and see whether this applies to your industry, niche, or products too. Running carousel ads on Facebook that showcase multiple images with a destination URL most certainly...

Amazon is the ultimate sales machine and Kindle is a publishing powerhouse. Some businesses use the platform to sell physical items, others go digital – that is, they harness the power of (e)Books thus adding an additional stream of income to their business. A very smart move indeed. Many people mistakenly believe that you have to be an outstanding writer, or some sort of a marketing wizard...

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee Marketing fundamentals are boring and unsexy. So, why bother with the very basics of marketing when there’s a new tool waiting to be discovered around every corner? Today, everybody seems to be a marketing mogul – better yet, an online mark...

“The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions.” – Dr. John Demartini If you want to improve the quality of your life, ask yourself better questions. If you want to take your marriage and relationships to the next level, ask questions that bring you and your loved ones closer. If you want your business to thrive, ask intelligent questions. Mediocre quest...

“The most common trouble with advertising is that it tries too hard to impress people.” – James Randolph Adams Are you still focusing on good old TV and radio advertising? What about digital advertising? Do you run any Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube ads? You see, there are quite a few small business owners who think the world would be a better place without Facebook, Twitter, Inst...

“What you’re bad at actually doesn’t interest people, and it certainly shouldn’t interest you.” – Richard Branson How did you get into business? What market did you pick, and more importantly, how did you come up with that particular market? You see, a lot of folks start their own businesses based on interests, passions, hobbies, and stuff they like. However, mo...

What’s the deal with Facebook carousel ads? Why is this format so special, and more importantly, why should you test this type of advertising for your own brands and products too? Facebook ads are powerful. You can use this amazing tool to reach your ideal audience with different messages . You can invite people to like your page, engage with your latest blog post, hop over to your website t...