Focusing On Your Niche [Audio]

by Todd Schnick on January 23, 2012

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If you are attempting to simplify your business, and make running your business less complicated, it would be an important first step to focus on a niche.

You can’t be everything to everybody. You can succeed in business by serving a very tight and specific segment of the market place.

That doesn’t mean you cannot service and help other customers (outside the niche), but it does mean you MUST focus on your niche with your marketing message and program.

A tighter niche also makes it easier for word of mouth…too broad a market makes it more difficult to make referrals.

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[join our intrepid community to rock business strategy!]

[photo from flickr]

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What’s The ONE THING You Want Your Website To Accomplish?

by Todd Schnick on January 22, 2012

It is all about conversions.

Assuming your website is the hub of your online business presence, when people come to our website, we want them to take some action.

So, what action do you want people to take? Could it be one of the following?

1. Signing-up for your e-newsletter.

2. Buying product direct from your site.

3. Downloading your e-book.

4. Buying your book(s).

5. Filling out a form to make an appointment.

6. Subscribing to your RSS feed.

7. Commenting on your blog.

8. Sharing content with others.

9. Purchasing from your various affiliate links.

10. Listening to your podcasts and/or watching your videos.

For me, at this time, I want people to subscribe to my mailing list (which you can find here, if you’re interested).

You see, I am in the slow process of generating a series of e-books that I will ultimately present and sell here, so for the time being, I am currently building a community and a list.

[I consult too, but those business opportunities come via word of mouth mostly. You can obviously contact me thru this site, but building my email list is the primary focus of this site.]

I suspect many of you have put up a website because…well, that’s what small business people do. If you have a website just to serve as an online brochure, you are missing a critical function of your site. You need your site to convert…

…convert people to take the action you want them to. To sign-up, buy, comment, share, etc…

So, you need to decide what is most important to you. And redesign your website so that people take the ONE action you want them to take. Strip away all the distractions that confuse people and make it harder for them to take the one key action.

Problem is, too many people try to do too much. Some try to do the complete list seen above. All on the home page, as a matter of sad fact.

So don’t do that. Remove stuff first, before you add more stuff. Make it simple for people to accomplish the ONE THING you want them to.

Set up your site to convert, and achieve what you need your website to do. And focus nonstop on making the improvements and adjustments to improve your conversion rate. You should test and retest until you convert at a rate acceptable to your business goals…

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[drawing by hugh macleod]

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Removing Digital Clutter Too

by Todd Schnick on January 21, 2012

You likely know that I am a minimalist. I have removed lots of physical clutter from my life. I have dislodged myself from personal obligations that distracted me from what was important personally, and for my clients. And I have simplified my life to focus on the truly important things.

But…

I have a new challenge…

Digital clutter.

Look, I don’t know if I will ever convince you to remove all of your digital clutter. But let me say this:

For me, removing digital clutter is as freeing and uplifting as removing physical clutter. Removing distractions, ANY distractions, are about eliminating the unnecessary to allow you to appreciate and focus on the necessary.

Allow me to give you some examples of some digital clutter I am slowing purging:

1. Emails in the inbox. I keep too many emails. Clutter that I will never read again. Digital notes that no longer have meaning, and distract me from the important messages that matter. My inbox is now such that zero is attainable each day. Stuff to save is neatly organized and archived, useless less important stuff is deleted. Right away.

2. Followers. Yeah, too many of you still battle “follower envy” where we measure our self-worth by the number of followers we have on Twitter, friends on Facebook, or connections on LinkedIn. But for most of you, a majority of your followers aren’t real, or really connected to you in a meaningful. So, remove the useless followers that get in the way of the people who matter…those who might be your true fans.

3. RSS subscriptions. I have subscribed to thousands of blogs over the last several years. Mainly to experiment and see if a new blog and website will prove to be helpful and meaningful to me. After a while, I have to discipline myself to delete the stuff that isn’t relevant, that I am not reading.

4. e-newsletters. Like you, I’ve subscribed to too many e-newsletters. I’ve made it a point to unsubscribe from those that aren’t providing real value to me. For me, there are only a few that I look forward to. If I don’t want to drop everything when an new email comes in, it probably isn’t worth subscribing to, IMHO.

5. Files in Google docs. After a while, there are a ton of google docs I’ve created for this project or that. Often, I need to review the archive, and remove the clutter that is no longer relevant. To be honest, my biggest reason to remove digital clutter in Google docs? To allow me to more easily find the docs that are more important…

6. iTunes songs. I have over 2,000 songs in iTunes. In the past twelve months, I’ve listened to 45 of them. And with me listing to Pandora most of the time…do I really need all these songs?

7. Books on Kindle. Yeah, I used to have a couple thousand books in grand bookcases. Now, I own only nine hardcover books. The ones that really matter to me. But, I now have a growing collection of digital books. And there are several I will never read again. I am deleting them. They distract me from the books that move me…

8. Audio reminder files on smart phone. I leave myself reminders on my smart phone voice memo tool all the time. Ideas for blog posts. People to call. Old friends to reach out to. Ideas for clients. After a while, they accumulate. If I let the list pile up, I suddenly have a ton of audio files that are less impactful.

9. Random stuff in Evernote. The beauty of Evernote is the ease with which I can save pics, ideas, websites, articles, audio files, etc. The downside? After a while you accumulate a lot of stuff. I have to make it a point to go thru that material and delete content that is no longer relevant. I also have to improve my tagging and organizing ability to better store the data.

10. Downloaded podcasts. I have 74 hours of podcasts to listen to. On one hand, endless streams of great content to learn from. On the other hand, it is almost too much, and I don’t what to listen to first.

11. eBooks. With all the blogs I read, I’ve downloaded dozens and dozens of ebooks to read. In fact, upon counting the files in my eBook folder, I have 47. I mean, wow. How am I ever going to read 47 books? With more to come, I am sure. Now, I am not sure which ones I really really wanted to read in the first place…

How much digital clutter is cluttering up your life? How much digital clutter is distracting you from your important work? Is it time to clear away some of your clutter?

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[for tips on how to simplify your business, join me here]

[drawing by hugh macleod]

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Is Too Much Business Clutter Weighing You Down?

by Todd Schnick on January 20, 2012

What are you?

No matter the size of your organization, you need to be slight and nimble. All businesses and organizations take on too much clutter.

This slows us down. This makes it harder to make quick strategic decisions. This makes it harder to pivot and evolve with the ever-changing marketplace.

Here are a few questions to ask of you and your organization:

1. Too much overhead?

2. Too many staff not pulling their weight?

3. Too many pieces of collateral that do more to confuse than educate?

4. Too much distracting clutter on your website?

5. Are 80% of your customers only buying 20% of your products? Probably time to remove inventory that ain’t selling.

6. Decision-making matrix involve far too many people?

7. Do you have too many meetings…that don’t really produce results?

8. Too many fake prospects in the CRM database?

9. Too many marketing campaigns confusing the marketplace?

10. Too many pricing discounts and incentives that are costing you profit?

11. Too many phony sales and marketing scripts that are confusing your sales people, and preventing them from being human?

12. Attending too many conferences and not really getting return?

13. Doing too much needless travel when teleconferencing would do?

14. Have too much office space costing you a lot in rent?

15. Too many lost business opportunities because you are too busy having to pay attention to all the stuff above?

If you answered yes to even a handful of these questions (especially number 15), it is probably time to simplify a few things with your organization…

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[drawing by hugh macleod]

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How Do You Fix The Chasm Between Marketing and Sales?

by Todd Schnick on January 18, 2012

This was originally published on The Customer Collective, who sponsors the SalesChaosTV Show.

The divide between marketing and sales has existed for as long as there has been business. But why does it have to be that way? In last week’s show, I talk about why there really shouldn’t be two separate and very distinct departments that are naturally set up to conflict with one another. This, in my view, is poor org chart management…

What do you think?

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[get more FREE intrepid marketing and sales advice here!]

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How To Construct Your Marketing Plan In 7 Simple Steps

by Todd Schnick on January 17, 2012

A real pleasure to speak to the East Cobb Business Association today! Today’s topic: The seven critical steps to constructing a marketing plan. I promised the group that I would make the outline available to those that wanted it.

Reminder, these steps are to be developed and considered in sequential order. Not randomly selected. ;-)

1. UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET AND YOUR COMPETITION
Is there a market that wants what you sell? Is there enough opportunity to run a profitable business? What about the competition? Is there so much that it will be virtually impossible to get enough market share to run a profitable business? How has your competition positioned itself? Are they underserving a segment of the market that you can serve? If your competition is zigging, can you zag? And zag profitably?

2. UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMER
Who are they? Where are they? Why do they buy? What motivates them to buy? How do they buy? Where do they buy? How do they get their information (trade mags, search engines, industry blogs, social media)? Who makes the buying decisions (lady of the house, the father, the purchasing agent, CEO)?

3. PICK A NICHE
The world is big. Way big. You cannot be everything to everyone. Narrow your focus to a very select target audience that is easily identifiable and easy to contact. If you are a mechanic, specialize in repairing one specific type of automobile. Not every vehicle in Metro Atlanta. And don’t forget…you can fix any car that pulls into your garage. But your marketing message must be focused on your niche.

4. CREATE YOUR MESSAGE, YOUR STORY
How are you going to communicate to your niche audience? What is your story? What is the “why” of your business? What is your purpose? And remember, it isn’t about you. Or even your product. Your message is about how you serve THEM. It is about how YOU fulfill a want or solve a problem. Yeah, it is an elevator pitch, but your marketing message is so much more than that.

5. PICK YOUR MARKETING TACTICS
This is the fun part! This is HOW you deliver your message. The tactics. The medium you use to deliver your message to your niche audience. Direct mail? Cable advertising buys? Social media? Networking? Magazine advertisements? Newsletters? E-newsletters? Goodyear blimp? And be smart about this. Don’t use Twitter to reach an 89-year old grandmother. The goal is to find a medium that reaches the most possible amount of people in your targeted, niche audience, as inexpensively as possible. Harder to figure that out without steps one through four.

[and too many small business people start with Step 5, and market by throwing noodles against the wall, hoping something sticks]

6. SET SALES AND MARKETING GOALS
How many widgets do you have to sell, how many contracts signed, how many purchase orders completed to meet your profit goals? [profit is your goal, correct?] You have to know this. Too many small business people do not. And what is your close rate? If you need to sell 100 widgets to be profitable, and you close 10% of the people you pitch, you need to talk to 1,000 people to close enough business to be profitable. And when I say “talk” to people, I mean that you are engaging with a qualified prospect. The reason most small business owners aren’t making it, is that they are NOT talking to enough prospects in the first place. Yeah, it is kind of a numbers game.

7. SET YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
This process is actually simple. Your marketing spend should do one thing: enable you to get an audience with the right amount of qualified prospects. Using the example above, you should spend enough to get you talking to those 1,000 prospects. The problem is, most small business people start with this step and say they only have X to spend on marketing. This is the wrong approach. Because you are flying blind.

Thanks for your attention today, I hope this has been helpful in providing a framework to construct a simple marketing plan for your business. Feel free to email me with questions, or in the comments below.

[you can also join my weekly intrepid marketing tips email list here! i hope you'll join us!]

And here is a short video on this same idea from SalesChaosTV:

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Living A Meaningful Life: An Intrepid Radio Special Edition with The Minimalists

by Todd Schnick on January 17, 2012

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Ryan and Joshua

Finally.

The book on minimalism that I’ve been looking for… one to help people finally understand what this movement is really about. Written by my friends Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, known as The Minimalists.

On this show, Joshua and Ryan join me to talk about their latest book, Minimalism: Live A Meaningful Life. This isn’t, however, a book about minimalism from the standpoint of owning less than 100 things, without a car or living a life in solitary.

This is a very personal and transparent account about stripping away life’s excess to focus on the five things that matter most towards living a happy, meaningful life: health, relationships, passions, personal growth and contribution.

I’ve created a list of people I am sending this book to. You will too…

You can purchase the book here (affiliate link):

[to simplify your business, join my intrepid list]

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Instant Podcasts. Just Add Water.

by Todd Schnick on January 16, 2012

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Just making a simple point…

…about how simple it is to generate a podcast to educate your marketplace.

I will publish this post at 115pm on Monday, January 16, 2012.

I started this post at 12:50pm.

Using your smartphone, of which most have a voice recorder or voice memo tool, I recorded a short three-minute piece of audio content. I then did the following:

1. Emailed the file to myself.
2. Uploaded the m4a file to iTunes.
3. With a mouse click, converted the file to an mp3 file.
4. Uploaded the file to my hosting service, although for small media files like this, you don’t really need a hosting service.
5. Synched the file to my wordpress blog using a free plug-in called Powerpress.
6. Wrote 130ish words of supporting copy.
7. Hit publish.
8. Boom. Instant podcast.

No more excuses guys, in sharing meaningful ideas with your audience…

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The Impact of Mobile Apps, Mobile Web, and QR Codes for Your Business, and What You Should Do About It

by Todd Schnick on January 15, 2012

A pleasure to welcome back Taja Dockendorf of Pulp + Wire to this special edition of IntrepidTV.

On this show, we talk about the importance of apps, the mobile web and QR codes to your overall marketing presentation.

Highlights from the show:

1. What’s the difference between an app, and a mobile web site? And do you need an app for your business? What questions you should ask yourself to determine if you need one…

2. As for your mobile presence, what are some questions to ask yourself about what your mobile web site should include…

3. What is a QR [quick response] code? Should you use them? And what are some clever ways to leverage them…

4. With all mobile tools, if all you do is use them to continue to drive one-way messaging, you will lose out in the end. Be sure to drive content that is helpful, interactive and engages the end user.

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[subscribe to my intrepid mailing list, which looks bitchin' on your smartphone!]

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WPTouch Is Critical For All You Mobile WordPress Bloggers!

by Todd Schnick on January 14, 2012

Who Is Calling You?

In 2010, 8% of the users visiting my website came via a mobile device.

In 2011, that increased to 11%. In the past six months, that number is 13%.

In the past month? That number jumps to 18%. Safe to say the era of mobile is here. And oh, of that final number, 47% of them visited me on an iPhone.

And tracking my podcasts, the numbers of people listening and downloading them via a smart phone are growing fast.

So…what to do?

Well, if your website is WordPress based, it is time to do something about it. (Well, even if you aren’t WordPress based, it is time to do something about it. You had better ask your webmaster about it).

As of last week, I have uploaded WPTouch to ALL my client’s WordPress blogs.

Said simply, WPTouch makes it easy for people to view your website on their smartphone. Gone are the days when a full-sized website appears in your little window, and you need Superman-ish vision to read the content.

WPTouch solves that problem. In fact, I waited too long to make this move. According to Google Analytics, the bounce rate is higher for iPhones than for iPads, because it was obviously hard to view my website on a small iPhone than a larger iPad.

WPTouch is a simple plug-in that you can install on your WordPress for FREE. Learn more about it here.

So, if you’ve ever gone to a website on your smartphone, and gave up because the text was too small, or you couldn’t find what you were looking for, WPTouch might be just for you…

Remember, please keep your customer in mind when deciding whether installing this plug-in is for you. Imagine, for a moment, the customer driving to find your retail location, and pulling off the side of the road to pull up your website to get a phone number or directions… Don’t you want them to easily find what they are looking for?

I thought so…

And if you have other tools, plug-ins and apps that enhance the mobile experience of your WordPress website, please share in the comments!

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[time get get intrepiddy with me!]

[photo from flickr]

[disclaimer: there is such a thing as WPTouch Pro, which is the next level tool. I have not used it, and cannot tell you anything about it.]

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