WordPress rules! For the average punter to be able to build a solid business and be able to manage their own website themselves and update as they need to do you really can’t go past WordPress.
The issue is too many ideas and not enough time.
I’m sure you’re the same, with that entrepreneurial spirit there is never a shortage of ideas or opportunities, our problem is we only have one life to try and fit it all in.
I’ve just come from a great mastermind session this morning. A colleague who has become a good friend John Denton runs these “Connect” groups and we meet on a monthly basis.
The power of ‘connecting’ with others, ‘networking’ and having ‘mentors’ is very powerful!
In this session I was able to help a member, Andrew Huffer with a particular marketing piece and he just sent me the following email. I don’t show this to boast but to simply draw attention to the power in what I call “Third Party Objective View”.
Andrew is pretty savvy in his own right and is a very powerful facilitator – hence the marketing piece he had created which had lots going for it but sometimes we’re to close to be able to “nail it”.
From: Andrew Huffer & Associates
Sent: Friday, 17 April 2009 1:30 PM
To: Peter
Subject: Revised flierG’day Peter
Thanks for the feedback on the flier
A revised version is attached.
Now it:
Uses simpler language that audience will understand
Connects with their frustrations
Paints a picture of the ideal world for audience
Is easier to understand what the hell is on offer!
Has a story about me
Makes the bonuses clearer
Has a PS to create more interestSo thanks again – feel free to use this in a testimonial (the Master & his Apprentice?) I’ll keep you posted on results.
Cheers
Andrew
Now, although the “third party” is powerful you do need to be careful which “third party” you’re using. You wouldn’t get advice on real estate from the granny next door would you? (Unless she has a huge property portfolio of course)
I see it all the time with lead generation and converting websites from internet places to visit to internet places to qualify new clients (and actually make money).
A website has 2 simple tasks – as a tool to capture leads and prospects and qualify them as well as communicate with clients. There are different things that occur within those 2 but that really covers it, unless you sell direct from your website of course.
John Denton had “7 Keys or Secrets To Successfully Prepare Your Business For Sale… or Lifestyle” on his site which is great information for any business owner, whether you’re ready to sell or not. Stuff most people don’t think of until it’s way too late.
John is a very successful business broker and consultant and he had that information readily available for the world to read, a great service.
I’d been talking to John about the merits of using WordPress as a website platform and especially the template we have customised. The penny really dropped for John when he realised that we could combine his “blog” and “website” into 1. That’s one of the major benefits of using the world famous WordPress as your website platform, you control your site and the Google Gods absolutely love websites built on this.
So that’s what we did this week, built John a new site. I analysed John’s old site first so back to the “7 Keys or Secrets To Successfully Prepare Your Business For Sale… or Lifestyle”.
I could see that John was going to miss out on building a list of people that would be prepared to exchange their contact details to get that info. See, not everyone is ready to act when they find your site and your great info. And if you live in the hope that they’ll come back when they are ready, well… good luck with that.
By you thinking more strategically and getting their details in exchange for this info means you can implement whatever follow up process is appropriate for your business. It might be an email, a series of emails, maybe a follow up phone call.
This is where the real power of the “Third Party Objective View” comes into play. With all my focus on “lead generation” and using “Wordpress” as a “Smarter Websites” model I was able to bring clarity to John’s website and marketing funnel that he didn’t pick up on. As savvy as he is!
If you think that our No Obligation “27 Point Website Prosperity Check” might unearth some holes in your website and marketing funnel then you really do owe it to yourself to go here NOW!
“27 Point Website Prosperity Check”
Get that professional “Third Party Objective View”.
Back to John’s new site! No, I’m not going to take you there… yet! It’s about 75% built and I don’t like to show my “wares” until their done. The baker wouldn’t show his pie until it was fully baked right!
Here’s what I will do though – over the next few weeks I’ll be doing a “before” and “after” so you can get to see what changes and find out the why.
PS: Don’t forget, sometimes we’re so close to what we’re doing to see the wood for the trees.
PPS: Ironic note to self – use my 2 mastermind colleagues to be the “Third Party Objective View” and critique my own “marketing funnel”- like I said, sometimes we’re too close to see. Could be too much wood or maybe not enough trees?
To get your Free Report “7 Points To a Profitable Website and How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!
Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,
Peter B Butler
“7 Points To a Profitable Website and How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”
Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…
* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably Makes You Much More Money!
… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!
To find out more go here to get your FREE Marketing and Website Audit! valued at $350.
The issue is too many ideas and not enough time.
I’m sure you’re the same, with that entrepreneurial spirit there is never a shortage of ideas or opportunities, our problem is we only have one life to try and fit it all in.
I’ve just come from a great mastermind session this morning. A colleague who has become a good friend John Denton runs these “Connect” groups and we meet on a monthly basis.
The power of ‘connecting’ with others, ‘networking’ and having ‘mentors’ is very powerful!
In this session I was able to help a member, Andrew Huffer with a particular marketing piece and he just sent me the following email. I don’t show this to boast but to simply draw attention to the power in what I call “Third Party Objective View”.
Andrew is pretty savvy in his own right and is a very powerful facilitator – hence the marketing piece he had created which had lots going for it but sometimes we’re to close to be able to “nail it”.
Sent: Friday, 17 April 2009 1:30 PM
To: Peter
Subject: Revised flierG’day Peter
Thanks for the feedback on the flier
A revised version is attached.
Now it:
Uses simpler language that audience will understand
Connects with their frustrations
Paints a picture of the ideal world for audience
Is easier to understand what the hell is on offer!
Has a story about me
Makes the bonuses clearer
Has a PS to create more interestSo thanks again – feel free to use this in a testimonial (the Master & his Apprentice?) I’ll keep you posted on results.
Cheers
Andrew
Now, although the “third party” is powerful you do need to be careful which “third party” you’re using. You wouldn’t get advice on real estate from the granny next door would you? (Unless she has a huge property portfolio of course)
I see it all the time with lead generation and converting websites from internet places to visit to internet places to qualify new clients (and actually make money).
A website has 2 simple tasks – as a tool to capture leads and prospects and qualify them as well as communicate with clients. There are different things that occur within those 2 but that really covers it, unless you sell direct from your website of course.
John Denton had “7 Keys or Secrets To Successfully Prepare Your Business For Sale… or Lifestyle” on his site which is great information for any business owner, whether you’re ready to sell or not. Stuff most people don’t think of until it’s way too late.
John is a very successful business broker and consultant and he had that information readily available for the world to read, a great service.
I’d been talking to John about the merits of using WordPress as a website platform and especially the template we have customised. The penny really dropped for John when he realised that we could combine his “blog” and “website” into 1. That’s one of the major benefits of using the world famous WordPress as your website platform, you control your site and the Google Gods absolutely love websites built on this.
So that’s what we did this week, built John a new site. I analysed John’s old site first so back to the “7 Keys or Secrets To Successfully Prepare Your Business For Sale… or Lifestyle”.
I could see that John was going to miss out on building a list of people that would be prepared to exchange their contact details to get that info. See, not everyone is ready to act when they find your site and your great info. And if you live in the hope that they’ll come back when they are ready, well… good luck with that.
By you thinking more strategically and getting their details in exchange for this info means you can implement whatever follow up process is appropriate for your business. It might be an email, a series of emails, maybe a follow up phone call.
This is where the real power of the “Third Party Objective View” comes into play. With all my focus on “lead generation” and using “Wordpress” as a “Smarter Websites” model I was able to bring clarity to John’s website and marketing funnel that he didn’t pick up on. As savvy as he is!
If you think that our No Obligation “27 Point Website Prosperity Check” might unearth some holes in your website and marketing funnel then you really do owe it to yourself to go here NOW!
“27 Point Website Prosperity Check”
Get that professional “Third Party Objective View”.
Back to John’s new site! No, I’m not going to take you there… yet! It’s about 75% built and I don’t like to show my “wares” until their done. The baker wouldn’t show his pie until it was fully baked right!
Here’s what I will do though – over the next few weeks I’ll be doing a “before” and “after” so you can get to see what changes and find out the why.
PS: Don’t forget, sometimes we’re so close to what we’re doing to see the wood for the trees.
PPS: Ironic note to self – use my 2 mastermind colleagues to be the “Third Party Objective View” and critique my own “marketing funnel”- like I said, sometimes we’re too close to see. Could be too much wood or maybe not enough trees?
To get your Free Report “7 Secrets To a Profitable Website” and Bonus “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!
Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,
Peter B Butler
“7 Points To a Profitable Website” and “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”
Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…
* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably & Easily Makes You Much More Money!
… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!
Get Your FREE Marketing and Website HEALTH & PROSPERITY Check! valued at $350 Here.
Have You Neglected YOUR Cash Flow? I mean… Clients!
When was the last time you got an email, letter or postcard from your retail therapy centre – as in your favourite store, restaurant, or the last shop you visited?
My guess is probably never. You might get the occasional flyer, but nothing personal or even interesting. The best you can hope for is boring cut-price offers.
There’s a big lesson here for all of us.
As business owners, we can never be good enough at following up with our customers. In the past I’ve been guilty of this as much as the next person.
But now I refuse to let a business owner moan to me about the Recession until they have a multi step follow up sequence of 7-30 touches or contacts (email, mail, postcard, telephone etc.) with everyone who comes into contact with their business as a potential or paying customer or client.
Funnily enough, when people do this, they tend to make so much money from increased sales, they just shrug off the Recession and stop talking about it.
As business owners, we can’t afford to make the big, costly mistake of not following up, because one way or another we pay good money to get leads, and if we let them disappear without them becoming customers, then it’s money we’ve wasted.
And just in case you have any doubts about how important this is, here are some scary statistics:
48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
It’s staggering, but only 10 % of businesses make more than three contacts. This means they’re losing a small fortune.
Because…
2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
So if you’re like almost half of all businesses and make no more than one follow-up to your prospects… you’re leaving 98% of your income on the table for someone else to come along and pick up.
If that wasn’t bad enough, here’s why it’s even worse.
Here’s Why People Stop Buying From Businesses:
1% die.
3% move away.
5% follow a friend’s or relative’s recommendation.
9% find an alternative they perceive to be better quality or value.
14% are dissatisfied with the products or services.
And a massive 68% of people leave a business because of… indifference.
They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.
Since you spend a lot of time, money, and effort to get a visitor to your business, if you let them leave because of indifference, you might as well be flushing $20 notes away.
They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.
So, how often should you follow up? Most business owners I speak to follow up maybe once a month, if they use follow up at all. This is a mistake. You can quite safely send something once or twice a week.
See, it’s not the quantity of stuff that annoys people. What annoys them is if it’s boring, and nothing but requests that they buy something from you. As long as your follow up is friendly, personal, full of personality and fun, then you’ll be fine.
There’s a golden rule in Marketing that will make you wealthy. Once you have someone’s details keep on following up until they either buy, die, or tell you to stop!
To get your Free Report “7 Points To a Profitable Website” and Bonus “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!
Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,
Peter B Butler
“7 Points To a Profitable Website” and “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”
Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…
* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably & Easily Makes You Much More Money!
… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!
Get Your FREE Marketing and Website HEALTH & PROSPERITY Check! valued at $350 Here.
Lead Generation on Auto Pilot by Peter Butler of Smarter Websites
James was absolutely rapt that already he’s generated 2 leads from his new “Smarter Websites” System and one of those ‘qualified’ leads has converted into a client already.
You need to understand that James hasn’t actually done any active offline marketing yet!!!
What does that mean in MONEY TERMS? Well, I’m not at liberty of disclosing James’ numbers but let’s use a nominal average client spend of say… $1500 to you over a set time frame. Is that a figure that you can relate to?
So even if you only pulled 4 leads a month (with no actual active marketing as such). Do the math! With only a 25% conversion, which is easy to achieve ’cause they’re ‘qualified’ leads that would be $18,000. Not bad when you’ve not done any active offline marketing yet and you haven’t yet got your sales pipeline finished. Gee, I think the recession is only affecting those who don’t do active direct response lead generation marketing.
Imagine when you’re up and running with this automated system you are pulling say, only 100 leads a month of which only half are warm leads. Of those only half again are what I call “qualified” (actual shoppers) which is 25. Let’s halve that again to 12 that are what I call “highly qualified” (spend money soon). What if you only convert half again to actual clients – that’s 6 @ our nominal figure of $1500 = $9,000.
Who Wants $9,000 a Month From Effortless Auto Pilot Marketing?
You can see how much of a happy chappy James is with Peter Butler’s “Smarter Websites” (Yes, we are in a pub but it was work, dear. We really were in a ‘mastermind’ session at JB O’Reilly’s pub – great people the Irish)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrJJW8qyMHE
To get your Free Report “7 Points To a Profitable Website” and Bonus “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!
Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,
Peter B Butler
“7 Points To a Profitable Website” and “How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”
Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…
* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably & Easily Makes You Much More Money!
… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!
Get Your FREE Marketing and Website HEALTH & PROSPERITY Check! valued at $350 Here.
Is It Possible To Recession Proof Your Business?
Yes, through savvy marketing and the very best is word of mouth marketing, or a referral, where someone is essentially saying, “this person solved my problem….you should go to them so they can solve yours too”.
We all like referrals but most business owners are doing nothing proactive to get them.
In a Recession, that is very dangerous.
That’s why you need to blow your own trumpet as often and in as many ways as you can.
Who read the West Australian Newspaper last week? (Sorry to those outside of WA but do read on)
John Hughes of Skippers, the huge multi brand multi yard car dealer in Victoria Park ran a 2 page spread absolutely chock a block full of testimonials. Forget the reams of car pictures and prices that all blend in to a blur of sameness of price competing car yards.
Think about it! What’s your biggest issue when you’ve been in the market for a car? Trust!
We all know the one about the ‘used car salesman’ right! Making sure you don’t get a lemon, that you don’t get ripped off and you want good after sales service.
John tapped straight into his prospects biggest fear and tackled it head on.
If you can remove the fear that people have around doing business with you… reduce those reservations… even remove that risk entirely… then just watch your business prosper. I know I’ve done a few posts now on testimonials but get over it. If you missed those you can read them here http://www.peterbutler.com.au/tag/testimonials
Here’s the question “Are you thrashing all of those good stories about you as much as you could?”
If you’re not then you’re selling yourself short. Don’t be lame either, get pictures, audio, video, before and after, facts and figures too.
If you don’t blow your own trumpet who will?
Speaking of thrashing and blowing your own trumpet here’s what Tony Inman said about his site ONLY 1 Week after we went ‘Live’ with his New “Smarter Websites” website and Smart Marketing System.
Remember, this site is only a week old so don’t give me grief. I’m just being totally upfront and transparent here. We’ve yet to plug in Tony’s lead generating and marketing system.
Hi Peter,
I just wanted to say a quick thank you for the work you have done so far on our Planet Inn website.
In today’s world it’s often hard to know who you can trust, especially when it comes to something as important as your business website, which is really the equivalent of the ‘shop window to the world’ of your company.
In my case I was particularly wary, having had a bad experience once before with a web designer, but having met you in person, I felt confident that you would do a good job for us.
Just to be on the safe side, I called a few people who knew you and they were gushing in their praise of your professionalism.
I am happy to report that I have been extremely impressed with the thoroughness of your approach to our website project, with your ability to listen to us – the clients, and to adapt and modify anything necessary to suit our unique needs.
I know that my former web hosts also caused you no end of technical problems, which you overcame with consummate ease. No doubt they didn’t want to lose the business!
When I saw that the home page of our website had a header explaining that the site was under construction, I became concerned about the length of down-time during our peak season. I was equally astounded and exuberant when you had the bulk of the website up and running the same day!
Obviously building a website is a never ending journey of tinkering as the quest for excellence is an illusive beast. I have seen enough already though to know that we have formed a mutually beneficial partnership that will stretch into the distant future.
The layout of the site is terrific. Your knowledge of how to make use of modern social media trends for commercial effectiveness is an attribute of paramount importance to keep pace with the tech-savvy generation who now form the bulk of our market profile.
On the one hand I would be delighted to sing your praises, should you require any references for prospective clients. On the other hand, I don’t want too many people to pull you away from the great job you are doing for us! That of course would be to deny the world!
Anyway, once again thank you and keep up the great work. I’m really looking forward to working with you on our other website as well once we have fully evolved this one to the levels we have targeted together.
Best wishes,
Tony Inman (Tonaldo the Inn Man – new nickname)
Club Red Pty Ltd
T/As :
Planet Inn
Backpackers Accommodation & Bar
www.planetinn.com.au
Club Red Cars – Car Rentals – Club Red – Tourism & Migration Services – Property Management Services
Tel +61 8 9328 2203
What is the difference between an Ordinary Website That Makes Virtually NO Money & An Extraordinary Website?
Ummm, it’s not a trick question – the MONEY and NEW CLIENTS!
To get your Free Report “7 Points To a Profitable Website and How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot” Go Here NOW!
Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,
Peter B Butler
“7 Points To a Profitable Website and How To Generate Fresh Qualified Leads on Auto Pilot”
Finally: An Automated Marketing System & Website Platform That…
* Systematically Generates Fresh Leads.
* Automatically Qualifies Leads and Prospects into Clients.
* Predictably Makes You Much More Money!
… All On Auto Pilot? All Those In Favour Of That Say ‘AYE’!
To find out more go here to get your FREE Marketing and Website Audit! valued at $350.