Is Branding Important To Small Business?
I’ve been working my way through Eben Pagan’s DVD recordings of his “Get Altitude” program, which was a $10,000 per head live in-person seminar presented as advanced entrepreneur training. It’s focused on people who already have businesses who want to grow their operation towards seven and then eight figure turnover.
One of the concepts I’ve heard Eben teach over and over again is the idea of dominating your market. This is more than just being successful, this is creating the perception that what you do is in a category all of its own. You don’t have competitors if you’re the only supplier in the mind of the customer, even if what you actually supply is provided by other companies.
The great thing about this concept is that you can dominate a market without changing anything about your product. Through a strategic marketing process, you can establish a frame of perception associated with your brand that is entirely unique. This isn’t actually something tangible, since most tangible elements can be replicated. This is a feeling that your marketing will emote from your prospects and customers when they think about what you offer.
When you establish a brand perception that is emotionally stimulating in a positive way, you have a very powerful advantage. You don’t have to compete on price, and assuming your product is at least adequate in quality, you will make more sales, even more sales than better products because you have a stronger brand.
What Is A Brand?
In my previous article from way back in December 2005 - Small Business Branding - It’s Not “We”, It’s “Me” - I defined branding, in this particular case a “personal brand” as -
Is Twitter A Time Waster Or A Powerful Business Tool?
It’s pretty clear that Twitter is the social media star of 2009, at least so far.
In case you haven’t got an account yet, make sure you go to Twitter.com and register for free. After you have your account, you can begin by following my updates -
I won’t go into the details about how Twitter works because Gideon Shalwick (@gideonshalwick) has a video coming out about that soon to teach the basics.
Twitter is essentially a micro-blogging tool where you are restricted to 140 character posts, which are meant to be updates from your life. It’s also a fantastic inter-communication tool, which I will explain more about in a moment.
Twitter can definitely be used as an effective business tool, but it can be abused as a time waster as well. You need to find a balance, so let me explain how I recommend Twitter is best used.
It’s Darren’s Fault
I’ve been a member of Twitter since Darren Rowse (@problogger) bugged me about joining. Darren has since gone on to become a super Twitter fan, starting a blog about it (Twitip.com) and becoming the number one Twitter user in Australia with some 30,000+ followers. Beware Darren when he becomes passionate about something!
I joined up after Darren’s recommendation and started exploring the service. At first you have to get your head around how the system works, how you can send direct replies @ certain people, what a direct message is and how it differs from a reply and all the other tips and tricks.
I used a desktop program called Twhirl, which sort of functions like an instant messaging client plugged into Twitter and other similar services.
Twhirl was good, but as I found out recently, Tweetdeck is better. This desktop client is, and I quote “An application that aims to evolve existing functionality of Twitter by breaking down Twitter feeds into more manageable bite sized pieces”. Simply put, you have to use Tweetdeck as it makes Twitter much easier to manage.
Chronicling My Travels
I first signed up to Twitter while on the second half of my travels overseas in 2008, so much of my early Twitter notifications were either Internet marketing related, or “I just landed in Rome” type messages. It proved an effective way to use Twitter as people told me they enjoyed my status updates about where I was in the world.
It was during this time that Twitter become more prominent in Internet marketing circles. Suddenly all the big players where emailing their lists trying to boost their Twitter followings. John Reese (@johnreese) quickly built his following passed 10,000 people after mailing his subscribers. Frank Kern (@masscontrolkern), Mike Filsaime (@mikefilsaime), Eben Pagan (@ebenpagan), Jeff Walker (@jeffwalker), Rich Schefren (@richschefren), and prominent bloggers, Brian Clark (@copyblogger), John Chow (@johnchow), are among many others who all have active accounts on Twitter from my industry.
Even celebrities are using Twitter. There’s Brent Spiner (@brentspiner), Wil Weaton (@wilw - a massive 50,000+ followers) and Levar Burton (@levarburton) from Star Trek (well I think Star Trek actors are celebrities anyway!), Kevin Rudd (@kevinruddpm) and Malcolm Turnbull (@turnbullmalcolm) from Australian politics and of course the most popular Twitter user of all time, Barack Obama (@barackobama), with over 230,000 followers at the time of writing.
This is only a small sample of the people using Twitter, with of course your normal every day Internet user being the most widely represented group on Twitter, although I believe it’s fair to say “tweeting” (to send messages on Twitter) is definitely NOT a mainstream activity.
It’s A Lot Like Email List Building
How To Combine Your Brain And Willpower To Break The Pattern Of Average Results
There are some sad facts about this article you’ve just started to read, sad for me as the author and sad because it reflects something unfortunate about our current society.
Today we just don’t have enough time to learn new things. Worse still, most people don’t have the motivation to improve themselves and their lives, and instead choose to use what spare time they have to seek instant gratification, short-lived pleasures from entertainment, food and other leisure activities.
It’s a universal law that what comes quickly and easily is not satisfying for a long period of time and often can have a lasting negative impact. Junk food is tasty while you eat it, but it’s not doing much good for your body. Eating raw veggies is not always the tasty option, but doing it for long enough and you start to feel good.
In the Internet marketing space the same rule holds true. The techniques that are easy to do, for example using automation software to scrape RSS content for use on “spam” blogs, is never going to make you money long term. Yet if you focus on producing quality original content on your blog, and do it long enough, you can establish an asset that delivers income for years.
There’s nothing wrong with having fun, enjoying your spare time and occasionally indulging in instant gratification behaviors, but if you want to experience long term satisfaction in your life, you need to invest in yourself and become a better person. You need to become more than most people ever aspire to in their lives.
Most People Will Not Read The Next Paragraph
I said this article is sad for me as the author because the majority of people who were exposed to this text never read this far. Even if the title was compelling enough to convince them to read the first paragraph, they likely only made it as far as one or two paragraphs, began scanning the document from there, or browsed away.
As a blogger you learn to live with short attention spans and as an Internet marketer you learn that you can do very well if you have the attention of a small group of people who love your work. This is a powerful awareness, once you accept it and learn how best to leverage the situation.
Sadly, the knowledge I just shared with you, which I gained through experience and study, and teach to others through this blog each and every week, is insight most people will never become aware of, let alone go on to benefit from by starting their own blog or Internet business.
Pay Attention And Learn A Fundamental Truth
OnlineProfits.com Opens - Do Not Miss This One
Daniel Scocco is the man behind DailyBlogTips.com. I have extreme respect for Daniel because his blog is ranked in the Technorati Top 100 (no easy thing to do) and he’s very humble. He’s a guy who focuses so much on giving to his audience that he almost never does affiliate promotions and just keeps on delivering more and more without really asking for anything in return.
Daniel has been working on something that I’ve known about for quite some time and I’m so happy he’s finally been able to get it out the door. This is definitely a program you should be a part of if you are looking for quality information on the topic of internet marketing.
OnlineProfits.com - A Training Course From Experts
Daniel is a smart guy. He could of launched a training program and facilitated it by himself, but instead he decided to bring on some of the best of the best in different fields. As a result, the Online Profits program features quite a who’s who list of experts, including -
- Michael Gray (SEO expert)
- Neil Patel (Social Media)
- Tamar Weinberg (Social Bookmarking)
- Hamlet Batista (SEO)
- Zac Johnson (Affiliate Marketing)
- Courtney Tuttle (Keyword Research)
- Nathan Rice (WordPress Development)
- Yaro Starak (Watching TV - lol, no Email Marketing)
and of course Daniel himself. I’ve come on board to provide some training on email list building and marketing with blogs.
By bringing together so many experts Daniel’s course will be truly exceptional, as each person focuses on his or her specialty. This also reduces the workload for Daniel, so anyone who is thinking of launching a teaching based membership site or course should take note of this technique.
The program really is an A to Z of internet marketing, taking you through the following modules -
* Introduction and Business Principles
* Domain Names
* Setting Up Your Website
* WordPress
* Web Design for Entrepreneurs
* Business Models
* Choosing Your Niche
* Blogs
* Other Types of Websites
* Web Content and Copywriting
* Basic SEO
* Advanced SEO
* Generating Traffic
* Social Media
* Web Metrics
* Selling Advertising
* Email Marketing
* Affiliate Marketing
* PPC (Pay-per-Click)
* Landing Pages
* Selling Your Products
If you are interested or want more information, take a look at the order page (and for those of you who do not like long form sales copy, you will like Daniel’s page). Here’s the link -
Daniel gave me access to the membership site and it’s very clean. He has modeled a lot of the structure on my own coaching programs (he recently went through my Membership Site Mastermind training modules), including using text and audio based lessons, offering a private forum and a social traffic club for members to help each other with social media.
Look For Quality People As Trusted Sources
Normally I wouldn’t promote a program like this because let’s face it, there are a billion “learn internet marketing” courses out there. As soon as someone figures out how to make a little money from the web they decide why not start a program for beginners on how to do basic web business.
Daniel, by virtue of who he is, gets my support, and the fact that he went after so many experts to help compile this program, is just the icing on the cake.
If you are in a position to learn the full process of how internet marketing works, OnlineProfits.com is worth studying.
Who Is This Program For?
Daniel openly admits that his program is targeted at beginners, so if you already make money online, know how to construct landing pages, your email list is growing nicely, your affiliate sales keep coming in and you are up to date with SEO and PPC, then this course is not for you.
If you’re at the stage of the learning cycle where you are still building awareness of all the options and the systems people currently use online to build successful businesses, this is definitely a good choice to very quickly get up to speed.
Sign Up To OnlineProfits.com Here
I’ll be teaching a module in March about email marketing, a subject I’m dying to sink my teeth into, so if you join the program, look out for that.
Save 50% Deadline Coming Up
The Online Profits training program will be open for new members from January 12 until January 16 only.
The launch price is $48 monthly, and the program has a duration of six months. After January 16, the program will close its doors, to ensure that Daniel and his experts will be able to exceed the expectations of all the registered members.
Late in 2009 Online Profits will open again, but with a price of $98 monthly. If you join now you save yourself 50% off.
Join At This Page To Lock In The Discount
Good luck to Daniel and all of his new students who will have the pleasure of working with him.
Yaro
PS. If you are not sure about Daniel’s program, you know that a guy like him won’t keep your money if you decide the program is not for you. Sign up, try it out and if it’s not the kind of program you want to study during the next six months, ask for your money back.
There really is no risk with offers like this, so I suggest you “try before you buy” and judge the program on what it contains, and not just on what people like me say about it.
How To Establish Cash Flow When Starting A New Business
If you have not done so already, please read the first part of this two part article series on business outsourcing here - When Is The Right Time To Begin Outsourcing?.
In the previous article I discussed the importance of understanding your strategy for outsourcing and how it is important that you comprehend the sequence of tasks to complete, starting with the action that serves to eliminate the immediate constraint.
Despite clarity about what and when to outsource, it all means little if you don’t have the cash to do so.
Money Required
The one major problem that faces new start-up businesses, especially small enterprises launched by solo entrepreneurs, is a lack of cash flow. This problem is broader than just your business as the need for money impacts where you live and how you live as well. How you pay the rent, pay for food and live an enjoyable life is dictated by how much money you have and if your business is intended to be your income source, until it produces cash you’re in trouble.
As a catch-22 situation, many entrepreneurs must take jobs to generate “living” money, which drastically reduces the amount of time available to work on the business. How can you turn your new start-up into an income stream if you are too busy working a job to pay the bills that you can never work on your business?
Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this question and every person faces a unique situation. I don’t have a one-solution-fits-all proposal for you, but what I can do is explain how I made money during the times when my business was not able to support me.
