Dan McDade

Episode 26 brings intrepid friend Dan McDade to Intrepid Radio!

Dan is the author of The Truth About Leads, and President and CEO of Pointclear, a prospect development company.

Dan and I delved a little deeper into the Lead Generation portion of his book, so we talked about the challenges of direct marketing in developing leads, and the particular importance of list development and market segmentation.

Dan also shares the power behind a multi-touch, multi-media, and multi-cycle sales process, and why so many sales people quit too early in the process. [this section is worth listening to...]

Dan will return soon to continue our conversation. You can purchase the book here (affiliate link):

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You are on a sales call.

You are likely sitting across a table from your prospect or you are engaged on a phone call…

And then the conversation ends, and you promise to be in touch soon…

What happens then?

One of two things:

1. The prospect immediately decides to engage, or calls the decision-maker and says an engagement with you is necessary.

Done. Congrats!

But that rarely happens. Instead, this is what likely happens…

2. Life goes on…

Your prospect puts the headsets on and listen to some music. And gets back to work…

They dive back into their emails…

And when they do, they delete your emails to lesson the load on the inbox…

They toss the collateral you sent into the trash…

They walk to the kitchen and nuke the coffee that got cold whilst on the call with you…

They lean over to their cube mate and say, “damn infernal sales calls…”

Read some blog posts about iPads…

Get back on the IM chat with the cute chick from shipping…

Go to espn.com and see that the damn Red Sox lost. Again…

Go back to the kitchen to grab the last Dunkin’ Donut. You know, the last one that nobody wanted, because they didn’t want to be accused of taking the last one. But they decide to take it anyway, since, you know, they just endured your sales call…

And when someone else took the last donut, they go downstairs to the machine that dispenses snack chips (12 chips for $.75)…

Solitaire…

Twitter…to see if their morning blog post got any more retweets…

Farmville…

Go look at their ex-girlfriend’s pics on her Facebook page…

Walk around the office, looking for crooked pictures to test the “Level” app on their iPhone…

You get my point. So at this very moment, you need to do TWO THINGS:

1. Change your approach and seek to inspire your prospects to quick action. Similar to the feeling a man gets when he decides he wants a new toy. Nothing, I mean nothing (not lack of family budget or constant chirping from his wife) will get him to stop from buying his new toy. You want your prospect to want to engage you in that way, with that same feeling of “I gotta have this now – no matter what.”

2. More importantly, just simply acknowledge that your sales prospects have different things, different priorities on their minds, than your just completed sales call. Recognize, that for a lot of your potential buyers, you are a pain, a distraction, that gnat that keeps flying around your face that you incessantly keep trying to swat away.

The sooner you recognize this, the sooner you will adjust your approach, your attitude, your style, your tactical decisions – and then start engaging in a way that doesn’t elicit these kinds of reactions…

These people you are trying to sell are humans. Treat them that way. Understand their cluttered, distracted sometimes indifferent minds. And you will handle them differently.

And don’t tell me you don’t know what I am talking about here. How do you feel when you get spam email? Or get telemarketed? Or when some spam text gets through? Or when you get spammed via Twitter Direct Message? Or the curse word you quietly whisper when that salesman’s name pops up on your caller ID? For the fourth time?

Yeah. That feeling.

That’s how many of your prospects feel about you.

The point of this article is to smack you on the forehead and and get you to recognize that you are doing that to too many of your prospects. So stop.

And start rethinking your approach so that you can change the dynamic, change the paradigm, and make your prospects want to engage with you, not find some excuse to avoid you. You want them talking to you…not that girl from shipping…

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[cartoon by hugh macleod]

It is 2011. Do you know where your marketing plan is? Here are 30 questions to ask yourself as you mull over the process of drafting or modifying your marketing plan.

This isn’t one of those posts you can blast through in sixty seconds. This requires a cup of coffee (or a cocktail), a moleskine notebook, and a lot of careful, thorough deep thinking. Let’s get started:

1. What are you really selling? Can you articulate simply – and exactly – what you sell? Or do you offer too much stuff? Does your market know what you sell? Does your market need what you sell? Is it obvious to the people who might buy from you? I mean OBVIOUS? Don’t EVER assume that your market knows exactly what you do, and how you can help them. They don’t lay awake at night wondering how to buy from you…

2. Have you solved your prospecting problem? Who are you selling to? Do you really know? Or are you just casting a large net hoping to snag a few hopefuls?

Is your marketing effort making it easy to capture new prospects? Is it easy for them to take action to inform you they are interested? Or have you neglected to really think carefully about how you identify — and capture — your business prospects?

And are you finding enough prospects to ultimately meet your profit goals?

3. What is your market niche? Yesterday, I asked if you are getting enough prospects to run a profitable business. The more important question is “are you getting enough QUALIFIED prospects?” If you are not, you might need to narrow your market niche. (And yes, narrowing your niche will provide MORE prospects…)

Classic case of the auto mechanic asking for referrals from anyone you know who owns a car… This is too broad, there is no way to help this guy. But if he asks for names of Jaguar owners to reach out to, this request is much easier to handle, and you probably know a few of those…

4. Is Your Sales Process Nailed Down Tight? Hopefully you’re thinking through how to solve your prospecting problem, and can find enough qualified prospects. But can you close ‘em?

If your sales process sucks, it will just suck faster if you simply feed more prospects into it.

How do you track and monitor your prospects? How do you communicate value? How do you answer objections? How do you foster trust and grow the opportunity in your sales incubator? How do you move them to make the final buying decision?

5. What Is Your Marketing Story? So, what do you do? How do you help people? What makes you different? Why are you memorable? Is your story transferable…meaning is it easy for others to share your story with others?

And do you have one simple story/message? Instead of multiple, conflicting, confusing stories that result in the market place not really sure what it is that you do?

6. Do you have an actual strategy behind all your marketing tactics? We’ve talked about what you sell, how you sell, to whom you sell, and what story you tell when you are selling. Now, how do you deliver that message? What tactics are you employing to deliver that message? Social media? Direct mail? Email marketing? Networking? Advertising? Trade shows?

Do you chase the latest shiny “tactical” object? Or do you know what message delivery vehicle works? Is there an actual strategy behind what you do? Or do you throw the proverbial spaghetti against the wall?

7. Is Social Media Right For You? The answer is yes.

Problem is, most people don’t do it right.

They blast messaging one-way. They don’t engage. They don’t build relationships. They don’t educate. And most importantly, most don’t give the process time to take root, and give up before the time investment bears fruit.

Have you identified where your prospects/referral sources are spending time (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)? Have you grasped the concept of using the tools to make meaningful connections? Are you helping others?

8. Is Blogging Right For You? I have yet to find an organization that couldn’t benefit from blogging. None. But I am becoming more careful in recommending it to people, because most people I know aren’t good bloggers.

Blogging is necessary because it educates your market, demonstrates skill and knowledge, strengthens SEO for your online presence, and is a great sales tool.

But most people fail because they struggle to generate meaningful content, and quit after not closing a big deal even though they published two whole posts… [sarcasm intended] In other words, they quit too soon.

9. Is Your Website Converting? You blog. You’ve invested in fancy schmancy design. You try to focus on keywords. You try your hand at – or invest in – search engine optimization…

And you don’t get many website conversations – which means people aren’t taking the action on the website you want (not signing up for newsletters, not buying products or your services, not subscribing to your RSS feeds…

Are you doing enough to focus on why? What can you change? Is it too hard for the visitor to do? Is your content not compelling? Do you plan to figure it out?

10. Is Your Collateral Working For You? You have tri-fold brochures. Various sell sheets on products and services. Rack cards. Company calendars. Business cards.

But is any of this stuff really working for you? I mean, can’t most business prospects get what they need from your website and/or social web presence? Do you really need to spend the money on this print stuff?

That’s what you need to find out. Maybe your target market NEEDS printed material. But you’ve got to know…

And how important is design? Are using Word templates and printing at home hurting your business?

11. What is your networking strategy? How significant a role does networking play in your prospecting efforts? Attend too many events? Attend too few events? Attend all the wrong events? Go to the same groups week after week, seeing the same people?

Are you going to events that are populated with your actual target market? And how effective is your follow-up strategy?

And how do you see social media playing a role in your online networking? Are you employing the same “networking” tactics on Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn?

12. Will geolocation move the needle? Do geolocation applications like Foursquare and Gowalla make sense for your business? To be honest, if you are a retail establishment, and you are not experimenting with these apps, then you are potentially missing a big opportunity…sort of the modern day loyalty card. And an OBVIOUS way to more deeply connect with real customers…

But what about B2B sales? What about large organizations? What about selling consulting services? Does it make sense for you?

Foursquare just passed 5 million users. Now while that doesn’t compare to Twitter’s 160 million or Facebook’s 600 million, it is still worth reviewing.

13. Will QR codes matter? You might first ask, what the heck is a QR code?

Although these quick response codes have been around a while, they are only beginning to seep into daily conversation. You simply scan the code with some type of reader, usually on your smart phone. This present bits of information, which hopefully results in someone taking action.

How does this relate to you? You can place QR codes in magazine advertisements, on collateral, promotional items – the code could offer a specialized discount for the people who take the time to scan the code.

You’ve got to ask…is there a place for this unique message delivery method in my marketing?

14. Are hosting events worth your while? Is there marketing utility for you – or your company – to bring people together by hosting events? Should you create your own networking group? Should you organize large events around product launches or new service offerings? Can the effort increase your brand awareness?

Hosting an event gives you an easy excuse to reach out to people, provides content and story lines for your social web apps and website, and can give your PR a boost.

15. Is your bounce rate too high? Do you even know what the hell I am talking about?

A “bounce rate” is essentially the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site (Wikipedia).

In other words, you need to know what the bounce rate is for the common landing pages on your site. A landing page bounce rate over 50% is cause for concern. You want visitors to check out other pages.

E-commerce sites need LOW bounce rates. Blogs and other informational sites have higher bounce rates. You need to get a sense for what your industry standard is to measure and compare, so that you can make appropriate adjustments.

16. Is e-mail marketing working for you? If done right, e-mail marketing remains one of the most powerful ways to go to market…

Problem is, most of us are doing it wrong. Not a day passes that some organization sends me their e-newsletter…UNSOLICITED.

I wish people understood how poorly this reflects on their brand…

You really need to rethink how you build your lists. Don’t buy them…and just because you met someone at a function and they give you a business card doesn’t mean they want your newsletter.

And careful on your message. Make it unique – not just regurgitated blog posts. And it must provide value to people!

17. Is your SEO strategy working? Search engine optimization, the process of optimizing search results when people search certain keywords and phrases…in order that your content is more likely found on search engines like Google.

Is your strategy working? Do you have a strategy?

Are you optimizing your keywords? Do you know what your keywords are?

Is your SEO vendor producing results? Do you even need one?

Is your website properly optimized for search? Do you even know?

Are you tracking the numbers via Google Analytics? Do you know what those even mean?

Are you aware that this SEO “science” is constantly evolving?

18. Will cause marketing work for you? We admire people/organizations that go above and beyond to give back to the community.

I’ve always believed that “giving back” is good marketing. Our society allows us freedom to live the lives we want, to achieve the things we want. It certainly can strengthen your brand to align you and your company with causes and organizations doing good things for those in need, and making the community a better place.

Not to mention (selfishly), doing this will expose you and your brand to a whole new reach of people. Good networking!

What will you do?

19. Do you practice blazespotting? If you follow this blog, you’ve seen me write a lot about “shining a light.” I am now in the process of evolving my thinking on this concept – and taking it to the next level. I now call it “Blazespotting.”

I take it from trainspotting, which is defined as the hobby of watching trains and noting their serial numbers, usually for long periods of time. In our case, “Blaze” is defined as “flash of light.”

Blazespotting – the hobby and discipline of watching people + organizations and noting/broadcasting their good works, usually for long periods of time.

Proactively showcasing the good works/good deeds/thought leadership/innovation of others reflects strongly on your own brand, builds trust with you, and strengthens your position in the marketplace.

The social web makes this process even easier. But it all comes down to making a conscious decision to showcase others!

20. Are you focused on your customer experience? Running a business, we are tasked with a lot of day-to-day responsibilities, but I sometimes wonder, do we focus too much on all but the one thing that truly matters…how our customer interacts with our business??

I recently wrote a post called 33 Questions To Ask Customers. The purpose here was to help us ask the right questions to better understand if we are providing a meaningful experience for our customers…

Are you doing enough of that? Do you understand how EVERY employee in your organization interacts with customers? Do you study how your customers interface with every facet of your business…from the telephone, to the website, to your twitter handle?

21. Is Your Company Culture Fostering Success?

Do you foster a work environment where people can be creative?
Do you empower your people to creatively solve customer problems?
Do you reward your people for making mistakes?
Do you encourage innovative thinking?
Do you waste their time in pointless meetings?
Do you encourage continuous learning?
Do you seek employee input on all things?
Do you engage them in discussions about the company culture too?
Do you make it clear that ALL employees are a part of the marketing team?

And do you recognize that you never stop improving these elements in your business?

22. Are you providing enough value to your readers? And by value, I mean more than just distributing good, helpful content, I also mean engaging with them too…

If all you are doing is broadcasting one-way messaging about how good you and your products are via email, blogging, social media, and print…then you are wasting my time and your prospects time.

You need to not only put out educational and engaging content that provides solutions to your audience – you need to connect with that audience and engage in conversation about these topics too…

Is your content conversational and helpful? Or are you just broadcasting and telling?

23. Do you do the little things? Like NOT charging me for air at the gas station…

Like bringing me a FULL, LARGE coffee to-go cup when I get my check…

These little gems happened to me…just in the last 24 hours… And the real power in them? Not expecting them…

And that’s what you have to think about. Analyze all the little elements of how your customer interfaces with your business, and identify where you can implement little memorable gems.

Sometimes you just need to listen to your existing customers, because they will give you plenty of ideas if you let them…

And sometimes you need to empower your own employees to create their own little gems…let them create their own meaningful experiences… DON’T make them follow a strict script where little gems die in the ether…

24. Are you doing enough learning? Most people are not. And that is why they fail, or labor in a job they detest, or wonder why they have no creativity.

And it is your own fault.

Why aren’t you focused on learning all that you can? Why don’t you dedicate time to this process? Why aren’t you encouraging your employees to keep learning, or at least providing them with material they can learn from?

I believe continuing education is the most important thing you can do to become better…

Better at life, better at creativity, better at marketing, better at business, etc…

Why aren’t you living in bookstores, searching the internet, talking to mentors – to become better?

25. Does your workspace work? Is your working environment conducive to productive work? Creative work? Interruption-free work?

I am amazed at how many people are forced to work (or try to work) in places they HATE to be in. And you can imagine what that does for their work ethic, morale, and not to mention creativity!

You must create a workspace for yourself or your company that allows you – and your people – to be at their best. And the hard part? It is different for each employee.

Workspace design is something that is often overlooked, or designed in such a way to minimize office expenses, with NO consideration for the employees.

26. Is day-to-day admin dragging you down? If you are like me, you lose dramatic amounts of time fiddling with the day-to-day admin of your business. Invoicing, chasing down accounts receivable, inventory, paying bills, payroll, health insurance paperwork, etc.

Marketing, selling, and doing the creative work you are hired to do in the first place gets put aside because the “running the actual business” stuff gets in the way…

But yet, this is vital to the operation of the business, right?

Have you thought about adopting new processes? Thought about buying software that makes your life much easier? Or have you thought about biting the bullet and hiring professional help to get this work done?

It may be time to shake things up.

27. What are your revenue goals? Do you even know?

Seriously.

A lot of the small business people I speak with don’t really know. Which boggles my mind. To be honest, without this goal, you CANNOT create a marketing plan. And without a marketing plan, you are far more likely to not have a good year with your business.

What are your revenue goals? Do you even know what you made in 2010? 2009? Are you growing? Are you declining? Are you all over the place?

Until you determine what your revenue goal is for 2011, you can’t do a thing to draft a plan, or make proper strategic marketing and business decisions for the coming year…

28. Do you have cash flow? Unlike the last question (Day 27), you probably know the answer to this one. And yeah, you either have cash flow…or you do not.

You can’t operate a business without it. You just can’t. To put it simply, you need it to do stuff: Marketing. Prospecting. Equipment. Experimenting. Learning, etc.

Cash flow helps determine a company’s value, liquidity, risk factors, and can judge past or future prospects of the business. But yet, most small business people don’t think enough about it, or don’t have any cash flow (however you define it, whatever your context).

At the end of the day, your cash flow must remain net positive for your business to remain solvent!

29. Do you have a big enough marketing budget? I think the answer is no, since most people tell me “I am marketing on a shoestring” or “Business has been slow, so I cut my marketing” or “How much did you say?”

So how in the hell are you going to build your business? Or get new members? Or get people to vote for you? Or get people to support your cause?

Follow along here: You need to make enough sales to meet your revenue goals. You sell to your prospects. You have to have enough prospects to close enough deals, assuming you won’t close every opportunity. Thus, you need to spend enough on your marketing budget to talk to enough prospects.

Simple.

I ask again: do you have a big enough marketing budget?

30. Have you created your seven-step marketing plan yet? So here we are on Day 30 of this marketing plan development post series. How is your progress coming along?

Your marketing plan should consist of basically seven components:

1. Understand market and competition – is there a need for what you sell?

2. Understand your customer – who are they, where are they, why will they buy, how do they buy?

3. Determine your precise target market / your niche. Where is your focus?

4. Develop your message. What’s your story?

5. How will you deliver the message? Networking? Direct mail? Paid advertising? Social media? Blogging? Others?

6. Goals – How many prospects do you need to touch? What is your close rate? How many sales do you need to meet your financial goals?

7. How will you pay for it? Setting your marketing budget high enough to reach enough viable prospects…

Pretty simple, yeah? Don’t over think your marketing plan. And the key to success? Process the plan in order from number one to seven. This is critical. One steps builds on the former…

What about you? Get started now.

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[cartoon by @gapingvoid]

Note: This article is based on a month long series of marketing plan posts that can be found here.

Day Two (of Thirty-One):

Question To Ask Yourself: Have you solved your prospecting problem?

Who are you selling to? Do you really know? Or are you just casting a large net hoping to snag a few hopefuls?

Is your marketing effort making it easy to capture new prospects? Is it easy for them to take action to inform you they are interested? Or have you neglected to really think carefully about how you identify — and capture — your business prospects?

And are you finding enough prospects to ultimately meet your profit goals?

What I am doing: Two things. You may know that I co-host The High Velocity Radio Show. Here, I identify people I want to know, people I am interested in serving, and invite them on the show. This is a ridiculously easy way to meet our prospects, and my plans for 2011 simply call for refining and improving this process…

However, I feel my website is weak in capturing and moving prospects into an explorative position. I will be doing significant testing to improve lead capture on my site…

What about you?

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Todd is planning his 2011 marketing attack. He is asking himself a series of hard questions, questions that will fine tune his go-to-market strategy. This December, Todd will share one question per day, hoping these questions help you too…

Click HERE to follow the entire series on what questions to ask as you draft your 2011 marketing plan!

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Running the NYC Marathon is on my Bucket List

To be honest, I have not seen the film The Bucket List.

But I trust you know what I mean by a “bucket list…” Things/experiences you want to accomplish in your life before you kick the bucket… There is even a Squidoo page on the subject…

I’ve read countless posts and articles about the power and motivational spirit generated by creating your very own “bucket list.”

So, I decided to not only write out my own “bucket list,” but also to make it public!

Knowing my bucket list may interest you… Or it may not…

But in thinking more on this subject, and going through a list of a dozen or so of my closest friends, I would actually LOVE to know what their bucket list would look like…

1. This enables me to really get to know someone I care about…

2. Perhaps, just perhaps, I can help them achieve one of their dreams…

3. The kind of person who would publish this list publicly? Is a kind of person I want to know!

4. I know they have courage. And perhaps, a little pizzaz…

5. If a sales prospect I am interacting with made present their bucket list? Wow! That gives me some cool insights on ways to further develop a relationship with them, and perhaps build up more trust to do some business…

6. What a cool way to add some color and texture to your personal brand! Knowing your dreams and goals can really impact the shape and context with which someone views you and your personal brand…

I’d encourage you to write about – publicly – your dreams, aspirations, goals, and your bucket list. This makes you more human, approachable, knowable, and trustworthy. Even if you don’t make it public, you are a fool to NOT commit your dreams to paper. Writing them down makes them real. And, quite frankly, more attainable…

So what do you think? Are “bucket lists” things people should publish on their online presence? Does it strengthen their person brand? What do you think?

Live Intrepid!

[photo my martineric from flickr]

[UPDATE: This post was picked up by Social Media Today]

So I had yet another conversation with a gentleman about how the social web (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) just isn’t appropriate for B2B sales.

To which I replied with my standard professional, classy response to such a statement:

“Hooey.”

Let’s begin with one key assumption. I am not necessarily talking about companies like Dell that have sold seven figures worth of computers through Twitter.

I am talking about selling services, high-end consultative services, and high-price ticket orders such as manufacturing equipment and installation.

If I had a dollar for every sales guy who said “I will make no sales on Twitter,” I could retire and spend 24 hours a day blasting such characters…on Twitter.

Funny thing is, they are sort of right. And that’s WHERE they stop. And that’s WHY they stop. And that’s exactly why they WON’T ever sell anything on Twitter. Or anywhere on the social web for that matter…

Mail me one penny for every time you’ve heard this line: “The kind of people I sell to aren’t on social media.”

I hear this all the time. And while I want to get angry at these souls for feeling this way, I don’t. Because I know that they just don’t see it, just don’t believe it. Or, in many instances, aren’t willing to do the work necessary.

Many are looking for the easy way to make sales and generate revenue for the business. I hear people all the time who say they only get business from face-to-face networking or from word of mouth. But I ask, if you are legitimately getting business via these tactics, you’ve invested lots of love and care into building that referral network, yes?

It is no different on the social web. In fact, you do it to accomplish the same goals:

1. Establish trust.
2. Build relationships.
3. Demonstrate competence.
4. Educate.
5. Teach.
6. Learn.
7. Make friends.
8. Find alliance partners.
9. Find support partners.

So how do you start? How do you begin the process of building relationships?

1. Engage people on Twitter, start conversations. Here are some ways to start.
2. Use geolocation platforms such as Foursquare and Gowalla to start conversations.
3. Comment on relevant industry blog posts.
4. Listen and comment to relevant industry podcasts.
5. Monitor prospects and what they are doing/saying on Facebook. And engage.
6. Monitor prospects and see what groups they are participating in on LinkedIn. And engage.
7. Find meaningful conversations, and identify people you want to know, through strategic queries on Twitter Search.
8. Share other’s work. On whatever tool you want. By whatever means works for you.
9. Blog about your passion, your hobby (here’s mine). You will meet new people. These people could be prospects. Or know people who should be prospects.

These are just a few ideas. There are more. In fact, if you have other ideas, please share in the comments. And here’s the important piece of advice: don’t sell them.

Get to know them. Talk about music with them. Talk about sports. Where they had dinner. What books are they reading.

Talk about anything that matters to them – that isn’t BUSINESS related.

What’s going to happen?

They will learn to trust you. They will inquire about you. They will look you up online to find out more about you. You will meet up at an event somewhere and it will feel like you’ve known them for a long time. You will agree to have coffee. You will then learn ways to help them in some way perhaps. They will become, at the end of the day, your friend.

And don’t people like to do business with their friends? I’ve read that somewhere…

Before you go, remember these 7 keys to success:

1. Be consistent.
2. Be patient.
3. Be disciplined.
4. Remember that this process takes time.
5. Understand it won’t happen overnight. Or in a week. Or in a month. Probably longer.
6. Finally, recognize your competitors aren’t willing to put in that time. They spend their time making up excuses as to why this won’t work.
7. And when you win? Don’t gloat. Instead, teach others how it worked.

That’s when the book deal and speaking gigs come!

What do you think?

P.S. Important thing to remember (for those who read this far): Notice how this wasn’t a blog post about how to sell your high-end consulting services? This was a post about how to use the social web to make new friends and strengthen relationships. Once you do that, the selling is the easy part…

[photo from marfis75 on flickr]

I recently stumbled upon Leo Babauta’s Mnmlist blog, a blog about minimalism and simplifying your life. It has been a profound find, as I am in the process of trying to simplify things in my cluttered life (and I simply LOVE the blog’s design).

But as I was spending time thinking about these things in the context of my life, I got to wondering if there is anything to applying the same concepts to our marketing efforts. Just as it seems to be the case with my crazy life, I oftentimes wonder if most entrepreneurs have a marketing program that is far too complex.

So, here are some minimalist ideas to think about and some important questions to ask yourself:

1. Is your message too complicated? Make it easy for people to remember why you are special.
2. Is your website too cluttered? When people visit your website, make it easy to learn what you do and easier to contact you to do it.
3. Is your strategy on the social web too complex? Your simple online mission is to engage and serve others. That’s it.
4. Is your target audience too scatter shot? Be laser focused on a niche. Don’t try to help everybody.
5. Are you focused on simple storytelling? Do NOT try to communicate one thousand different ideas/messages/concepts/fixes…
6. Can your prospects look at your marketing collateral and easily understand the call to action?
7. Is your diet of new learning focused on the things you need to improve? Don’t read thought leadership on shiny objects (as Seth says) that don’t really advance the goal.
8. Do you have BOATLOADS of pointless busywork? Instead, be laser focused on the important work.
9. Do you experiment with all kinds of new tactical options on a whim? Instead, execute only on new ideas that fall into the scope of your crystal clear marketing plan.
10. Wait, do you even have a marketing plan? Oftentimes, the lack of a road map leads to confusion, complexity and disarray.
11. Are you worried about too many details? Such as inventory, blogging, twitter, facebook, sales, promotions, employees, sick days, cubicles, vacations, graphic design, vendors, invoices, accounts receivable, etc? Instead, focus only on the customer. All the rest will fall into place…

So, minimalist marketing isn’t about cutting back on your marketing, or reducing your marketing budget, or even cutting the time spent on marketing. What I am talking about here is simplifying things so that your program is uncluttered – and can do it’s job.

What do you think? Agree or disagree with this concept? Got anything to add or subtract? Let me know if you have additional ideas to simplify your marketing…

[photo by marmota]

Be An Intrepid Marketer – Recommendation No. 33 -

So, I have recently gotten connected to a great PR service called HARO, or Help A Reporter Out.

This service, which has been around for a while, is a means by which journalists can submit queries to a broad audience, and make it known about specific sources they are looking for their article, book, blog, radio show, etc…

[I am an active user of HARO for both my radio show and my author's book tour project - both from High Velocity...]

Why is this important to you? Well, for one, if you are looking for sources for your blog or podcast, HARO is something you should explore.

But…

The simple goal of this post is to give you one simple idea that can help you both serve your existing clients – AND wow your existing prospects.

And it is this: forward specific HARO requests to your clients and/or prospects to let them know you care. They will appreciate that you are looking out for their best interests by giving them helpful tips to advance their PR efforts. It can go a long way towards helping you stand out from all the clutter with the other people in their world.

How does it work? Once you start receiving the queries from HARO, it will be easy. You will receive daily emails from HARO with a list of queries such as “need digital media success stories” or “need money-saving tips for entrepreneurs.”

HARO will provide you with an email address to contact the reporter if you are, or know of, a good source. All you have to do is forward that to your client/prospect, and recommend that they contact the reporter directly.

Boom. You’ve done that person a nice service. And whether or not they take any action on it isn’t your concern. But more importantly, they will remember you!

Be Intrepid.

The message behind this cartoon is that there are NO shortcuts when it comes to developing a list of qualified prospects for your business.

There are no automated tools to harvest LEGITIMATE prospects from the social media fields – no randomly picking names from the phone book – no cold-calling names from the local Chamber directory.

It still takes work, blood, sweat, and tears to build a community of serious, qualified prospects. Don’t let ANYONE tell you otherwise…

Be Intrepid.