Kim T. Gordon National Marketing Federation CEO Interview
Kim T. Gordon is a leading expert on small business tactics and president of National Marketing Federation. Kim is a seasoned professional and she is also an expert at writing for the media but also being in the media like The Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC’s World News Tonight, Newsweek and Businessweek just to name a few. She has a book out called Maximum Marketing Minimum Dollars for the small business owner. It is all about winning and keeping customers.
As a small business owner there are a lot of options. It is important to have a solid mix of tactics and have a “campaign” in the sales cycle. Find the right tactic for each customer in each stage of their sales cycle. E-mail is one of the best low cost tactics and is best when someone has opted in to a list. It should be used in some of the off line tactics as well. Kim talks about Dance Distributors as an example client using a variety of tactics. Houston Connect is another example using outdoor billboards and special events as well as radio and PPC.
“Media Relations” is a fancy term getting to know the press and getting publicity. “Strategic Partnering” for success is another term Kim uses in spreading the word by partnering. We distinguish between partnering and joint ventures. “Referral campaigns” are another tactic that small businesses can use. Direct mail / marriage mail is another great tactic i.e. Val Pak. “Customer reward programs” that keeps customers coming back is another type of program for repeat customers. Kim goes into the example of a restaurant i.e. Stanleys Tavern and they get to know their customers.
Other tactics that are innovative like place based media opportunities that are very hot because they are available. i.e. On a ski lift. Or an ad on the supermarket clock, or signage on the gas pump, or an ad on the store receipt, or a brochure in the Vet’s, naming rights for hiking trails, etc. Here’s one that is really cool called Beach Impressions where you can put an ad in the sand. Things like canine billboards in the city streets, that’s right, signs on dogs. The idea in marketing is to reach a customer when they are close to making a decision.
Newspapers and web sites have holes to fill they use North American Precis Syndicate and several other syndicates can be found at Small Business Now. If you distribute your article in ARA Content it will not be edited or changed as a finished article for publication for or about you. It costs about the same as a small as a small ad in a business daily.
Cinema Advertising is another way to advertise. Kim T. Gordon goes into the in’s and outs of Cable TV advertising for the small business owner in a small market. Multitasking consumers are busy only have the most attention on one task. You can place your ads in the day parts when the customer is paying the most attention. You can go to your cable rep and they can also help you produce and write the video for the commercials. Kim T. Gordon will deliver you new tactics that can be implemented quickly. Visit Kim’s site at Small Business Now for more information.
About Kim T. Gordon
Kim T. Gordon is one of the country’s foremost experts on the small business market. A multi-faceted author, marketing expert, media spokesperson and speaker, her work has helped millions of small business owners increase their success. In 1991 Gordon’s firm, National Marketing Federation Inc., was among the first to pioneer coaching by telephone to entrepreneurs nationwide, bringing the same high-level marketing consultation that was once available only to big-business clients, to small and medium-size businesses across the US. Through her Entrepreneur magazine columns and online columns that appear on AOL and other major sites, Gordon offers solid advice on growing a business to between three million and fifteen million readers monthly.
Gordon is a professional and polished interviewee who has appeared: On network television interviews (including CNN and ABC World News Tonight) and on TV affiliates in every major market; on twenty-one major radio networks (such as the Wall Street Journal and the Business Radio Networks) in addition to independent stations throughout the country; in newspaper interviews from the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post; and in numerous major magazines from Newsweek to Business Week (see the interview).
A recognized broadcast spokesperson on small-business success, Gordon works with Fortune 100 companies to help them effectively communicate product and service information to the small-business market. In 1994, Gordon completed a national press tour, which featured television and radio appearances and print interviews, as the national spokesperson for Canon. During 1995 and 1996, Gordon spoke at conferences across the U.S. as spokesperson for Office Depot Inc., and in 1998 made special appearances at Office Depot stores throughout the U.S. and Canada guiding business owners and entrepreneurs in effective strategies for marketing their businesses.
In 1998, Gordon made television and radio appearances as a national spokesperson for Sprint to announce Sprint Sense Home Office, and continued in that role in 1999 with additional media tours for Sprint, as well as successful national tours for Nortel Networks and Hewlett Packard. She returned as spokesperson for Sprint for Small Business Week 2000.
For Small Business Week 2002, Gordon was a spokesperson for eBay, completing a successful radio tour promoting eBay’s business and industrial products. Throughout 2002, she partnered with Oxygen, the television network for women, as a spokesperson and consultant, playing a major role in the network’s annual Build Your Own Business Contest.
In 2003 and 2004, she was a national spokesperson for Visa, introducing its newest Visa Extra Rewards programs for businesses through media tours on radio and television as well in articles for publication. Also beginning in 2003 and continuing through 2005, Gordon served as a radio, print and online spokesperson, and wrote bylined articles for national magazines, on behalf of major Web host, Interland. Beginning in late 2006 and continuing into 2007, she currently provides consultation to the United States Postal Service and is Editor at Large of its branded small-business magazine, Impact, and its online e-zine, Virtual Impact.
Gordon is the author of four books, including Maximum Marketing, Minimum Dollars: The Top 50 Ways to Grow Your Small Business (April 2006, Kaplan Publishing). Providing step-by-step guidance in the newest tactics, as well as unique twists on tried-and-true marketing methods, this book presents more than thirty small business success stories that illustrate how to create a winning marketing mix regardless of budget.
In 2005, Gordon released an e-book available exclusively on Entrepreneur.com, Big Marketing Ideas for Small Budgets: A Step-by-step Guide to Growing Your Business. This handy how-to e-book contains 21 chapters, and is divided into four important subject areas – marketing strategies, tools and tactics, sales and promotion, and planning for success.
Her second book, Bringing Home the Business: The 30 Truths Every Home Business Owner Must Know (2000, Perigee/Putnam), contains the straightforward truths about successfully marketing a home business, combined with expert, step-by-step information to help readers increase their incomes and create the lifestyles they’ve always wanted. Gordon’s first book, Growing Your Home-based Business (Prentice Hall/Simon & Schuster), brought her sales and marketing communications know-how to this expanding market, offering home-based businesses the same proven strategies and tactics used by some of America’s largest corporations.
Her popular online columns appear regularly on AOL Small Business, MSNBC, Yahoo Small Business, and other major websites. For the past decade, Gordon has been a columnist for Entrepreneur Media. Gordon’s monthly column began in Entrepreneur’s Business Start-Ups magazine in August 1997 and continued until May 2000 when she began as marketing columnist for Entrepreneur magazine. Her popular Tactics column appears there monthly. She was the author of the SOHO S.O.S. column on the Web at Entrepreneur magazine’s HomeOfficeMag.com for several years, and in April 2000, she began a featured column on Entrepreneur.com, the largest small business site on the Web, where her columns continue to appear monthly. Her articles and special features have appeared in Home Office Computing, MAC Home Journal, and Independent Business magazines. For more than two years, Gordon was one of just ten national experts selected by TIME Inc. to be a member of the “Board of Directors” for its interactive on-line magazine, TIME Vista Boardroom, where she answered questions from small-business owners worldwide.
An experienced manager and executive, Gordon is president of National Marketing Federation, Inc. Prior to founding NMF, Gordon held senior-level corporate positions, as vice president of marketing and executive committee member of a $2.5 billion real estate company, and vice president of development for a $300 million marketing communications company. Gordon is a past recipient of Sales and Marketing International’s Distinguished Sales Award presented by the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, and served for three years on the Board of Trustees of a treatment hospital for disabled children and adults. In March 2007, she founded and chaired the highly successful Woman’s Hope Concert to benefit a shelter for women and their children left homeless due to personal challenges and domestic abuse.
Marblehead Web entrepreneur launches resource site to aid small businesses
Marblehead Web entrepreneur launches resource site to aid small businesses
Internet entrepreneur Jim Peake is all about information that people can use, and typically that means something more substantial than opinions.
That’s why he founded My Success Gateway from his 105 Elm St. home in Marblehead, where he provides small business owners with a variety of free commerce-related news and product ratings.
The ratings include detailed feedback on events such as self-help or motivational seminars, many of which have hefty admission fees. He compares them to book reviews found on Amazon.com, which presumably help customers decide whether they want to make a purchase. Only in this case, instead of a book review, it’s a person’s notes on a seminar attended or business software purchased, along with an explanation of how they came to such conclusions.
“Saying you went to a seminar and that it was great, or it was awful, well, that doesn’t tell anybody anything. It doesn’t help,” Peake said. “We want people to interview and tell us why they feel a certain way.”
According to Peake, 48, confirming the person’s identity and posting it alongside the seminar or product description is key on his website. “If you don’t do that, you get scam.com or ripoff.com. It allows somebody to do a hit-and-run on something, whether it’s a seminar or a book or another product. With my site, the end-user gets some value.”
Peake explained that he and his Philadelphia-based business partner, Bill Samson, primarily provide information about tools to success, including magazines, seminars, speakers and books.
“When people use certain tools, they can report back to us, and we’ll get out the word on MySuccessGateway.com. Was it worth the price, or was it a waste of time and money? There are lots of people out there offering seminars, especially business seminars. Some are good, some aren’t, but there’s nowhere to find out about them, so we put that information on our website,” he said, adding that his service is akin to Consumer Reports for small businesses.
A Texas Christian University dropout, Peake cited internationally known motivational speaker T. Harv Eker as an example of someone successful who charges a fee for lectures. Eker has been telling people how he went of zero dollars to millionaire it little over two years, and teaching them to attempt the same.
The son of poor European immigrants, Eker is founder and president of Peak Potentials Training, among the fastest growing personal development companies in North America. His best-selling books, “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” and “SpeedWealth” have evolved into highly-acclaimed courses.
Money was scarce throughout Eker’s childhood. He worked different jobs, started businesses, but all failed despite hard work. Eventually he opened a chain of retail fitness stores and sold it to a Fortune 500 company, becoming a millionaire as a result. Two years later, he was broke due to poor investments and unchecked spending. The situation led him toward developing a theory that each person has a mental and emotional relationship to money, an “inner-money thermostat” that is set for a specific amount of financial success. Eker decided to teach people how to change this money blueprint and, ultimately, create success, keep it and grow it, and become a multi-millionaire.
Since then, more than 250,000 people have participated in his seminars. Testimonials have been posted on many Internet sites, so it’s easy to find out more about Eker and decide whether one of his seminars is valuable. But what about those speakers with less name recognition, or worse, the potential fly-by-nights waiting to take advantage of eager acolytes? Where do consumers learn about the quality of these seminars?
“Lots of people paid money to see Eke and they are reporting back,” said Peake, noting that Eker teaches “how to find life direction, to reach potential, and to fully see and be yourself. So now we’re asking people to report back on all the small business seminars they attend, whether they’re on sales and marketing, inspiration or motivation.”
One challenge small businesses face, as does the U.S., is improving the success rate for entrepreneurs, who must deal with problems like rising health care costs and how to raise money. Peake is convinced strength lay in numbers. As he puts it, there are 27 million small businesses in the U.S., which collectively represent an important and powerful voting block.
“If these business owners are visiting a website like ours, that makes us both a web publishing house and small media,” he said. “Small media picks up big media. That’s why I conducted a survey of the six Presidential candidates, all of whom I would think could scrounge 10 minutes for an interview to discuss small business acceleration. But not so. I wanted to asked them questions about the big market and the enormous role that small businesses play in it.”
According to Peake, four of the six Presidential candidates did not respond. In at least two cases, their websites provided no phone number or email address to contact them.
“These websites are all talking at people, saying what the issues are, but not providing any solutions,” he said. “It got me frustrated so I picked up the phone and tried call them Only John McCain’s people called back to schedule an interview.”
Peake said the 2008 Presidential candidate websites present issues, but seldom offer solutions. “My point is, they should be required to have a standard grid of issues, for example, veterans, small business, seniors, Iraq. There should be a right-hand side that says solutions, and how they will become problem solvers to make it work,” he said. “This grid will be updated every time they touch on the categories or issues. So if they have not touched on unions in six months, we will be able to understand that it not something that they spend a lot of time on.”
Peake, who grew up in New York City and has lived in Marblehead for 10 years, said these candidates are in “fundraising mode”, asking the public for financial support but not providing adequate information on their issue stances and solutions.
An interview with Nazi camp survivor Arne Brun Lie of Ipswich can be found on “guru” section of Peake’s website.
“Arne fought with the Norwegian resistance during WWII. He was held in three different camps and somehow he managed to survived,” said Peake. “Today, he lives here in the U.S., but all of his medical care is paid for by Norway. He said he is being taken care of splendidly. Imagine that. That’s a different kind of care system for veterans. He’s even going back to Norway this summer to be received by the King of Norway.”
Peake said persistence and attitude were the keys to Lie’s survival in dire circumstances and should be adopted for use in business and in life.
Other inspirational gurus, also among the website’s podcast features, is Dick Hoyt of Holland, who runs the Boston Marathon annually, pushing his ailing son in a wheelchair. “The kid is now an adult living on his own and still doing marathons every year, with his father pushing, pulling or carrying him. They’re TeamHoyt.com. It’s a story that has impacted millions of people globally. If anybody thinks they have an issue they can’t get past, take a look at these guys. The word can’t just isn’t in their vocabulary.”
Peake can be contacted via his website at www.mysuccessgateway.com, by email at jim@mysuccessgateway.com, or by phone at (781) 631-9691 .
http://www.itemlive.com/its_your_business/
Tom McCarthy | Tom McCarthy Leadership Training | Tom McCarthy Sales Training
“Thank your challenges for the opportunity,” to assist you in achieving your goals. What? This goes against common thinking and Tom McCarthy knows what he is talking about. He welcomes adversity and challenges, for it is part of what will help you succeed. Tom McCarthy is a corporate trainer veteran. Early on in his career he was a Tony Robbins sales trainer. He was young at the time and so was Tony.
Tom and I cover 3 key ingredients for success that he has a lot of expertise in:
- Leadership
- He realized that he did not know a lot about leadership and he had to learn what it took to be a leader. He has met some incredible people including John Chambers of Cisco. John’s values are driven down through the rest of the organization. He has also been around General Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell and I can say based on my conversation with Tom that the leadership has definitely rubbed off on Tom, I could feel it in the conversation and you will too.
- Communication
- One of the things that Tom was challenged with early on was public speaking, and he became a student of public speaking. He went from panic attacks to making public speaking a career.
- Performance
- How do you get the most out of your performance. For example Tom has worked with Olympic athletes. World champion teams in business or a student. Tom does not focus on the skill sets he focuses on the psychology. If you look at 80% of your potential at any given time is based upon your thinking, what are you thinking about and how are you feeling?
We go into the example of Joe Montana being a coach-able and trainable. Talent is one thing and Joe took his NFL average talents to the very top. Tom uses other examples like Larry Bird or Magic Johnson did not have the best talents but were able to win championships. These athletes had the right coaches, the right psychology and were able to perform in pressure situations. They were able to relax and make decisions and execute. How to manage your thoughts is extremely important.
Harris Barden played football at University of North Carolina with Tom, and Tom was able to shared with us a Joe Montana story related by Harris, was able to relax his offense with a quick witted humor during the pressure filled moments, bringing up John Candy. In Joe’s case, a lot of people would have been focused on NOT FAILING and causing them to be uptight. Joe had a mechanism that enabled him to control what he thought about and how he felt and that is what guided his success. This mechanism is what all great athletes and business people have in common.
In business when numbers are off and we are behind on our goals it can be a time to shine or take massive action typically comes out of fear. We do have to take action, however we have to get in the right mental state, part of that is knowing there is a solution. Taking the next best action we can take. This is what guides people that can turn things around. Most fear is based upon thinking about the future and seeing something that is not ideal, part of that is not knowing. All we can really handle is right now, the present. Tom has created a “mental diet” for success. You have to think about your goals in a way that you have already completed it. Create a powerful picture and creating a place that you know what it looks like.
Steven Covey says “start with the end in mind.” Tom went into a large division of Cisco that was struggling and they were concerned about not failing as bad as they were failing. He trained them to look at the impossible goals. It was risky for them to be uncomfortable and think about goals that were next to impossible. Tom McCarthy helped them in their mental diet. Any visual that was consuming the emotion to get you where you want to go. The end result was they had tremendous success in that division.
Tom talks about circumstances that have come into play that did not work out actually propelled him to his goal. He had an income goal for a quarter. He had a huge opportunity in Europe and that did not go through. He was late in responding back to them. He was crushed when it did not work out. He changed his mind and focused on the fact that he has already achieved his goal. He far exceeded his goal when he looked up he never those classes in Europe anyway to achieve his goal.
Why do people think the worst? There are many more definitions for negative emotions than positive emotions in the dictionary. People are drawn to the sensationalism. The media found out that what sells is bad news. Television news is focused on negative news. The reason why is that if we did not have challenges in front of us we would be bored because we as humans are so smart.
Tom talks about reality TV and the role that media plays in our society. He talks about watching a murder trial in a work out room before he was about to give a big speech. The conversation was about the jury’s decision and why they convicted the murderer. He was drawn to the TV, he caught himself and said “is this what he really needs to be consuming him self with right now, before he was going to help people? Tom’s answer to himself was no. Tom is manages his information/media filter by filtering out some information and letting in information that is good.
Tom talks about refinement and innovation. In innovation, is it the law of change. Everything around us is changing even as we are reading this or are listening to the podcast, our kids are learning, our spouses are buying something and our human cells are dying and regenerating. Tom talks about the future of telephony and the past. Tom says that e-mail was not even in his head 15 years ago. Companies are going to have to ask what are their customers going to want in several years. Finding where your customers want to be in 15 years is the opportunity.
I go into the Twitter example of a new technology. With the Internet we are becoming more connected. Privacy will be trampled on a little bit. Key thing Tom says every thought creates. Every emotion determines what percentage we will be able to get out of ourselves as far as results are concerned. It is generally when things are not going our way is really where we have to check our thoughts. Instead of reacting, we want to respond that “we love this challenge.”
Tom McCarthy leaves us with a few tidbits including a free leadership newsletter at Tom McCarthy. He recently came out with Paraliminal CD’s in 15 minute increments; you hear exactly what is said to both sides of the brain for business goals and athletic goals. Peak Performance and Talking to Win, the information is being produced to have information going into your left brain and right brain. Fire Up Training is another one of Tom’s web sites regarding presentation classes he teaches.
This is an excellent call for any business owner or entrepreneur, or anyone who wants to take action on their existing situation. Thanks Tom!
About Tom McCarthy
SPECIALIZING IN RESULTS
When every dollar counts, it’s good to know that your going to get a return on your investment. If the result you want is to take your organization to the next level, Tom McCarthy is the specialist that can help you achieve it.
EXPERIENCED
For more than a decade as a corporate consultant, speaker, trainer and coach Tom has successfully taught hundreds of thousands of people how to dramatically increase their level of performance in business and in life. He has presented more than 1,500 seminars, workshops, and training programs to corporations and associations around the world.
WALKS HIS TALK
Tom not only speaks about success in business, he lives it. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1983 where he was an honor student and a member of the nationally ranked football team, Tom became the youngest stockbroker ever hired by a prestigious Wall Street firm. By his second year Tom had become one of the highest producing brokers in the entire firm. Later he founded Thomas McCarthy & Associates, a thriving training and consulting firm, which works closely with clients ranging from new ventures to Fortune 500 companies.
PROVEN SUCCESS
1986, when the leader of one of the country’s largest training organizations, Anthony Robbins, was looking for a leader to coach, energize and train the Robbins Research sales force, he chose Tom McCarthy. He become it’s first National Sales Trainer and National Sales Manager. As a result of Tom’s training, management, and leadership the company’s sales more than doubled each year he was there. Tom then became one of the first people Anthony Robbins personally selected to teach lead his Mastery University seminars. In addition to coaching and training peak performers in business, Tom has also been hired to work with 3 Olympic Gold Medalists as well as several World Champion athletes and teams. Tom resides in Rancho Santa Fe, California with his wife Stacy and their two children.
ONE OF THE WORLD’S LEADING EXPERTS . . .
When you select Tom McCarthy for your next meeting or event you’re not hiring just another speaker. You’re selecting one of the worlds leading experts in helping individuals and organizations to move out of their comfort zones and limiting patterns into new levels of peak performance. Every training Tom presents is customized to meet your outcomes and comes with a satisfaction guarantee!
Glenn Livingston Clinical Psychologist Turned Research Internet Marketer
If you own a business, you have to listen to this call. If you are thinking about going into business you have to listen to this call. If you are an employee in a small business you will want to listen to this call and get moving and learn why your customers make the decisions that they do.
Glenn Livingston is a clinical psychologist by trade and married a marketer and now is marketing on the Internet using his/their research to develop marketing campaigns that are more predictable to have people buy and convert into customers, in other words Glenn will teach you how to double your business. Glenn has worked out a set of protocols and inferred a set of behaviors and realized that his research worked in predicting client actions.
Glenn had a lot of success early on in his career and let it get to his head, thinking he was a marketing genius and it all came crashing down with a new business opportunity and conference center he and his wife Sharon developed and took a leap of faith and left their corporate jobs. They opened the conference center and realized the market demand was not there especially after 911 and their business come to a halt and financial hardship ensued.
“Do your friggin research,” says Glenn. Glenn and Sharon Livingston were both playing “blind archery” with their conference center business because they did not research the market. Even though they were smart and in the business they really did not understand what their potential clients wanted. The only marketing problem is narcissism. We want the market to want what we want and we really do not know what they do want. Enthusiasm and passion for the market and the willingness to empathize and get qualitatively in touch with the market is an essential component of success. You want to be able to use your instrument your full set of feelings and your soul to let the market get inside of you but at the same time you are opening yourself up to the possibility of exaggeration and distortion. So you also want to have a quantitative process to give you more information.
Glenn proved a market by going after a brand new business by going after the Guinea pig market and built a business out of it, as a matter of fact he did it in 14 businesses total. Glenn did this by collecting consumer data. He recognized people’s propensity to fill out a survey was about the same as filling out a form for an e-mail newsletter. This is where Glenn gets into the meat of his expertise. If you developed a keyword map of the market and surveyed everyone based on the keyword map you will find a different response based on different keywords.
The number of sales you get is based upon the number of people your sign up. Out of the people you sign up you will see 5-10% of the opt-in’s will become customers. Glenn was able to estimate a cost per sale based on every keyword in that market map, BEFORE he actually went into the business. This is before Glenn makes an investment in the business. Estimated cost per sale for each piece of the market and keyword. He can tell what is already selling to those keywords, before he makes any investments. You have a very good likelihood of success and know the margins you can obtain before you invest in the business.
Glenn is out to improve the lives of Guinea pigs! Glenn talks about doing a PPC campaign to collect survey data in the Guinea pig market. If you type in “Guinea Pig Cage” in Google and you deliver them a landing page survey instead of a cage the user will be a bit annoyed, if they see a survey when they click on it, however some of them will fill it out.
With Glenn’s research and surveying you can estimate the risk associated with the market and you can also get at what is behind the keywords. There is a difference between market intelligence vs. keyword intelligence; market intelligence can be much more valuable. There are very subtle differences in language that can make the difference between buyer and non buyer. Glenn can refine the business and the market and innovate by building a new business. We have democratized the means of production.
Glenn might have spent $500 on the survey and production of the Guinea Pig. More people are getting exactly what they want when they want it. The result is the market is more demanding because of this. Glenn sees the possibility to run a 7 figure business from your home. The biggest opportunities are optimizing larger markets, i.e. weight loss. The average marketer is addressing the markets the same and not segmenting within the markets. Glenn gives a perfect example how this works with Google.
Glenn goes deeper and understands why people are searching on specific keywords and he talks about optimizing the entire markets(s). This is a huge competitive advantage. Google has trillions of searches to understand consumer behavior. Finding out which customers are hyper-responsive vs. responsive is the difference between massive success vs. just success. Glenn Livingston has created a home study kit for folks who want to find this out.
People who are willing to give a phone number in a survey are committed; they are willing to go off the internet. The myth of the FAQ’s are also known as the “frequently answered questions” in the market. You want to determine which of the pain points the strongest pain points in order to get them to open their wallets and buy something.
It takes Glenn 6 weeks to conquer a new business market utilizing his research methodology. Glenn developed 14 specific markets and developed an e-book for each one of them out of his survey data. He went into the Alpaca market that has fibers that are similar to wool. The Guinea Pig animal care market was a source of experience. Glenn is looking at weight loss to develop a new business since it is much larger than some of the other markets he has gone into.
Glenn Livingston recommends 3rd party provider InsitefulSurveys.com. He likes to be able to format the surveys similar to the direct response letters with the larger 18 point fonts to give the user a more realistic approach of what they will actually experience when online. Master Survey’s Willmaster.com is also another survey provider. It is not sexy to talk about the foundation of a house, same is true for building a business using research. Glenn recommends that you visit his audio site at Glenn Livingstons Free Marketing Audios to get more information.
About the Livingston Group
The Livingston Group is all about Insight Mining – discovering precious hidden gems of knowledge lurking beneath the surface that can propel your business to new heights.
Learn much more about your market, your customers or potential customers, obtain a fresh perspective on your products, uncover the drivers and motivators necessary to create the strongest brands possible and communicate messages that will resonate with your target audiences.
Learn how to “crack the code” to your customer’s mind so you know exactly how to market your product for maximum impact.
Tell us how can we help you today to:
- Reach your target audience
- Position your brand
- Test your message
- Refine a product idea
- Find out what consumers are thinking
- Discover what drives physicians to prescribe
- Uncover what motivates patients to ask their doctors for certain products and not others
About Glenn Livingston, Ph.D Glenn Livingstons Ultimate Research ToolBox
Holding a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (‘Scientist-Practitioner’ model) from Yeshiva University, Dr Livingston formally studied research design and analysis for 9 years. He was an instructor for the multivariate computer analysis of behavioral data labs on the Einstein Medical Campus. Dr. Livingston also holds a web programming certificate from the University of Illinois and is responsible for developing all of The Livingston Group proprietary web-research technologies.
Dr. Livingston has published extensively on creative market research and psychological theories (e.g. in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, American Demographics, The Chicago Sun Times, The Milwaukee Business Journal, The Indiana Star Ledger, Marketing News, Quirks Marketing Research Review, etc), and has been interviewed frequently on radio and television (WCBS Radio NY, WABC Radio Seattle, UPN News Baltimore, WNTN Boston & WGN Chicago).
Dr. Livingston also spent five years researching the nature of creative processes in individuals and groups, has published several journal articles on creativity, and has spoken on the topic of creative advertising strategies at gatherings of the American Marketing Association, the Advertising Research Foundation, and the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA).
Dr. Livingston previously handled focus group projects for high technology clients such as Panasonic and AT&T, medical clients such as Novartis, Henry Schein Dental, Marrion Merrel Dow, and Parke Davis, and psychological research for clients such as Ford Motor Company and Lipton/Unilever. Prior to joining Executive Solutions Inc. in 1991, Dr. Livingston spent several years working with clinical patients in major NY Hospitals (Nassau County Medical Center & Creedmore Psychiatric).
Dr. Livingston presently maintains a private clinical practice. Several of his private clients/patients are Presidents or CEOs of major corporations.
I love to hike. Long, strenuous, scenic “you can learn everything you need to about life from this mountain” get away from it all kind of hikes. I compose jazz-classical fusion piano music. I can juggle five balls.
Google Acquisition of DoubleClick Further Morphs Google into a Mass Media Giant further distances itself from Small Businesses.
Google Acquisition of DoubleClick Further Morphs Google into a Mass Media Giant further distances itself from Small Businesses.
While Google derives a ton of its’ revenue from PPC advertising they are further going down the slippery slope into the media business by scooping up an ad network DoubleClick. This acquisition demonstrates that Google is motivated to generate revenue that is accountable and measurable by acquiring Doubleclick.
There could be a link between Google and Television and gathering a bigger market presence in the other half of the web which is the content component delivered by publishers. As we are “living in the age of refinement and innovation,” Google continues to refine and innovate by becoming the link between content and customers. The value that they are adding in this instance will be arbitrage for the ads as you will see their prices ebb and flow with the media stories and consumer demand.
It appears to me that the small businesses wanting to advertise on some of the larger publishing sites will either have to settle for Google Adsense and find better ways to do Guerilla Marketing. In my experience as a small business owner I have found Google’s ability to deliver 10’s of thousands of impressions per day via Adsense, however only to result in extremely low CTR’s and even lower conversion rates.
I remember the early days on the Internet when 24/7 Media and DoubleClick used to duke it out hemorrhaging a lot of red ink to get distribution. At the time while I was with K2 Design in NYC we even had a small ad network called ClickNow run by Joe Apprendi and Scott Paternoster that was eventually acquired by 24/7 media. It was always a little bit of a mystery to me how they made money, it is even more of a mystery how ad agencies show ROI for Television Ads in general.
Jim Peake, 48 is an Entrepreneur, Small Business Owner, Founder & CEO of My Success Gateway, LLC which is an information provider, a “consumer reports” ranking engine & community for entrepreneurs and small business.
I have been interviewed on National Fox News, Forbes.com video’s, Massachusetts Local Newspaper Feature Article in Business, I was the catalyst for putting the Internet on the front page of every newspaper in 1996 when I sold the Web event Kasparov vs. IBM’s Deep Blue Chess Challenge. I have been interviewed on multiple radio stations around the USA with MySuccessGateway.com.
Al Lautenslager Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days Author Podcast Interview
Al Lautenslager is an author, business owner, speaker, entrepreneur and consultant. The journey of an entrepreneur is to learn it, do it and then teach it. Al works with small business owners and he connects with small business owners because he knows what works and what doesn’t work. Al also owns a printing business and was formerly a corporate America executive with the Mead Paper Corporation.
Al’s differentiation is he was a marketer and his printing clients talked to him about the marketing and eventually moved to a marketing consulting business. He eventually was approached about writing a book about Guerilla Marketing. Al Lautenslager and Jay Conrad Levinson co-authored Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days. Al practices marketing without spending a lot of money which is Guerilla Marketing. He approached Jay Levinson about collaborating with Jay and he said yes to the book deal.
Jay Levinson is a mentor to Al and Al has gone through the Certification of a Guerilla Marketing Coach certification program under Mitch Myerson. Now Al certifies other Guerilla marketers. They have worked together in tele-seminars, spoke at the same events, written books together and seminars together.
Al Lautenslager talks about mentorship and talks about his entrepreneurship vocation and is a writer for Entrepreneur.com. Entrepreneurs do not have to work alone. His strategic alliance is with a well known best selling co-author who had sold 14 million books and took advantage of that and it was a strategy to ally himself with Jay Conrad Levinson. He knew he could learn something from the experience. Al talks about giving back to his mentor with Jay Levinson still being his mentor by providing him with “fresh information.” Jay had 40 years more experience than Al and he knew he could learn something form this relationship.
Al works as a mentor himself, as a coach and certifying a coach. “Investing in yourself” is a big one with Al, continuous learning, continuous writing and continuous reading which is spawned from his writing. Al is a life long learner and never does stopped learning.
Al provides some real nuggets for Guerilla Marketers and Guerilla Ideas for small businesses. There are similarities with online and offline worlds. He has his coaching, consulting, printing and mailing but they are all treated differently.
The reason Al’s businesses are as successful as they are is that he focuses on 3 Guerilla Marketing techniques:
- PR – public relations
- Networking
- Direct mail
2 out of the 3 guerilla techniques don’t require any “money.” “Guerilla Marketing is time, energy, imagination, information and knowledge and not writing checks out of the check book.” Al says that it is important to tie yourself to something in the news when you want to get some press and he practices what he preaches. He talks about the Cartoon Network Guerilla Marketing Promotional Light Boxes that were distributed in Boston and how the light boxes were thought of as a bomb scare.
The headline in the news “Guerilla Marketing Campaign Gone Awry” with the Cartoon Network Ad campaign Al recognized that “Guerilla Marketing Campaign Gone Awry” was a public relations opportunity ready to be seized upon. He wrote a press release that said Guerilla Marketing Expert available to comment on this story “Cartoon Network Guerilla Marketing Campaign Gone Awry.” He positioned himself as an expert and distributed the press release. Al got a call from CNBC’s “Closing Bell” with Maria Bartiromo to get down to the studio same day for an interview on TV. She was showing a picture of his book. He tied himself to the news story. Even if you are a chiropractor send in a press release just before if they are running a road race or a marathon and let them know how the runners can eliminate pain with chiropractic techniques.
The public relations creditability aspect creates an instant expert in the viewers mind. That is the power of the press. Guerilla marketing is made up of many, many, many, many, many, many things working together simultaneously. Frequency is important because 99% of decisions are made by the subconscious mind.
Building out the extended network is the key factor of success. The quality and size of your network is key to success. We all know at least 150-250 people. Start putting in names to Al’s categories. Al explains that the power of referrals is critical. Let your contacts know what is going on in your career if you keep in touch with your network. What happens if you loose your best customer? Ask yourself? Start planning the contingency plans now. Networking is the first thing Al did to start his business. He will go back to the networking root or his “advocates,” as he likes to call the and keep in touch with them.
Al has a new network world that is continuously expanding including the speaking world and the consulting world, not to be taken for granted. Do not collect business cards and put them away, follow up. Direct mail is the one out of the three things that does require a little bit of investment. The results can be substantial. Guerilla Marketing is marketing with little or no cost marketing. Al Lautenslager talks about 4 key areas in direct mail: the message, the target, the vehicle and the frequency. There is a lot more in this interview, you are sure to get some great information for your success and for your business.
About Al Lautenslager
Al Lautenslager is an award winning marketing/PR consultant, direct mail promotion specialist, author, speaker and entrepreneur. His businesses have helped hundreds succeed in their own businesses. He is the principal of a Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm and also the president and owner of a small business, The Ink Well, a commercial printing and mailing company in Wheaton, IL. Al recently appeared on radio, as a marketing expert to review Super Bowl commercials. He has also appeared on TV.
Al has started up businesses and closed them down. He has walked the walk of a guerrilla marketer. He is a multi-winner of business of the year awards from various organizations. His articles can be seen on over 20 online sites in addition to being a featured business coach for the online site of Entrepreneur Magazine, entrepreneur.com.
A member of USA Today’s small business panel, and a certified Guerrilla Marketing coach, Lautenslager is also a much-in-demand speaker on the subject of marketing. Recently, Fast Company Magazine announced that Lautenslager is a finalist for its annual Fast 50, “ordinary people doing extraordinary things” as “leaders, innovators and technology pioneers”.
Al speaks to audiences wanting to learn more about building their businesses through low or no cost marketing tactics. Many in his audiences leave with strategies and tactics they can use the same day as they hear them.
His leadership has extended to his involvement into the community, is on the board of directors of five non-profit organizations, including two chambers of commerce.
Media Consultant: TV or Hollywood Problem? It faces the small business person every day! It’s all about “FIT”.
Networks have been burned many times thinking that because a personality is strong, their talents can take them anywhere in any situation. Time and again, they try this and time and again it fails.
The same problem exists on a daily basis in the world of Small Businesses. Hiring talent extends beyond the realm of Network TV. Some bright shinning star from the Corporate world is brought in for their management and leadership or sales skills because they had major success in a large or Medium size corporation. You, the small to medium size business owner pay them a high salary expecting them to do the same magic for your business. But the fit is wrong.
This is nothing new in the news business. It happens all the time on the local level. One anchor’s act plays well in one market. The anchor moves to another market, and the act does not play there at all. The anchor is either fired, or their contract is bought out. But one way or another, a change is made.
In the small to medium size business world, everyone is disappointed. The fit is wrong because the Corporate Wonder-boy (woman) does not have the resources available in the smaller businesses environment. Their ideas are great but they struggle to downscale them. Meanwhile, that huge salary goes out every week with little return on investment. The owner gets impatient. Where is that ROI? There is no rearranging of deck shares. The ship is taking on water. It is the Titanic sinking. Can this be salvaged.
Katie Couric is a big talent, and CBS would be rewarded with a huge backlash if they fired her. Should they be patient? Yes. They need to find the right format, find the right fit, test, re-test, and I am confident they are doing that. Or use her varied talents where she can pay back the company much in the same way Barbara Walters did when she did the Anchor move for ABC. In the long run that failed attempt made ABC tons of money. Katie can do the same for CBS. Hiring Katie is not a mistake. They just don’t have the right fit.
This same scenario may not play out in the small business world because the dollars may not work, and there probably is no place else for the person hired to go. Patience should be extended the individual or perhaps a restructuring of the deal if the payoff isn’t great. And even still, neither party is going to be happy.
Success at one place is an indicator of success somewhere else. Success in a job however means the person is qualified to do the job. Fit is the real determining factor in whether someone will succeed somewhere else. The culture is different. The dynamics are different. The expectations are different. The resources and mission are different. There are no guan tees that success can be replicated.. It is not working Ms. Couric. It may not work for that shinning star just hired in your small business. Look beyond their record of success in hiring. Make sure they fit with your organization and size.
About the Interview with Biba F. Pédron – The Connection Queen
At My Success Gateway, LLC we endorse 3 key principles for success:
1) strengthen your private network – get a supportive mentor
2) expand your extended network
3) invest in yourself
Biba F. Pédron reinforces our sweet spot with principle #2. She talks about the quality of the contacts vs. the quality.
Imagine moving out of your country to another country and not speaking the language. Imagine moving to a big city like New York City and not knowing anyone. How does a shy person make it in one of the most competitive cities on the planet? She gets out side of her comfort zone and does something about it and starts to attend networking events where she does not speak the language fluently and she doesn’t know any one.
Beginning with 2 conversations at an event and bringing her next event to 4 conversations Biba Pédron realizes that she is not the only person with the same fears and anxieties. She discovers an opportunity on her journey where she can teach others how to network efficiently and affectively for mutual benefit.
Her clients gave her the nickname “The Connection Queen.” Biba moved to the United States from France in 2002. She wanted to specialize in small business owners and small events. She wanted to make sure that people had the time for quality meetings and introductions. Biba takes here business not only from social networking but business networking as well.
Biba is hosting her own events usually 2-3 in New York City as well as in Paris France and Leon France. She typically has a guest speaker coming to the events to share in formation about business tools. She hosts her events in conference rooms in big companies as well as salsa halls, art galleries, clothing stores and many other creative places. It is hard to get people to leave some of the events.
Biba also hosts teleseminars. For example, she has a person come in to talk about creating business cards as sales advertisements. She lives by example and has a lot of information on her business card than 99% of small business owners.
Biba says that in order to be a successful networker we must not sell and we must ask about the other person because they like to speak about themselves. The power of networking is not at the networking meeting but afterwards with the follow through contacts. These are key points you want to take away from this interview, they are critical in your success.
It is almost like reading a self-help book. If you don’t apply the principles in the book and take action then not much benefit is derived from reading the book in the first place. Same can be said for networking. We have to follow through on the initial contact.
In Biba’s program she has a follow up system with 7 steps so that you can maximize your initial contact. She talks about the frequency of marketing and follow through is what makes the difference in a successful networking environment. People often think that just going to the events is enough when it is not.
We go into social networking and talk about the Linkedin types of social networking combined with face to face networking. Biba suggests that the best way to network is to use both. Using Web 2.0 networking can take a lot of time. It is a new trend. Biba has a lot of great ideas that we can all leverage in the Networking environment. Lastly, Biba says that we must be committed to the right networking groups.
Audio Interview with Conversion Doctor Eric Graham
Eric Graham is called the Conversion Doctor and he has a guarantee that we have not witnessed yet, where if he does not improve your conversions that he will pay you $250 plus give you all of your money back. In order to be that confident you have to know what you are doing.
Eric comes from the offline direct marketing world and moved to online and had an ability to convert traffic into sales and customers starting beating a path to his door. Eric goes into the different variables that are factors for conversions. Eric talks about PUTT.
1) Persuasion element (very important)
a. Copywriting
b. Calls to action, Offer, Pricing
c. Colors
2) Usability
a. Navigation
b. Display order buttons
c. Check out abandonment rates
3) “Trust” it is very important (people buy from those who they know like and trust)
a. Trust is overlooked
b. Risk reversal
c. Privacy policy
d. Trust icons, i.e. HackerSafe.com
e. Proof: critical element, case studies, testimonials, demonstrations
4) Testing and Tracking (where the rubber meets the road)
a. What works for one group will not work for others
b. Landing pages
c. Copy
d. Adwords
e. Traffic etc
You can test everything. Eric’s perspective looks at it like macro conversions to micro conversions. Macro = orders. Micro = clicks or no clicks. Eric has used Armand Morin’s Multi Track Generator, Jim Stone’s split test accelerator and David Bullock’s Kaisen Track Platinum. And Google has just come out of beta with Google Web Site Optimizer does a great job for Split MultiVariate Testing.
You cannot stand still in the online market place. If you are using affiliates to drive traffic, if you are able to convert you will be able to drive more traffic because the super affiliates will see the higher conversions and drive more traffic. ClickBank is great for information type products and Commission Junction is better for physical products.
Here is a secret known among the insiders. Drive traffic to a competitor to see how well they are converting. Off site factors like gas prices, tsunami’s, global weather changes etc. Split testing traffic to the competitor and to your product to see how the competition is converting. We talk about http://glyphius.com/ which is a copy analyzer and a headline analyzer Advanced Marketing Institute’s http://www.aminstitute.com/ .
With new multivariate testing processes you can test multiple variables on one page where you are not creating 2 different versions of the pages. You want to get all of the noise out of the testing processes as possible.
Eric does consulting and training and has focused on the top 400 retailers and is moving more towards the internet marketing space. He has a closed invitation coaching program. Eric’s lead product is a website evaluation service and making recommendations based on his actual test results. Eric Graham provides pre-evaluation questions before he does the site evaluation, this can be a big eye opener for many clients. He develops videos in 2-4 hours in length of client sites and burns them onto a CD for the clients. In most cases the clients will make the changes themselves.
Eric’s sweet spot of customers are clients who are not doing well and getting their conversions. Sending more traffic to the site is least effective and most expensive. Increase the average amount that visitors.
The Conversion Doctor talks about pricing points. In the internet marketing niches prices that work will end in 7’s and can convert better, the 7’s work. In other markets the best price has to be found with testing. In the under $50 category there are a couple sweet spots in $27 and $29 range. In $100 category take the product from $87 to $97 or $99.
The third area is to increase conversion rates and optimizing the site and the traffic. Then when you have conversions up you can drive a more traffic. If you can convert you can afford to outspend the completion.
Offline marketers know all their numbers. They know their numbers will work or else they will loose their shirts. You have to know your numbers. The death of the sales letter is a trend that people are getting increasingly skeptical. The PDF can be found here on Michael Fortin’s site.
http://www.successdoctor.com/books/deathofthesalesletter.pdf .
People have different buying modalities i.e. face to face, reading, video, audio and the more options you can give and the more value you can provide the better. Webevals.com is where Eric Graham’s core product is. Eric offers the guarantee at the end of the call and this is why he is the conversion doctor.
Interview with Eric Groves, SVP Constant Contact E-Mail Marketing For Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
For $15.00 per month you can reach 500 customers with an e-mail marketing solution for any entrepreneur or small business. Constant Contact is a profitable call for any business whom markets or wants to market using an e-mail list. Eric has taken his company Constant Contact from 10 customers to over 100,000 customers. He helps companies leverage their dollars through the relationship stage.
Constant Contact has over 150 e-mail templates from which to choose from. The messages come from Constant Contact’s servers and you will be able to manage your e-mail database on their platform which makes it easy.
Eric talks about how it can take up to 6-7 touches in order to convert a prospective customer into a customer. He even gives My Success Gateway, LLC a great idea for our own program Ultimate Business ToolBox by adding in a place to capture names and e-mail’s. He coined it ToolBox Tips. (So we will give Eric the credit for coining that name for our new application in the ultimate business ToolBox, thank you Eric)! The think I like about this is that it is not a newsletter sign up but a tips sign up page it sounds more inviting and not as much of a commitment as a newsletter sign up.
Eric takes me through the process of executing on the idea for ToolBox Tips. In the Constant Contact platform and web site it is a self-help process and anyone can do it. We can even be notified each time someone signs up to the web page. It is important for every business to make sure that we are always collecting information along the way. Constant Contact provides comprehensive tracking and reporting so that you can make the adjustments to your communications to your clients and prospects.
Eric talks about getting e-mail messages opened. He says that the key ingredients are: “Does the person know me and do they care about the e-mail?” The receiver will recognize the sender and there has to be a sense of urgency to get the reader to open the e-mail. We have to demonstrate that there will be a benefit to the reader. The e-mail can never be short enough. “The more we can make the content less about me and more about what we know or how we have helped a customer, we will see better results.”
The most powerful part of e-mail marketing is when someone forwards the e-mail which is known as “referral marketing.” Eric Groves also talks about images and using them effectively especially. E-mail clients known as HTML Readers vs. Text E-mail readers Eric gave us some industry usage stats and he says that 95% HTML, however a lot of wireless devices do not except HTML e-mail’s however Constant Contact can and does decipher the users reader in rendering HTML vs. Text e-mail. “Think about e-mail as a tool to build the relationship after the initial touch.”
Eric Groves gives a great example of a retailer in NYC using a guest book for sign up’s to their list. Make sure that the real guest book looks like a fine piece of art with leather and do the same with the e-mail version. He gives a great example of a success story with www.girlslearntoride.com for teaching women how to ride snow boards. They have become adept at building their list using Constant Contact. They run clinics to teach women and girls how to do extreme sports. They are using an incentive with a forward to a friend feature. You can enter the person to win a contest. And Eric goes one better for us be giving My Success Gateway, LLC a tip on doing an incentive.
He suggests that we put up an entrepreneur of the week for My Success Gateway, LLC for forwarding the most e-mail’s. What I loved about this call is that Eric is giving away practical tips for anyone who chooses to use them in their business.
He talks about a success story in Jim Peake’s back yard of Marblehead, MA Jack-Tar Restaurant http://www.jacktarmarblehead.com/ that had a location that had restaurants had failed before but now using Constant Contact’s e-mail marketing system he says that their new Admirals Club Beat the Clock promotion is doing very well by sending out e-mail’s asking customers to come in at 5:15 and to “Beat the Clock,” before restaurant traffic gets heavy. It is almost like having an additional seating every time they send out the e-mail.
There is sophisticated training and a free trial for 500 e-mail addresses for 60 days. There is full support from 9-9 EST with live seminars around the USA. You can find that information in the Learning Center at Constant Contact. Start building your list for free.