That’s right, business is not complicated. You can literally start a business like this and start making money in a few days.

Now sure, you might be thinking ‘there’s a ton of work to do just to start a company’ … well that’s not how entrepreneurs do things. Successful entrepreneurs jump first and tie the bungie cord to their legs on the way down. The details can wait. The task at hand is to start making money. Now.

Freelance web design is a great business to jump into if you’ve got the skills. There’s no overhead; you work from home. You already have a computer. You know html, css, Wordpress, Photoshop, and how to use a digital camera. You need 50 or 100 bucks in startup capital for gas and business cards, and that’s it.

The real trick is getting clients, but there’s a ton of opportunities out there. I’m going to show you how to find them and how to sell your services to them.

This is a 3 step plan you can execute in 3 days. Flat. Just keep in mind that this is about jumping in and making it happen right now. Sort out the details later. Get more professional later. Because worrying about details and a “perfectionist” attitude will only get you killed in the entrepreneurial game.

Step 1 - Put Together Your Promo Package

You need two things for your promo package: a website and some business cards. And you need it all now.

1. Your Website

I won’t go over hosting because if you’ve created a few websites you already have that available. If not, go to 1&1 or wherever and setup a shared hosting plan for 10 bucks a month.

If you can find the ultimate cool web designer domain name in 20 minutes, great. If not, don’t sweat it. Use your name followed by a word like design, graphics, media or whatever is available (johndoemedia.com). It’s simple, to the point, and easier to find a domain that’s not already registered.

Load up Wordpress and a stock “corporate looking” theme. Add a bio page, a services page, and a contact page with your phone number, address, and a contact form on it. Use a static front page with a splashy graphic, a bulleted list of your services and a “Get Quote” button that leads to your contact page.

Better yet, in big, bold letters at the top of your homepage put “Call Joe at 555-5555″. You want to make it as quick and easy, and as painless as possible for people to contact you.

2. Your Business Cards

Get on this as soon as you have your domain registered. If your host is also a registrar it will only take an hour or two before your domain is live but there’s no time to waste …

Design your business cards in Word or Photoshop to printout on 8 1/2″ x 11″ office paper. You need your name, address, phone number, web address, and a simple bulleted list of your services; web design, seo, etc. For paper, you can use:

• Those perforated business card sheets you print out and tear apart
• Card stock sheets you print out and cut into cards with a ruler and exacto knife
• Heavy watercolor paper from an art store you print out and cut into cards

Keep your cards really simple for now. Remember, details are for later.

Bam! Step one and your first day is done. You can spend weeks putting all this together, but this is not the important part of your business. Not yet. You can redo all this stuff more professionally later - don’t go and order some totally kick-ass cards that will take two weeks to be delivered. The key is to jump in and get your business rolling now.

Step 2 - Finding Clients

There are a ton of small to medium sized companies out there with websites that are optimized for Internet Explorer 3.0 - you know the kind I’m talking about; the websites are 10 years old and butt ugly. They’re an afterthought.

These companies are your target clients.

You know that big yellow book that gangsters beat people with in the movies? Well, before the internet people used that big book to find companies. That’s right, it’s the yellow pages and it’s a great source for finding companies. And I guess you can also use your local online yellow pages.

Here’s the methodology:

• Pick an industry. Preferrably one you know a little something about.
• Go through the yellow pages and look up each company listed and find their website. You may have to do a Google search for the company’s name + city because most of these websites will have very poor SEO.
• You can also do a Google search for “product + your city” to find some of these companies.

Here are the things you’re looking for:

• The company has a website already. Don’t waste your time right now with companies that have no website at all.
• Old sites; the optimized for IE3 or Netscape kind.
• Bad graphics that are pixelated or were cut out with jagged edges of the background showing.
• Mailto links that lead to a HotMail address or something other than an address at their own domain.

Make a list of all the target clients you find. List the company name, address, and web address. Spend the entire day making your list. If you run out of companies, pick another industry and keep building your list until the day is done. The bigger your list, the better.

Next, try and organize your list geographically like a paper route because tomorrow you’re going to visit all these companies …

Step 3 - Getting Sales

Today is the big day. Eat a good breakfast, grab a coffee, grab your business cards, grab your list and head out.

Your prospective clients already have a website. This is good for two reasons. One, it’s easier to do a make-over than start from scratch because they already have a domain, hosting, and some content available. And two, they understand a web presence is important - they just don’t know how to get any value out of it, so it’s become an afterthought.

Walk in to each client and …

• Introduce yourself
• Tell them you came across their website, and you can give it a makeover that will bring real value to their company.
• Tell them you’re just starting out, you work hard, and your pricing is competitive.

Here’s a basic rundown of some of the services you can offer …

• Website re-design
• SEO optimization
• Photography to update their building shots, product shots, team head-shots
• Content writing - for SEO and to provide information about the company/industry/products to visitors
• @domain email setup … for those old-school Hotmailers
• Email capture and marketing system
• Local business PPC advertising campaigns.

That’s it. You’re done. You’re making money.

The only 2 things that can stop you from being a raging success are stalling to get everything perfect before you “launch” your business, and stalling because you’re too chicken to go out there and knock on some doors to get the business.

If that’s the case, then you gotta go out and find a job.

© Zoomstart, 2009. | How to Start Your Freelance Web Design Business and Get Work in 3 Days Flat

Go to the Zoom Tools Page to get free ebooks and other cool stuff

A lot of people want to add a multiple line email signature right on the device itself. Here’s how:

1. Hit your menu key and open up the MemoPad app (yep, that’s the trick)
2. Type in your contact info, using the enter key to create separate lines for name, phone, fax, etc. It’s also a good idea to hit enter at the start to create a blank line at the top of the memo
3. Hit the menu key and press “Select” which allows you to highlight the text. Then use the trackball to highlight all the text including your blank line at the top
4. Hit the menu button again and press “Copy”
5. Now … hit the red “hang-up” button which takes you back to your apps icons. Select “E-mail Settings”
6. Use the trackball to hover over “Edit” under the appropriate email address and click the trackball
7. Scroll down to the “Signature” field. Hit the menu button and press “Paste”. Scroll down to the bottom to highlight “Save”. Click it
8. The dishes are done.

Send yourself an email to test that it’s working (Note: your signature is attached and doesn’t show when you compose an email on your Blackberry).

Hopefully this will save you the hour and a half I wasted tooling around with this …

© Zoomstart, 2009. | How to Change Your Email Signature on your BlackBerry

Go to the Zoom Tools Page to get free ebooks and other cool stuff

Thanks to the housing crash and the financial scam crisis, many businesses have had to downsize their workforce. But many others are prospering. And hiring.

And the difference between them is in how they “purpose” their people. For example; how many people in your business spend money (creating and delivering products and services) vs bring in money (selling products and services)?

And the oddest thing I see are companies that cut their sales and marketing staffs and budgets because sales are down. They do that because they see their sellers as a simple expense on the financial statements. And somehow they’re unable to make the connection that EVERYTHING on the income side of that statement comes from their sales and marketing people.

If you do it smartly, you can hire and/or retain your people in a recession. And doing it smartly, you can make a bundle of cash in the process. Here’s how:

1. Don’t Create More Competition

Tough times are also extraordinary times for the entrepreneurial spirit. Most people enjoy the stability of working for someone else. But pushed out on the street thanks to downsizing, talented go-getters will go and get.

This is especially true of salespeople. Your salespeople know your prices, your suppliers, customers, tricks of the trade. They know what you do wrong. They have everything they need to start their own business and compete with you successfully.

That information is also valuable should your other competitors be hiring. Which brings us to strategy #2 …

2. Hire Your Competition’s Talent

If your competitors are laying off their sales force, grab these people. Quick. They will bring new customers with them. We’re talking instant sales and revenue, plus a few juicy industry secrets.

The selling point to customers is simple and powerful: the old company is on the fast track to extinction, and this new company (yours) is growing, prospering, and will be there for them in the future.

I’ve seen companies steal a competitors sales force before and the effects are always exponential and dramatic.

3. Repurpose Your People

The simple math here is you need more people selling and marketing and fewer people doing everything else. And rather than be layed off, most would love the opportunity to do something a little different.

These sales tasks can be as simple as plastering flyers to every bare telephone pole in town to tracking down leads for your seasoned salespeople to pitch to. With any luck, you might even find a natural born seller wasting their talent in the stock room.

The real key here is to create a basic training program of do’s and don’ts for your non-salespeople. You also want to focus on results; this means doing things that will:

1. Get new customers in the door
2. Find and pre-qualify new prospects for your experienced sales team to close.

4. Always Say Yes

You’ll always come across customers asking for a product or service you don’t have. That shouldn’t stop you from selling it. Always say yes. Track it down and get it for the customer, outsource the job through a freelancer or competitor. Invent it if you have to. Always say yes to a sale.

What happens a lot is a customer asks for something and they get the time-honored (and lazy) “Sorry, we don’t carry those” answer. And that’s the end of it. But when you go the extra mile you not only get a sale, you get customer loyalty and some kick-ass word-of-mouth advertising.

Train everyone in your company to “escalate” a customer’s query to someone who can source the product or service and make this happen. Even if you only break even on the sale, this level of service can lead to many more sales. And in the meantime you’re creating work for your people.

5. Pay Commission Only

Maybe you just can’t find the cash to bring in new salespeople. This is a dire situation but there’s a solution which is to implement a commission only sales model.

This kind of pay-for-performance model is always controversial but with so many people looking for work, there’s a great opportunity for both companies and can-do salespeople. When you can’t afford a base salary, the only options left are to create work on commission or not at all.

The trick is to sweeten the pot. The sales that salespeople get pay for their commissions, their base salary, and everything else your company does. So raising commission rates will guarantee they’re properly compensated and you only pay for revenue producing results.

The Wrap-up

It’s all about keeping things in the simplest terms possible. When sales are down, you need more sales and less of everything else. The first thing most companies do is downsize everything and this can set a business’s progress back several years.

But if instead, you either shift people from buying (and spending) tasks to selling tasks or shift the balance by increasing your sales force, you’re still moving forward.

And not only will you come out of the recession at the top of your industry, you’ll understand how continual progress forward creates billion dollar companies.

In good times and in bad.

© Zoomstart, 2009. | Recession Hiring: And How to Make it Pay Off BIG

Go to the Zoom Tools Page to get free ebooks and other cool stuff

I talk a lot about business and entrepreneurship, but sometimes you just need a job. And finding a good one in a “layoff economy” is not always an easy thing. You need strategies that work and you need them now.

To start, you want to keep some essential facts about job hunting and the hiring process in mind:

• 90% of jobs are not advertised. This is huge, and it means newspaper classifieds, Craigslist, and the big career websites are only telling you about 10% of the jobs out there.
• There are 3 gateways to get through. The first is getting your resume looked at, the second is getting an interview, and the third is getting hired. You have to get through all 3 gateways to get the job.
• Companies want solutions to problems. A lot of times, a company will advertise a position but end up not hiring. They end up finding another solution because they don’t just want a warm body; they want a solution to a specific problem.

Just understanding these key points is critical to your job hunting strategy. It tells you where to look for a job, and how to present yourself for maximum results. So put these 5 strategies to work and let me know how your job hunt goes …

1. Get on Top of Your World

Communication has 3 components; body language, voice tonality, and the words you use. Your state of mind affects all these things either positively or negatively, so before you even write your resume or start your job search you need to be in the best frame of mind you can be.

This means sweeping away stress and anxiety, and boosting your confidence, level of happiness, and your go-get-em attitude. Here’s a few ideas to help you pump yourself up:

• Get active. Run, walk, bike, dance, pump some iron … anything to get your blood pumping and the “runner’s high” working in your favor.
• Get procreative. Put together a romantic evening with your significant other and make it a night to remember. Guaranteed to make you forget everything else.
• Have a play-day. Take the family out or go out with friends and just have a blast doing something new and fun.
• Do something selfless. Help someone out and expect nothing in return.
• Look good to feel good. Get a haircut or go to the spa for the afternoon. Then, buy a few new clothes to help you look your best.

2. Walk the Road Less Travelled

We know that only 10% of the jobs out there are ever advertised. We also know that 90% of the people out there are competing for those jobs; these odds are not in your favor. And getting a direct referral from someone pushes you right past gate one (getting your resume read) to gate two (the interview). It can even push you right into gate three (getting hired).

This means network, network, network and it’s how the best jobs are always found:

• Talk to your friends and family. Hit every party and group gathering you can.
• Play catch-up with former employers and colleagues.
• Attend conferences and events related to your field.
• Check out community job fairs.
• Talk to people everywhere; the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Just connect, make conversation, and look for opportunities.
• Research companies you’re interested in and start cold-calling them. Ask for the HR person, turn on the charm, and talk to them about any positions they’re hiring for.

3. It’s Not a Cover Letter, It’s a Sales Pitch

The best cover letters I’ve ever seen come from marketing people. They know how to sell it, and no matter what kind of job you’re applying for, you need to sell yourself with your cover letter.

Remember, companies are looking for a solution to a problem. And many times, if they don’t see the solution in any of the resumes they get, they just put off hiring someone. No interviews, nothing. Your cover letter needs to convey that you’re the solution to their problem.

1. Figure out the “real” problem the company needs to solve. They might need specific expertise or experience. They might need better efficiency or higher quality. If you know the job you’re applying for well, you already understand the common pitfalls and challenges that companies are dealing with.
2. Highlight yourself as the solution. With a few brief bullet points, talk about what you can bring to the job that will solve their problem. Don’t be arrogant or wishy-washy; be confident, factual, and positive. And describe the real benefits that hiring you brings.
3. You’re talking about what you can do, not what you’ve done. Unless you’re name-dropping, simply refer the employer to your resume for more detail on your experience, education, and accomplishments.
4. Close your cover letter by asking for an interview to discuss the position, restating your contact number and email address.

4. Your Resume is You

If you can’t get an interview through a direct referral, your resume has to introduce you to the employer. And you’ve got some more sales pitching to do. While your cover letter is selling the benefits of hiring you, your resume is selling the features you come with; education, experience, and key accomplishments.

Putting a resume together is pretty straight forward because it’s simply a record of what you’ve done. But keep these points in mind:

• Keep it neat and easily scannable/readable whether it’s being read onscreen or printed out. Also, stay away from crazy fonts or anything that’s distracting from the content.
• Fill any holes or “lost time” in your history. If you have to do this, rather than stating this year to that year, state the number of years you were employed at each company.
• Fit in with the company’s business culture. For example, a non-union company won’t be impressed if you flaunt your union credentials. It scares them. And the opposite can also be true.
• Tailor your descriptions of duties, accomplishments, and skills to the job you’re applying for. You want to talk about the things you’ve done that are most relevant to what you will be doing.
• Use your references up front if it will help. Generally, it’s good practice to finish your resume with “references available upon request”. But, if there’s a chance a little name dropping will help you make a connection, include your references page as well.

5. Kick-Ass Interviewing

If you’ve gotten to the point of getting an interview, you’re more than half way there. And even if you’re up against other applicants who are better qualified on paper, the interview is about much more than that. It’s about you. It’s about what you can bring to the job. And it’s about making the employer believe in you.

• Sell yourself first. Law 14 of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership teaches us that people have to buy into you before they buy into your ideas. An interview is that kind of feeling-out process. It’s not all business; you have to get to know each other with a little casual conversation too. Be likeable and real. Just leave your funny bone at home; some people don’t like funny.
• Be interested. Look for things you know about when you go in. These might be customers or suppliers you’ve dealt with before, equipment you’ve operated, or a process you have experience with. Ask questions and relate your own helpful and positive experiences to those things. A little “shop talk” goes a long way.
• Be confident. Anything you don’t know that’s part of the job is something you can learn. Anything about the job that doesn’t appeal to you is something you can change later or adapt to. Fear itself is always the only thing you need to fear. If you need a boost before the interview, hit strategy #1 quickly and go in there while you’re on top of the world.

So there you go. A job search is basically marketing. I think you can see that understanding what an employer needs will help you immensely. Looking in places where jobs are best found will also help you immensely. And being at your best throughout the whole process will help you … let’s hear it … immensely.

Now go get ‘em.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | 5 Great Job Hunting Strategies that Will Get You Hired

Go to the Zoom Tools Page to get free ebooks and other cool stuff

Barack Obama’s email list is worth half a billion dollars. Do I have your attention yet?

Every business needs to have a web strategy, and every web strategy needs to incorporate list building and email marketing. If you don’t, you’re missing a massive opportunity to engage and interact with your users … and to sell, presell, upsell, cross sell, and turn one time customers into repeat customers. You need a list.

In fact, good list building and email marketing is responsible for the lion’s share of online profits made by many Fortune 500 companies, web-trepreneurs, and affiliate marketers. It’s extremely powerful. In fact “list marketing” is so powerful that it takes shape in many forms; telemarketing, fax marketing, and direct mail marketing as well as email marketing.

Isn’t it just spam? The difference between spam and good email marketing is this: permission. It’s permission-based marketing when you ask users to subscribe and give them the option not to. And when your users can unsubscribe at any time, quickly and easily. And when you provide great value that fulfills their expectations.

Then, it’s a trusted connection. And it can be the foundation to a multi-million dollar business.

So to help you put your list building and email marketing strategy together, here’s a … well, a list … of resources where you can find the tools, software solutions, and strategies for building your lists and launching your email marketing campaigns …

1. Feedburner

Wordpress, combined with a Feedburner account, and the FeedSmith plugin to unite the two is as simple and easy as it gets … and best of all, the whole package is free. Wordpress is a great CMS for all but the most massive and complex websites. And Feedburner allows readers to subscribe to your “blog” posts by email (over half my subscribers do), as well as giving you metrics and some other great tools.

Now, allowing people to subscribe to your blog through RSS or email is not exactly list building (some would say). But it’s one of the things that makes blogs so powerful; some blogs have more than a million subscribers … if that’s not a powerful list, I don’t know what is.

2. Services, Software, and Integrated Solutions

AWeber, MailChimp, Campaigner, Vertical Response, iContact, and Constant Contact are all email marketing services. They give you the code to put subscription forms on your websites, track your subscribers, and enable you to create complex, targeted campaigns that can generate, personalize and send out emails according to criteria you specify. Since most of them offer free limited trials, you might as well take a few for a spin before you decide which one to go with.

Interspire, L-Soft, and Group Mail create email marketing software. Hosting your own solution has a higher startup cost than using a service; you have to buy the software, setup a server, and you’ll need a little more expertise to run it yourself. But if you have a big list, it’ll be cheaper than paying service fees in the long run. You also have complete in-house control over your list; a very valuable asset to your business. One good strategy is to start with a service and then migrate into a self-hosted solution as your email marketing efforts grow.

NetSuite and Salesforce are for larger companies. These kinds of solutions do much more than just email marketing. They allow you to integrate that strategy into the rest of your business complete with metrics, ecommerce, inventory control, and even accounting. These tools make email marketing a true component of your business and give you access to a network of professionals that can help you get the results you’re looking for.

3. Getting Traffic to Your Signup Page

Before you can start email marketing, you have to build a list. The strategies for list building can be broken down into 2 parts; first, you need to generate traffic to your signup page …

• How to Build a High Traffic Website or Blog
• 3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic
• SEO (search engine optimization) video tips from Google’s Matt Cutts
• A Beginner’s Guide to Social News Websites
• Using Social Media Sites to Grow Your Blog’s Traffic
• How to Use Forums To Drive Hundreds of Thousand of Readers to Your Blog
• Get a template and best practices advice on writing press releases from PRWeb
• Online Video Marketing: Ten Ways You Can Use YouTube To Promote Your Online Content
• Google’s AdWords Learning Center for PPC (pay per click) advertising

4. Motivating People to Subscribe

Now that you’ve got traffic flowing to your website the second thing to do to build your list is to motivate or incentivize people to subscribe …

• Copywriting 101: An Introduction to Copywriting
• How Crappy Landing Pages Kill Email Campaigns
• Seal the Deal: 10 Tips for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page
• What Is A Double Opt-In Email List And Why Is It Important?
• Great video on landing page tips from Frank Kern and Pen Island Studios
• Email Marketing Tips: Getting More Email Subscribers
• How to Collect/Capture Email Addresses
• Increase Your Sales/Optin Conversions with Multi-Media
• A great giveaway incentive is to Create and Publish Your Own (free) eBook

5. Email Marketing Strategies

Finally, you’ve got the tools in place and you’ve started building an email list. Now it’s time to put some smart email marketing strategies to use …

• The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers
• Email Marketing Statistics and Metrics
• How Email Segmentation Made My List Stronger AND $31,940 More Profitable
• Read Lucrative List Building by Glen Hopkins
• How To Build a Successful Email Newsletter
• Great example of email marketing
• Get MailChimp’s free email marketing guide: HTML Email Coding/Delivery Guide for Web Developers

Now you’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

Email marketing has one of the highest ROIs of any marketing method, online or off. Making it work for you comes from two things: integrity and relevance. With those two things in mind, you’re literally building a vehicle that produces income or influence at the push of a button …

click.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | The Complete Guide to List Building and Email Marketing

Go to the Zoom Tools Page to get free ebooks and other cool stuff

Most business books only teach half of what you need to know to start and run a successful business. And guess what? It’s the wrong half.

That’s right, you can learn how to set up a corporation, how to lease space, track inventory, and all the other things that cost you money in most business books. They teach the “buying” side of business. And very few books have much to say about the “selling” side. And selling is far more important. At least, it is if you want to create a successful business that makes money.

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling IS that other half of business you need to know.

It’s a must-have book for any entrepreneur or business owner. And in it, Jeffrey outlines 12.5 (catchy huh?) principles to help you sell anything. Let’s take a look at them …

1. Kick your own ass. At the end of the day, there is no truer motivation than YOU … wanting it. Selling is hard; not selling is why most businesses fail. And the only way to push the excuses aside and not get caught in the blame game is to take ownership of the situation and not allow YOU to fail. A riding instructor once said to a friend of mine “you have to fall off your horse 5 times before you can be a real cowboy”. Well, part of that is getting back on that horse every time you fall off. Yippee ki-yay cowboy.

2. Prepare to win, or lose to someone who is. What do you know about what you’re selling? About what the competition is offering? About who you’re selling to? Knowledge is power and having good answers to the hard questions is often the difference between making a sale and going home empty handed. Preparedness means you have the solutions to your customer’s problems. It means you’ve done your homework and you’re two steps ahead of everyone else.

3. Personal branding IS sales: It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. There’s no easier way to sell than when the customer comes to you. And they come to you because they know YOU. They know your brand. And they trust it. What people think about you is what they think about what you’re selling so don’t tarnish your personal brand. If you build a solid personal brand, you’ll be the first thing people think of when they think about your products and services. And you’re the first person they’ll call when they want to buy.

4. It’s all about value, it’s all about relationship, it’s not all about price. Competing on price is a hard game to play, and it doesn’t cultivate customer loyalty. Only value and relationship building can do that. And rather than “adding” value, you want to give it away up front. The more value you give away freely, the higher the perceived value willl be for the stuff you sell. And cultivating relationships will open doors that are guarded by “trust”; something that great pricing alone can never push past.

5. It’s NOT work, it’s NETwork. You know those people who have everything come to them easily. It’s not luck, it’s networking. The more tentacles you have reaching out into every corner of the universe, the easier it is to find what you need. Or rather, have it find you. One of the biggest things that stops people from networking is the time it takes. You have to make it fun and not a chore. The best salespeople I know are always out having a blast. And they invite along the people they want to network with. Good networking is never “work”.

6. If you can’t get in front of the real decision maker, you suck. Learning the language of the people who sign the checks is critical. Often you’ve got one small window to grab their attention so you can make a broader pitch, and if you blow it, your amazing pitch doesn’t matter. I met a brilliant programmer a couple years ago who was trying to start his own business. His ideas were absolutely cutting edge. The problem was, you needed an engineering degree to understand him. And it didn’t matter what other engineers thought about his ideas, it’s the CEOs he needed to excite. Because they write the checks.

7. Engage me and you can make me convince myself. From a leadership perspective, I know if you can get someone to take ownership of a task, the rest is easy. It’s all about providing direction rather than micro-managing. And the same goes for selling. If you can guide your customers in the right direction so they find their own way to making a purchase, the rest is easy.

8. If you can make them laugh, you can make them buy. How many funny commercials do you remember vs dramatic ones? Laughter is viral. It reduces our stress hormones and puts us in that “feelgood” mood that makes us more receptive to the ideas in front of us. Comedy can be tricky, but making people laugh is the quickest way to create an atmosphere of trust and goodwill. So, slay them with a smile if you wanna rack up the sales.

9. Use CREATIVITY to differentiate and dominate. When something is proven to work, we tend to emulate it to create the same successful results for ourselves. The problem is, whatever it was, probably worked because it was different. It was new. It was fresh. It got attention. If you want to be good, you can follow a proven formula. But if you want to be great, you have to get creative and do something different. You have to create the next big thing that everyone else copies.

10. Reduce their risk and you’ll convert selling to buying. This principle is 100% risk-free guaranteed to increase your sales! See how easy it is to eliminate risk? Risk is a hurdle every buyer has to get over. That’s why things like branding, trust, and social proof are so important; they eliminate certain unknowns. But there are all kinds of risks a buyer can face. Know the risks to your customers and find ways to reduce or eliminate them. Now you’re changing the dynamic from push to pull; rather than “selling” to them, they’re “buying” from you because you’ve removed the obstacles that were in THEIR way.

11. When you say it about yourself it’s bragging. When someone else says it about you it’s proof. This principle is a testament to testimonials. The essence of social proof is that other people believe in your products and services. They rave about them. And the more people that believe, the more people that will. Testimonials are so powerful that most of the best companies in the world spend millions every year getting celebrities and sports figures to market their stuff. On a smaller scale, that proof comes from your previous customers and from media buzz.

12. Antennas up! There are opportunities all around you. Opportunities to make a sale, to change the dynamic of a pitch that’s going badly, to project confidence instead of doubt. All of those opportunities can slip right by unnoticed if you’re not paying attention. Great opportunities can be large or small and they’re doors that are only open for a short time. Always be aware of what’s going on around you and be ready to jump through those doors when they open.

12.5. Resign your position as general manager of the universe. Sales success has one downside: you’re good, and you know it. And other people know it. In reality, you can’t solve every problem and you can’t start thinking you can. You don’t know better than everyone else, and you can’t start thinking you do. It’s easy to get “above” yourself. It’s human, and I’ve done it plenty of times. We all have and we all will. And it’s the best way to put people off and start a downward spiral of sales failure. Let someone else rule the universe. And just focus on selling.

So there you have it; 12.5 principles for being a great salesperson. The Little Red Book of Selling is truly one of those definitive books on its subject. I can go through these principles and think about the best salespeople I know and check them all off as things they practice.

It’s the other half of business all those other business books don’t talk about. The right half. The better half.

The profitable half.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness from the Little Red Book of Selling

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If you’ve ever looked at ways to make money online, then you’ve probably heard of affiliate marketing. To boil it down; affiliate marketing is delivering internet users through SEO or paid advertising to a merchants website in order to gain a commission on a sale or some other action.

The internet makes it easy, which makes it very competitive … and so, not so easy. But affiliate marketing has been around a long, long time. Long before the internet was in full swing.

Here’s a true story about off-line affiliate marketing I think you’ll find entertaining and educational …

The Drunken Barber

Years ago, I met this dude who was a hair stylist. I can’t even remember his name but he was really hyper and had a real drinking problem. Just picture “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” mixed with Mickey Rourke’s character in the movie “Barfly”.

He was also a world class bullshitter … er … I mean schmoozer.

And although he never had a problem getting a job; he was a very good stylist and worked at some of the top salons … he couldn’t keep a job to save his life because of his partying. So he was always looking for quick cash.

Enter affiliate marketing. Being the barfly and conversationalist that he was, he managed to strike up a deal with a local bar to bring in customers and he asked me to help him design a membership card. So here’s how it worked …

He had these cards printed up, with the bar’s logo and little boxed numbers all along the edges that could be punched out with a standard ticket hole-punch (no modern day swipe-and-scan gift card stuff here). The card entitled the patron to one free drink, limited to one use per day, and cost $50, so that’s less than a dollar per drink. A pretty good deal.

The whole idea behind this promotion is that most people have more than one drink when they go to the bar, so to the bar owner it’s like a discount/rewards card to get people into his place. And of course, the hero of our story gets paid $50 a pop for schmoozing and selling these cards to his fellow barflies around town.

His plan was to sell 300 cards and rake in $15000. I don’t know how it went, but he was a pretty good talker so I’m sure he did alright.

So as you can see, affiliate marketing has been around for a while. It’s about great offers that sell themselves to a targeted crowd. It’s also about creative deal-making with merchants that pay off for them on the back end.

And it’s not just an internet-only business.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | Old School Affiliate Marketing BEFORE The Internet

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Effective advertising and marketing leads to sales, and sales lead to building a successful business. That simple equation tells us why successful businesses are always advertising.

Now wouldn’t it be great to get some free advertising to jumpstart your sales?

The Real Secret of Flyer Advertising

We all get flyers in the mail, and most newspapers have a nice collection of them sprinkled in between the pages of the paper. The most common flyers are the ones you see every week; from local home electronics and grocery stores offering up great deals for the week.

Here’s the big secret …

Those companies don’t pay for the flyers. Cool, huh? Here’s what they do; they canvas their suppliers and what they’re asking for is two things.

1. A great offer. This is basically a discount that they are going to pass on to the consumer. It’s usually a limited time offer for the length of the promotion.
2. A placement fee. Quite simply a check to cover the cost for featuring their products in the flyer. This is what pays for the flyers.

There’s no big trick to this. It’s a standard business practice, but most small businesses don’t know how it works so they don’t take advantage of this kind of promotional advertising.

Putting Together Your Flyer Campaign Step by Step

1. Know your audience

This technique is best suited for the local area where you sell goods or services. And although a lot of people see flyers as little more than a housebreaking tool for their dog, many people DO read flyers. And these people are looking for a good deal. A special, a sale, a unique offer.

These deal-seekers are your audience. And they live in your local area.

2. Scope out the market

Gather up as many flyers as you can and see what kind of deals other companies are promoting. Which flyers catch your attention? How are they laid out? Pay special attention to single page flyers from small businesses; this is generally the best design for small businesses and it allows you to make a strong, bold pitch for one or two products or services.

3. Find out the costs

There are a lot of ways to distribute flyers, like business-to-business fax services and mail services. But probably one of the best ways is with an insert in a free local newspaper that’s home delivered weekly. Wherever you live there are probably one or two of these local papers and they operate solely on advertising income. The great thing about these papers is they cater to your local area. And the people that like to stay in tune with the local news are the same people who love finding great deals.

Rather than making this a one-shot deal, think about running your flyer campaign weekly for three or four weeks. This will give your campaign a real chance to get results, and you can get better pricing.

Get at least two or three pricing/campaign-duration options to take to your suppliers. The longer the campaign is that you can get placement fees for, the better.

4. Craft the deal

Now that you know the costs and have an idea of the kind of deal you want to offer your customers, it’s time to sell the idea to your suppliers. Be creative, and don’t be afraid to take their suggestions on what to offer and how to offer it; after all, they’re paying for it.

But remember, you’re not just doing advertising for them. The key is, customers are coming to you, and your supplier benefits because you sell more of their goods in the process. It’s very important that you get both a discount or a giveaway from your supplier to create a compelling offer, and a placement fee to cover the cost of the advertising. Other than that, let your creativity run wild.

5. Execute your plan

Metrics are very important. You want to track the results of your campaign, and that can be as simple as monitoring the increase in your sales from the campaign.

The big chain stores that do this generally have merchandising contracts with their suppliers. The contract states that the supplier agrees to do x number of promotions a year with the retailer, providing discounts, placement fees, and marketing displays and materials. Having this kind of ongoing promotional agreement is good for both businesses.

But to get ongoing promotion contracts, you need to show results. So tracking is important. If you can show your supplier an increase in sales due to the campaign, they’ll sign up again.

Some Examples of Different Businesses

You might be thinking, ‘this doesn’t really fit my business’. Sure it does. You just have to get creative. Here’s a couple examples to show how you could work this with different types of businesses …

Example #1. You have a painting company, which is basically a service business. Professional painters generally get paint from a paint store rather than a big-box hardware store because it’s better quality and covers in fewer coats. That’s a great selling feature because it means less labor cost for your clients. Talk about that benefit in your flyer, and get your supplier to offer a 15% discount on paint. Finally, don’t forget your call to action; “Call us for a quote today!”

Example #2. You have a pet supply store. You might want to have a store-wide sale, but you also want to get your flyer promotion paid for. Secure as many sale discounts as you can from different suppliers by telling them about your promotion. Choose some key products and get some great deals plus placement fees from those suppliers. In this case, your flyer is pitching your “super-duper kick-ass store-wide sale”, and features a few really great offers that you secured placement fees for.

Example #3. You have a swimwear store. Now let’s think outside the box for this one. Discounts are great for getting traffic into your shop, but there are other incentives too. You might get one of your swimwear suppliers to sponsor a trip for two to the Bahamas, plus pay for the flyers. Customers can enter the contest at your store, and get an additional entry for every swimsuit they purchase.

As you can see, there are lots of ways to craft flyer promotion deals. And by bringing your suppliers in as strategic partners on the promotion, you can get free advertising that benefits both them and you.

Try it. You’ll like it.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | How to Get Free Local Advertising For Your Small Business

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For a lot of people right now, the economy sucks. But for some, it’s a time of great opportunity. And which side of that fence you’re on depends a lot on how you understand the fundamentals.

Let’s get all metaphoric and try to sort it out …

The Lion vs. The Gazelle

So we take a lion and a gazelle and put them in a big fenced-in park. And we wait. One of two things will happen … either the lion eats the gazelle or the lion starves to death.

Those are the ONLY two options. That’s the brutal truth, and at the end of the day that’s just a fundamental truth of economics. Someone always wins and someone else always loses. The lion and gazelle can not live in harmony and go skipping off into the sunset together. This is survival.

But what if we tweak the rules of the game?

Well, we can give the lion an advantage by making sure there’s lots of tall grass to sneak around in. But that’s unfair to the gazelle, so to help level the playing field, we’ll paint the lion red. But maybe that’s too much in favour of the gazelle, so let’s make a rule that says the wind only blows in one direction. That way the wind can’t suddenly turn and give away the lion’s position when it’s sneaking up through the grass.

And you know what … we can make rule after rule after rule to try and level the playing field in order to make it as equal as possible. And all that does is make the game last longer.

There are still only two possible outcomes. Gazelle or lion. No matter what else happens. And knowing that is extremely powerful.

So how does this apply to you? Your investing, your business? Well it gives you two rules to live by:

1. Know your advantages and disadvantages. If you don’t understand the game, if you can’t find enough strategic advantages on the field, find another game to play.
2. Always live to play another day. If things start going bad; if the wind changes direction or you suddenly find yourself painted red … cut your losses and get out of the game.

Whether you see the economy as good or bad, it’s still all about how you CHOOSE the games you play. Don’t waste your time blaming others for cheating or arguing about an unlevel playing field. Get out of the games you can’t win and find the ones you can.

Because there’s always a sweet scent in the winds of change.

And it just might be your dinner.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | The Economy Sucks … Or Does It?

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1. First, we start with the head

This first painting is by world renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman and it’s called Alaska Light. The exactness and detail put it on the “head” end of the balance scale. But … and excuse my criticism here, there’s something missing. It’s flat. Static. We need to head to the other end of the scale …

2. Second, we find the heart

This painting is called Number 8 and it’s by Jackson Pollock. And it’s all heart and emotion and movement. And while it’s not a picture of “anything” in particular, it has something that a snapshot of scenery doesn’t have … a pulse. It moves. Even though we don’t know what it is, somewhere in that chaos we know it’s alive. But still, something’s missing …

3. Finally, we find the head and the heart together

This drawing is by Kamil Smala and I urge you to check out his portfolio on Deviant Art. I have no business taking anything away from the brilliant works of Bateman or Pollock … but this … this is a masterpiece. This is profound. This is what happens when the head and the heart come together. When you combine technical skill and exactness with passion and fluidity. When the detail and realism is astounding, but the chaos and imperfections make it real and pump life and movement into it.

This is balance.

Plan with your head. And execute with your heart.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | Plan With Your Head, and Execute With Your Heart

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