Forget Web 2.0, A Few Ideas on Web 101: Automating Your Business!

Picture this.

How would you like to know that money is rolling into your bank account while …?

You are sitting on the most beautiful beach in the world.  

You are warm.

You drift in and out of consciousness… hearing only waves.  

At the same time, you are delivering an important message to 621 of your most valued customers and prospects.  Not only are you delivering a message, but you are also marketing, selling, solving problems, building relationships, strengthening loyalty, all at the same time. 

Last month, the above description happend to me, precisely as described, while siiting on 7 Mile Beach in Grand Cayman. 

How  was this possible?  

Not because of some sophisticated technology, but rather, because I was using 13 year old – practically free- technology, combined with 100 year old marketing and success principles.  

Wall Street Journal ran a great section on Web 2.o this week, but i would argue that most businesses haven’t gotten past Web 1.0 or even Web 101 – automation of communication.

Here is a brain storm of ideas on where you can start automating processes that will contribute to your business growth.

1.  Thank you cards.  To me, this is the most important.  One of those “little big things”.  Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff was wildly wrong in saying the small stuff doesn’t matter.  That doesn’t apply in today’s business world. Everything matters.

2. Frequest e-mail communication.  Here are a few to look into:

www.aweber.com

www.constantcontact.com

www.clpsuite.com

www.myemma.com

www.icontact.com

Now what?  Once you set this up, prepare the following steps: 

       1.  Decide how you are going to add tremendous value to everybody you meet: weekly/monthly e-newsletter, advice, jokes, stories, tips, referrals, videos, audios, etc.

       2. Create a place in your calendar to schedule your creation of your communications.  Plan the process to invite everybody you meet to subscribe to your publication, and have an email that immediately goes to them upon subscribing, letting them know what to expect.

       3. Send your content.  Invite your readers to reply.

3.  Survey’s.  Find out what your customers are thinking.  For example.  What do you think of this posting so far?

Ask your customers: opinions on products, problems they need help solving, opinions about the news, what they like or don’t like about your service or product, when their birthday is, who their favorite sports team is, etc.

4. Phone Calls.  It might be you, an assistant, a virtual assistant.  Reaching out to current, past and potential customers over the phone is the fastest way of finding out exaclty what they want, don’t want, are thinking about, and how they feel.  

5. Gifts.  What creative, unique, personalized, practical, quality gift can you send to key decision makers, big accounts, people who know who you want to know, etc.?  

Don’t get overwhelmed here.  Gifts can be automated.  Use a virtual assistant.  (Jon’s Big Secret Revealed:  Each year, I send a book and a personal letter to my top 40-50 clients.  I spend 45 minutes on this total.  I speak the personal part of the letter into a recording which is later transcibed, tell my assistant who in my database to send to, what to send, and all the work is done; the book ordering, printing of the letter – i send pre-signed letters to my assistant in Toledo – transcriptions, packaging and mailing is all done for very little cost to me.  

I haven’t seen the inside of a post office in 5 years.  I don’t plan to.

So, I want to hear from you.  What do you do to automate important steps in your business?  Or, what will you do in 2009 to automate important steps in your business?  I look forward to learning from you. 

Jon Berghoff

P.S.  The creation of this posting was created entirely using free technology.  Something to think about.

P.P.S.  For 7 more days, you can save big on our Peak Performance Entreprenuership seminar on Feb. 13th, 2009.  We will help you “automate your personal success”.  Anybody looking to grow themselves and their businesses in 2009, this is the place to be! www.geconnection.com/PPE

How Can I Breakthrough My Sales Plateau Using Your Method of Farming?

This post is a response to a question that came in from Mike in Fredericksburg, VA, after listening to the telephone seminar, “Becoming Wealthy During Turbulent Economic Times”. 

On Tuesday November 25th, 621 small business owners, sales professionals and entrepreneurs tuned in to an 84 minute, information packed, no B.S. telephone seminar on both how to think AND behave in order to maximize their ability to thrive in any economy.

How can I use your method of “farming” to breakthrough my current plateau of sales in my accounting firm?

How do I turn my value giving efforts to help others, into measurable referrals, profits, and more customers?

This post is a response to a question that came in from Joe H. in Tempe, AZ, after listening to the telephone seminar, “Becoming Wealthy During Turbulent Economic Times”.  Feel free to share your comments on my answer below.

On Tuesday November 25th, 621 small business owners, sales professionals and entrepreneurs tuned in to an 84 minute, information packed, no B.S. telephone seminar on both how to think AND behave in order to maximize their ability to thrive in any economy.

QUESTION: How do I turn my value giving efforts to help others, into measurable referrals, profits, and more customers?

“Jon, I’ve been running my local print shop for the past 13 years, and have prided myself on how far I go out of my way to solve problems for others, especially with our services (as opposed to solving problems with other peoples services, which I like how you talked about on the call). 

The problem that I have – which you have already helped me solve - but I want clarity on, is that I often solve problems for others, yet don’t feel like I have a good method for turning it into referrals, more profit, more customers, etc… any thoughts?”

Joe H. Tempe, AZ

ANSWER: Jon Berghoff

How Can I Eliminate Objections Ahead of Time?

This post is a response to a question that came in from Elaine in Canton, OH, after listening to the telephone seminar, “Becoming Wealthy During Turbulent Economic Times”. 

On Tuesday November 25th, 621 small business owners, sales professionals and entrepreneurs tuned in to an 84 minute, information packed, no B.S. telephone seminar on both how to think AND behave in order to maximize their ability to thrive in any economy.

QUESTION: How can I make sure we are pre-framing the right objections?

How Do I Know The World Wants Me To Be Wealthy?

This post is a response to a question that came in from Joanne T. from San Jose, CA, after listening to the telephone seminar, “Becoming Wealthy During Turbulent Economic Times”. 

On Tuesday November 25th, 621 small business owners, sales professionals and entrepreneurs tuned in to an 84 minute, information packed, no B.S. telephone seminar on both how to think AND behave in order to maximize their ability to thrive in any economy.

QUESTION: Is it contradicting to strive for happiness without material possessions, yet at the same time believe that “the world wants me to be wealthy”?

How can I proactively create opportunities right now?

This post is a response to a question that came in from Susan W. from San Francisco, CA, after listening to the telephone seminar, “Becoming Wealthy During Turbulent Economic Times”. 

On Tuesday November 25th, 621 small business owners, sales professionals and entrepreneurs tuned in to an 84 minute, information packed, no B.S. telephone seminar on both how to think AND behave in order to maximize their ability to thrive in any economy.  

QUESTION: How can I proactively direct my attention towards opportunities that I can learn from or even create on my own?

“Jon, I have never before heard such a convincing case for the value of looking for opportunities – especially during the current down economy…I want to know if you have any further recommendations as to regular actions I can take to make sure I’m focusing my attention in a direction that will allow me to see more opportunities for my business or my team?”   Susan W., San Francisco, CA

ANSWER: Jon Berghoff

Susan, great question.  Seeing opportunities is about creating “pro-active awareness”.  Not just waiting for great ideas to pop up, but actively putting our attention in places where the ideas are more likely to spring from.  Then analyzing the ideas to see where they apply..

Pro Active Awareness

Regardless of industry or role, anybody who is serious about pro-actively shaping their own entrepreneurial destiny should be vigilant in knowing what is going on in their industry, trends, patterns, what competitors are doing, what other industries are doing that could be applied to their business, what is being written about in trade publications, local related publications, what their customers think, what they want, etc.  These are all areas that upon being looked at individually, could give birth to awareness of an opportunity, but what really makes sense is to look EVERYWHERE, not just one or two places for ideas.

Read, listen to, and expose yourself to every bit of information that relates to your industry or profession, what is working and what isn’t – to not do so is ignorant and a big mistake. 

Look at and listen to success stories from inside and outside your business.  Make the process of exposing yourself to ideas a regimented, routine activity.  Example, I read every issue of Entrepreneur, Inc, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, Washington Business Journal, cover to cover, with extra “learning time” put aside for books, blogs and E-Zines.  My secret weapon is good old fashioned person to person interviewing – mostly over the phone.  As designed, my Influence Mastermind coaching programs force me to do so, keeping me up to date on what the mega successful are doing, and how this can help the small business owner.

Application

What I did not talk about on the call, but alluded to when I said, “control your input”, was what to do with the positive input.  For example, I routinely analyze the 3 M’s of my marketing funnel to see if I should be tuning (or completely reinventing) my Market (who I am selling to), my Message (how I am getting them to listen), and my Media (what methods I am using to get my message to my market). 

My marketing isn’t the only area where I think about applying what I learn, I go through the same process with my sales presentations, my business as a whole, pretty much every area of my life that I am proactively working to grow, including my personal relationships.

Susan, hoping this gives you a path to guide your focus towards finding and creating more opportunities!

Jon Berghoff

Jon Berghoff is the founder of Global Empowerment Connection.  GEC has a history of creating sales, leadership, and entrepreneurial success through ‘harmonic influence’ over ourselves, others and the world.  Subscribe to Insights on Influence, our free e-zine at www.geconnection.com. 

 

How do you vacation? This is what I do…

How do you vacation?

With the holidays fast approaching, I’d strongly recommend you read this before your next long weekend, trip to visit the inlaws, or cruise to the land of fruity umbrella drinks.

I have found that most people vacation in a way that causes them to, literally, need another vacation when they get home, just to recover from the way they spent their first vacation?  

Sound Familiar? 

(I first was taught this perspective by Jeffrey Gitomer, a brilliant sales trainer, who also wrote the forward to my next book.) 

So here is the deal.  

$920,511 in “Influence Training”, swiped from real examples…

On my last blog posting, referencing Adelman’s $31 billion personal loss, we talked about the importance of “selling money at a discount”, how this has and always will be the easiest “product” to sell.  

Today, we’ve got more immediately applicable, real world reminders (photos included) to help you sell and market more effectively in a turbulent economy.

As an ironic aside (if you read the post), what is the reason people DO spend money at casino’s? Exactly, they think they might be “buying money at a discount”… interesting.  Don’t forget to put this to work in your sales pitches today.

As a small business owner, sales professional, or person in charge of – happy about it or not – driving sales, creating profitable partnerships, I want you to know 

He Lost $35.1 Billion… Feather, Brick, House

(Take the poll after you read the posting.)

Feather, brick, house. 

Life sends us reminders, clues and ‘hidden signals’ in three stages.  

First, we are tickled by a ‘feather’.  We may barely notice, yet it’s often not enough to change our path.

Second, a ‘brick’ is dropped on our foot.  It hurts, it gets our attention, but for those who wish to ignore it, life can go on seemingly unchanged. 

Third, a ‘house’ is dropped on our heads.  The rest is history.  Too late.  Sorry.  There is no next time. 

Wall Street Journal highlighted a story today about a ‘brick’ for one man,

3 Fast Acting Small Business Marketing Tips During Turbulent Times…

I was on a prep call yesterday with one of our experts for our Influence Mastermind Coaching program.  This person is a success strategist (name can not yet be revealed) who has trained foreign militaries, professional athletes, Fortune 100 CEO’s, worked side by side with Tony Robbins, and acted as the CIO for companies like E Trade, and Bank of America. 

This person, we’ll call him “Larry”, reminded me of a fundamental truth that Wallace Waddles preached when he wrote The Science of Getting Rich, back in 1910: nature is and always will be an abundant store of riches and resources.  

How does this help you in your business when consumer spending is down, loans are harder to come by, business spending is put on hold, and your business has no current strategy for overcoming the possible – maybe inevitable – further crashing of the economy?  

What is Entrepreneurial Harmony?

Steve Harper, author of The Ripple Effect, asked me a question on Monday during our Influence Mastermind Interview… and part of my answer was inspired by a meeting I was in two weeks ago with Dr. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI, the largest networking organization in the world.

And I want to share with you.

 Quick Background-

For more than a year, I have been patiently and diligently interviewing experts, authors, and business leaders as a build up to a launching of a coaching program for the general public, along side two books.  

The process has given me more than I could ever give in return, and along the way I’ve clarified my view on a concept – Entrepreneurial Harmony – that I’m writing about in a book, The Alchemy of Influence, Sales Leadership and Entrepreneurial Success Through Harmonic Influence Over Ourselves, Others and The World.

 So… the question was asked, “How do you define Entrepreneurial Harmony?”

 Here was my answer: