Here are a few things you should be sure not to do on your local business landing pages. 1. Don’t try to make a sale. The traffic coming from Google AdWords are going to be people who do not know you from a hole in the wall, so they are going to have their guard up at first. If you … Read More
6 Power Extensions of 80/20 In Your Business
I usually talk about 80/20 in terms of lost opportunity. But never forget, it’s also a super powerful lens for identifying WASTE. My good friend Bill Harrison forwarded this to me from Len Bertain, author of three books: The Tribal Knowledge Paradox – Tells the story of a worker who discovers “The War on Waste” Tribal Knowledge Innovation – Explains … Read More
How to Sell ANYTHING with the Power Triangle: Traffic, Conversion, and Economics
Use these marketing tips of the Power Triangle to boost sales. The first step is getting traffic: You gotta get human bodies, eyes, and ears, to sell to—without raising their defenses, if at all humanly possible. The next step on the list of marketing tips is conversion: You have to convince the person that what you have is going to … Read More
4 Points For Successful Outsourcing – A 5 Minute Mind Makeover
I’ve outsourced a LOT of copywriting jobs to my ace resource John Fancher. John is wicked good and he channels my inner voice like a pro. He’s doing a great job. But I can’t tell you how long I resisted that. And I can’t tell you how much time – and not just time, quality, optimum time of my day … Read More
How to Build the RIGHT Team Using the 80/20 Approach
If you have 10 different projects going with all these subcontractors all over the world, you now have a full-time project management job on your hands, which is fine if you’re a great project manager. (I am not.) Eventually, you need someone you can completely trust, and who is under your complete control, to do this for you. I believe … Read More
Melvin Pillay: From Poverty to Palace
Melvin Pillay grew up in abject poverty during apartheid in South Africa, a son of East Indian parents. His family’s dreams of escaping poverty were shattered when his older brother, who was in law school, died in a drowning accident. Here, Melvin tells the story of the turning point in his sales career. Today he’s VP of Global Sales at … Read More
You Cannot Determine The Future From The Past
I did a special All-Star Series Interview with futurist and technology pundit Jim Pinto. The topic: “How do you stay employed, much less thrive, when Amazon is turning everything on earth into a commodity?” “If it can be delivered in the form of 1’s and 0’s, or put in a box, Amazon can deliver it. How do you compete with … Read More
Do You Wanna Make $10 Per Hour? Or $100, $1,000 or $10,000?
All around you, there are $1000 per hour and $10,000 per hour gems lying in the midst of ordinary $10 per hour busy work. And the thing is, gravity P-U-L-L-S us down to the $10 per hour stuff. Naturally. Our instinct to “keep busy” (which you probably learned in school) traps us in nearly useless activities that don’t further what … Read More
Discovery Contract: Charging for a quote & being serious about it
A discovery contract is when you charge for a quote. Let’s say that your company sells a $200,000 software program that’s customized or they do some type of service or consulting like that. Even if you don’t actually use the discovery contract per se, it’s one of the most useful concepts there is. I’ll just briefly describe it because this … Read More
The LOWEST Point of My Career
Laura and I drove from Chicago to Nebraska over a steamy hot 4th of July weekend. We were driving our $1200 1985 Honda Civic whose engine had just $$$$ blown out 3 months before. We were buying gas on whatever fumes were left on our credit cards. I’d been demoted from my sales job to production manager at a tiny … Read More