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By Marcia Xenitelis in Business

One of the common mistakes people make when designing a change program is assuming that if a person is a team leader, supervisor or senior manager they should naturally know how to communicate face to face with their teams.  However communication skills are rarely one of the key competencies that is taught or measured by organizations.  There is however a very easy way to ensure that there is structure and content that make it very easy for managers at all levels to follow.

What is needed is structure and process and team briefing which is a formal communication cascading process via management is a tool that perfectly fits the bill. It has three levels of cascading messages:

  1. The first is the CEO who at his executive team briefings decides which topics for that week he wants communicated to employees.
  2. This is then circulated out to his direct reports who then have to communicate those issues and decide the top 5 issues for their respective divisions and then finally the top 5 issues for their teams.
  3. So the only aspect of a team brief that changes is the last section which is how what is happening in the company and our division relates to the work we are doing in our team. This is the section that always changes depending on your team in the division.

The reason this works is simple.  The only aspect a manager has to think about is what is happening in the organization that will effect his team that week or month depending on the frequency of the team briefing process.  The rest of the information is already determined by the divisional head and the CEO.  The team brief should only take around 15 minutes so it can be incorporated into a regular team meeting.  And most importantly it is constant as the CEO has his Executive team meeting dates set for the entire year and this ensures that everyone from the Executive team to the frontline know what is happening in the organization.

The key factor to the success of team briefings is that they are driven by the CEO.  Whenever your CEO talks with managers and employees he should ask whether they had in fact attended a team briefing and how regularly they occured.This way if they are not he can say to his direct reports, “I am conducting my team brief with you now so there is no excuse for you not to do the same with your team members”.

So these are the keys to making Team Briefings work.

  1. Make sure that you put in place a simple process
  2. Make sure that the CEO drives it and that his direct reports understand the importance to the CEO - not you. Afterall you are not their boss, he is.
  3. Ensure that the topics are the type of content that management are comfortable and knowledgeable about
  4. Provide a feedback loop, again this is part of the process, if there is a question that management do not know the answer to, there must be a formal easy process for them to follow to quickly obtain the answer and respond to the employee.
  5. Team briefings should only take 15 minutes, they can also be incorporated into regular weekly meetings.

When it comes to cascading information in a face to face format via management remember that as with anything, there will be some topics that employees want to hear directly from the CEO and other topics they are happy to hear from their manager. Generally when it comes to significant issues such as retrenchments, closure of offices and mergers or acquisitions employees generally want to hear this from the person at the top. Day to day, week by week and month by month operational issues they are comfortable in hearing from their manager who manages their daily work.

Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject on change management and has spoken at conferences around the world.  For access to case studies and more information on the types of strategies you can implement to engage employees visit http://www.changemanagementtips.com for a wealth of free informative articles and resources.

By Marcia Xenitelis in Business

If your employee communication strategy to communicate change focuses on stakeholder communication plans, an intranet site, CEO forums and Staff Information Bulletins via email stop right there.  Your efforts are focused on information, not communication and the likelihood of engaging employees in change is remote.

My interest in employee communication is to distinguish between the tools communicators use that inform and those strategies that engage employees and therefore impact business outcomes. The concern is that there seems to be confusion in the market place where roles are advertised for “Change Managers” when the organization is really looking for an internal communication professional not a change practitioner.

So what’s the difference?

Well clearly both information and engagement tools are important.  An internal communication professional focuses on tools to impart information and in some cases create dialogue including:

  • the corporate intranet
  • staff information bulletins
  • emails
  • providing information for managers to brief their teams face to face
  • organizing staff forums for the CEO
  • briefing kits for supervisors and team leaders

Whilst all of this activity is important and provides the support that employees need to find out what is happening.  But, and it is an important distinction, so what if you tell people what is happening, will it change their attitude and therefore change their behaviour? In my experience which is across many sectors, industries, professional roles and all types of change programs I have to say no.  And this is the problem, when a CEO and senior executive team think “change” will happen because they have hired someone to communicate the changes taking place and then when there is no impact on the business or the outcomes they were looking for they are disappointed.

Think of it this way. Smokers buy a packet of cigarettes, the health warnings are featured on the packet and yet we see intelligent, literate people continue to smoke, packet after packet. The only time they truly become engaged in changing their attitude toward smoking and therefore behaviour is when they are in the doctors office and are personally facing a health risk. And then Aha! they finally get it.

So how do we use this analogy when we are tying to communicate change? Let’s look at this example. An organization wants to communicate the financial results to employees and the usual approach is to post the employee annual report on the intranet. But this time they need to do something different, they want employees to understand why the company needs to improve and what shareholders base their decisions on. So they decided to run free lunchtime information sessions for their employees on how to invest in the share market and held them for one hour each week for four weeks. The topics progressed from understanding the share market, categories of companies listed etc till the final week they examined annual reports. So in this final session they were reviewing annual reports and came to the last one for the session and after reading through the data the question was asked of employees, so who would invest in this company, few put their hands up. And you guessed it, the company was their company and with a collective Aha! the employees finally got the message.

As in this instance, a large transformation program including HR, training and operational initiatives was developed to build on this.

So here is the important message for any change program.  Information is important, employees need to know what is happening, when, why, who, what and by whom.  However, equally as important when it comes to organizational change, employees need to be involved in the process to be truly engaged.  This is where change professionals need to focus on the Aha! moments and engage their employees in the process of change.

Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject on employee communication and business transformation and has spoken at conferences around the world.  For access to case studies and more information on the types of strategies you can implement to engage employees visit http://www.changemanagementtips.com for a wealth of free informative articles and resources.

By Donna Gunter in Business

I had lunch several years ago with a colleague in a networking group. We talked about many things and were trying to get to know each other so that we could better understand what might make a great referral for the other. One of the things he told me caused me to chuckle because it was so true, but it seemed to surprise him somewhat.

He told me that he liked my website because I was straight-forward, to the point and I just “put it all out there”. By that he meant that I outlined what I do, how I do it, the benefits of what I do, and that I let the visitor decide to either buy into it or not. Most surprisingly, I didn’t seem to have any attachment to the visitor’s decision either way. I didn’t waste any time trying to convince visitors that I was always the right choice, regardless of circumstance. However, if the visitor does “buy” into what I’m offering, they have ample opportunities to get on one of my lists and/or purchase something from me.

My response to his observation was that, as a small business owner, I had the responsibility of discouraging as many people as possible from wanting to do business with me. I know this philosophy sounds crazy, especially in this day and age of a downturned economy.

Here’s my belief: I’m not out to sell my services or my products to the world, nor do I want to sell my services to everyone. I only work with clients who meet my ideal client profile and only market to those in my target market. Period. And, that’s only a very small chunk of the world. Why? Because I truly believe that there’s enough business for everyone.

My business and my life are so much more fun and joyful when I work only with clients that I love. I do that through what I call the WYSIWYG approach, or “What You See is What You Get.” I am who I am and let that center of authenticity come through in all that I do–my speaking, my writing, my website, my coaching, my personal interactions.

If you don’t “buy” into the business that is me, that’s wonderful! You can continue your search for a coach/consultant/infomarketer that better meets your needs, and I still have room in my practice for clients that I’d love to work with. If you do “buy” into what I do and who I am, you’re doing it because on some level, you’re buying into “Donna the Person”, and the good, bad, and ugly that accompanies that.

Now that I’m firmly entrenched in middle age, I finally feel that I’m fully coming into my own in all aspects of my life, and I have stopped running away from those aspects that I thought others might not like or might be offended by. Being myself for a living is so much easier than trying to live up to an image (or create an image) that doesn’t really exist.

When working in higher education, I always felt that I was split in two halves, Donna the Human Being and Donna the Housing Administrator. Rarely did the two Donnas meet — they were almost separate personalities, and quite frankly, Donna the Human Being (my true self) didn’t really care for Donna the Housing Administrator at all. It’s no wonder I felt exhausted all the time in that job — I was living two distinct lives, and one of those lives I really hated.

The creation of my own business — and my own set of rules — has freed me to be me — and probably saved me thousands in therapy fees.

My role model in life is the late Ann Richards, former governor of the great state of Texas. Ann was bold, brave, humorous, bright, and embodied the best in a Southern/Texas woman, and made no bones about that. Long ago I decided to embrace my being a “southern girl from the sticks” (English translation–lived in the country in a small East Texas town) rather than trying to make myself over into something more palatable to a wider group.

A former client used to get the biggest kick out of the stories I would tell her about living in a small east Texas town while at the same time telling me I needed to move away from there to a more civilized place. I told her if I moved, she would lose her great source of funny stories that she could incorporate into her speeches, and I would lose what makes me “me.”

As a small business owner, how can you incorporate “you” into your business so that your ideal clients are naturally drawn to you? What natural gifts and talents do you possess but aren’t willing to acknowledge? I strongly encourage you to tell your story–your parable of why you do what you do. Playing to your gifts and being who you are for a living is an extraordinarily rewarding way to run your business. Most importantly, it’s what makes your business distinct — and helps you stand out in a sea of small businesses.

Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses by demystifying the steps needed to successfully market a baby boomer business online. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> http://www.OnlineBizU.com

By Ed Duvall in Business

Most of us, and that includes just about anyone who has been online for even a short while seeking to setup their own web business, has heard the phrase “do what you love”. Really, the biggest hurdle and challenges one faces in building a web business is figuring out just what it is we want to get into - your niche.

A “niche” is basically a topic or a market that has enough interest by others that you can develop a site or a product around. Now if this is your first attempt at developing your own website or online business and you don’t really know what it is you want to do then you may want to follow the tips below.

There are of course many other basic challenges that anyone wanting to set up their own online business must also consider:

  • deciding on a domain name
  • hosting account
  • setting up a website
  • adding content regularly
  • automating as much as possible
  • list building
  • marketing, promotion and traffic just to name a few

But none of that really comes into play unless you have decided exactly what it is you want your website to be about.

For some people doing what they love comes easy to them but for many others it’s a struggle trying to find out exactly what they like to do that translates into a web business. Here are a few things to think about to help you find your own niche that you will feel fits you best.

The first thing I recommend is that you do some brain storming about your personal likes and dislikes. Find a quite spot somewhere, such as your easy chair or anywhere that works for you, as long as you can limit the distractions and let your thoughts flow. Have a pen and paper handy to write down any thing that comes to mind that could be a niche you would enjoy.

Write down 6-12 ideas that come to mind. If your having problems coming up with ideas it may take a little more time. You can also do this over the course of a week or longer if necessary. After you have your topics written down then get online and do a keyword search to find out how many searches are done for the topic your interested in.

Keep in mind some of your topics will have a good amount of searches while others will show little or none. You may have to dig down through the initial keywords to find a niche that suits you. After you have drilled down to find your ideal niche then you will want to give some thought as to how you can serve this niche before you actually set up your website. Can you solve a pressing problem? Provide a useful product? You can generally find what people are looking for by finding and reading forum posts about your niche.

Pick a keyword from your selected niche that seems to suit you and go to Google and do a search for it. Take a look at the top right of the page and see how many web pages there are about this keyword. If it’s 5 figures or less then I’d say you have a pretty good niche idea to either set up a mini-site or full blown content site and then optimize it to obtain a top 10 ranking. If your going to develop a full content based site keep your keyword list as you can use it to create content such as articles, RSS feeds, videos, etc. Using the tips above you should easily be able to come up with a niche of your own in a relatively short time.

Ed Duvall - To learn even more about finding your own Niche Markets grab our FREE REPORT on Find Your Very Own Massively Profitable Niche http://www.cashway.com/g/rtr.htm Reprint OK when resource box remains intact

By Judy Murdoch in Business

This is why addressing the need to belong is so important. It also may seem a little mysterious to you as a business owner. Perhaps you’re thinking, “all this makes sense to me but how exactly do I help my customers feel like they belong on the home page of my website?”

How to Create a Sense of Belong in Your Marketing

No, you don’t need to start your marketing message off with “Hey I love you. Here comes a great big hug just for you!” Even Barney the dinosaur doesn’t say that at the very beginning of the show.
Plus you’d probably creep people out a little.

Here are four ways to reassure prospects “yes, you’re at the right place to get the help you need,” so that they can take the next step.

1. Begin your marketing message with who you help and the problem you help them with.

For example, “technical consultants who are tired of struggling to get their next contract.”

2. Expand on the problem by addressing issues such as:

  • how the problem shows up in regular everyday life
  • emotions they may be feeling
  • Solutions they’ve already tried that didn’t work
  • Why those solutions often don’t work

If it feels tricky for you to address emotions in writing, try addressing these points as you would if you were in a conversation with a trusted colleague.

When I began writing the way I speak, I found it became a lot easier to write about customer problems in a way that was natural and empathetic but still within the boundaries of the business relationship.

If you’re still feeling stuck, re-read the first few paragraphs of this article to get a sense of how I introduced the problem and expanded on it.

3. Introduce your solution only after you’ve addressed your customer’s experience with the problem.

Once you’ve covered the problem and your customer’s experience with it (in steps 1 and 2) you’ve told your customer in effect:

“I understand your problem and know how awful it feels to struggle with this problem. You’re not alone.”

You can demonstrate your expertise and talk about your solution. Again, in this article, I first talked about the problem in detail. I then transitioned to “here’s what can cause this problem” and “here are steps you can take to take care of this problem.”

4. Once you’ve discussed the problem, the customer’s experience of the problem, and your solution, add your call to action.

At this point folks fitting your ideal customer profile will be feeling seen, heard, and accepted enough to be ready to learn more about how you can help and what it will take in terms of time, money, etc.

This is where you can add a call of action like, “Click here for more details and to register for my xyz program.”

Bottom Line

There’s an old adage that “People don’t care about what you know until they know you care.” In this case, it is so true.

Your marketing needs to first address your customer’s to belong before you say a word about value-added and cost. Otherwise, your customer will move on to another vendor who makes them feel better understood.

Judy Murdoch helps small business owners create low-cost, effective marketing campaigns using word-of-mouth referrals, guerrilla marketing activities, and selected strategic alliances. To download a free copy of the workbook, “Where Does it Hurt? Marketing Solutions to the problems that Drive Your Customers Crazy!” go to http://www.judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm

By Ana Luzia Russo in Business

In the current economical climate when ordinary brick-and-mortar stores face a downturn in sales, there is still an increase in incomes for online vendors. According to the monthly survey studies conducted by CapGemini in the UK, online purchases show a positive growth even during the current recession. As an example, online shoppers spent 16% more during November 2008 compared to the same month the previous year. According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of GSI during early November, the top two reasons given by American participants who planned to shop online during the current holiday season to avoid the crowds and for convenience, i.e. they were not limited by opening hours and could shop at a time that suited them.

As customers do more and more of their shopping online, their expectations for online stores grow and their tolerance for bad online retail solutions diminish. An online survey conducted by Harris Interactive® in the UK on behalf of Tealeaf shows that almost 90% expect customer service to be as good if not better than in a regular brick-and-mortar store. However, another online survey conducted by Retail Eyes reports 8 out of 10 respondents experiencing better service in offline stores compared to online. Even though these two studies show inconsistent numbers regarding consumers’ expectations for online and offline customer services, both studies highlight the importance of the customer experience when it comes to brand or store loyalty. Almost 9 out of 10 respondents in the Harris Interactive® study (89%) had experienced problems while conducting an online transaction during the last year. Out of these almost half (49%) stated that if they encountered problems in an online shop, they most often abandoned the shopping process in favour of another online competitor’s solution. This is an increase of 12% since last year. In addition, 42% stated they were unlikely to try to use the failing site again. This can be compared with 68% of the respondents in the Retail Eyes survey who stated that having experienced bad service in a store would make them switch loyalty from one retailer to another.

Even though customers buy more online, they are selective on where and on what they spend their money. As previously highlighted, they are getting increasingly critical towards badly implemented online shops and poor customer experiences. In a recession, the most commonly used tactic for companies is to decrease spending. This often means cutting back on research and development. However, this can have dire consequences both during the recession and after it ends. Historically, companies that had the foresight and resources to invest in improving their offerings and services often experienced a boom when times improved. Companies such as Dell and Intel made such investments during the recession in the beginning of the 90’s, as well as Apple, Google and MySpace during the last credit crunch. Compared to their competitors, they could then offer solutions which were much more sophisticated as soon as the will to invest returned and it often took years for other companies in the same markets to catch up. According to Apple this strategy is being used during the current credit crunch as well, and another well known company, Amazon, has already started to release newly developed solutions for increasing their market share. An example of this is an application, ‘Amazon Mobile’ (currently available in the US), which can be installed on Apple’s IPhone which allows users to photograph items in regular stores, add them to an online shopping cart and receive information about online prices for those items (often with a discount for using the tool).

Investments in R&D during recessions are something that has been discussed and promoted in both Financial Times and Forbes as a way to prepare for the future. However, it should not be done without careful considerations on what to invest in. During recession, it becomes clearer which are the sources of income, and should be the most important for a company. Customers who are willing to spend money in good times might not necessarily be those customers who keep the company alive when a credit crunch arrives. Hence, there might be benefits in refocusing the offerings provided according to the most beneficial markets now, and in the future. An example of this strategy was adopted by Singapore Airlines, after noticing that the most reliable income was from full-fare business and first-class travellers on transcontinental routes. As a result, they cut back on short flights, and spent more to serve these customer groups. During the recession in Asia in the late 90’s, Singapore Airlines demonstrated a profit, and came out much stronger than its competitors when the downturn ended. For an online retailer this means clearly defining the target group and developing the online store to suit that group. Research at fhios has shown that is very rare that an online solution can cater for all kinds of costumers. As previously mentioned, customer service and the online experience represent a very important aspect of an online purchase. At the same time, value for money plays a vital role in times of economic downturn. According to latest figures from Hitwise, the word ‘voucher’ was the most commonly used for online search terms combined with well known brands. Customers are no longer loyal to a store or a brand as such, but instead look to the costumer service they provide and the incentive programs they offer. With the competition only a mouse click away, online retailers cannot afford to lose or alienate their customers. Instead, it is time to secure the future by giving the customers what they want but also to exceed their expectations in order to make your site their first point of call for their next online purchase.

About fhios
fhios (www.fhios.com) is a leading international customer experience research company that was founded in 2002 and have successfully conducted over 300 customer experience and usability research projects across over 30 countries, with many brand perception, customer segmentation, concept & design validation, competitive benchmarking, online communities and user needs projects to provides its clients such as  Harvey Nichols, Diageo, Habitat, HSBC, Motorola, Hilton and Shell/Ferrari with the insight to understand customers needs, goals, expectations, behaviours and experience levels when they engage with them and their competitors.

About the Author
Anneli holds an MSc in Human Computer Interaction and Interaction design from IT University of Göteborg and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. Her prior work experience includes a position as research assistant at the IT University of Gothenburg and as a Ph.D. student where she conducted research about persuasive computing at the Open University. The research has resulted in a few publications within the field of Human computer interaction. She speaks fluent Swedish. Anneli is a Research Consultant at fhios. (http://www.fhios.com/team.htm

By Trey Pennewell in Business

During the course of my work, I get to literally read or scan articles written by hundreds of authors every week - thousands every year. I have seen the best and the worst of what people have written to promote their businesses online.

Experience has taught me who will be successful with article marketing and who will fail with article marketing. I have also learned that anyone can be taught the secret to successful article marketing, but not everyone wants to accept what is being taught.

Business Lessons From Chef Gordon Ramsey

The other day, I was watching Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. If you have never seen the show, Gordon Ramsey is a popular and successful chef, whose name and reputation is known around the world.

Restaurant owners - many of whom are chefs - contact Ramsey and ask him to visit their restaurant, in essence to help them to save their restaurant from economic failure. The most amazing thing about the process is that many of the chefs have personally asked Ramsey to come, yet when he arrives, they fight with Ramsey every step of the way - determined that Ramsey will not force them to change their ways.

On day one of his visit, Ramsey tries the food as a customer and talks to the owners of the restaurant. On day two, Ramsey observes the operation of the restaurant. On day three, he has designers come in and remake the dining room and he trains the staff to understand the changes that will take place. On day four, Ramsey uses his skill to swamp the restaurant. On night four, most restaurants will have a line out the door.

It is a process that will save most restaurants, from failure.

Whether an employee or the boss, the chef always seems to believe that he or she is smarter than Ramsey, and they tend to reject the problems that Ramsey identifies and the solutions he provides.

How Gordon Ramsey’s Advice Can Help The Online Marketer

In one episode, Gordon Ramsey said that the difference between a successful restaurant and one that fails can be summed up in one thought, “A successful restaurant is one that puts the desires of its customers, above the desires of its owner.”

In the restaurants that Ramsey visits, customers simply desire good food at a fair price. But when a restaurant is suffering from slow sales, the first corner that owners usually cut is in eliminating “fresh food” in the kitchen. By eliminating fresh food and replacing it with canned or frozen, restaurant owners find that they can save an awful lot of money, but that step often drives away even more customers from the “fine dining” experience.

The online marketer is much in the same boat as the restaurant operator.

The online marketer needs to give online consumers a good product at a fair price, but the seller must resist the temptation to cut costs in ways that will hurt the business.

How This Applies To Article Marketing

Article marketing was developed in recognition of the fact that people go online to learn. Online marketers realized that if they were willing to teach, they could use the content they created to “attract” customers to their products and services.

Somewhere over the years, the purpose of article marketing was redefined and perverted by someone with something to sell. A lot of online marketers accepted the new definition that said that the only purpose for article marketing was to build inbound links to one’s website. They said you only needed to put together enough words - 300 to 500 words - so publishers could accept your “links”.

“Attraction marketing” was set aside as the “old way of doing things”, and replaced with “link building” as the “new and improved” way of marketing a website.

I count myself lucky that I learned “article marketing”, when it was still understood as “attraction marketing”. I count myself lucky, because I remain able to “attract” hordes of traffic and considerable sales for my websites, by using article marketing the way it was originally intended.

Interestingly, the people who adopted article marketing under the “new and improved” model soon began to realize that the new kind of article marketing was not bringing the kinds of results that people were promised. So the “new and improved” model was recently “improved” again. Now the common knowledge of the “new and improved” model say that the search engines reject “duplicate” copies of articles on the Internet. To combat this, marketers are using software to rewrite an article dozens of times, so that they can put “unique computer-generated content” on each website.

I predict that the “new, new and improved” will be as unsuccessful as the “old, new and improved” model was. It is not that the search engines changed to reject “duplicate copies” of articles. Instead, the search engines started to reject articles that proved to offer no real value to readers.

Of course, this statement may generate a very important question in your mind. How does the search engines’ algorithms know which articles provide value to their readers and which ones do not?

In response, let me ask you this: How many people link to your articles on those third-party websites? See, there really is a simple method that the search engines can use to determine if a particular article has any value to its audience. The search engines can count the number of links pointing to an individual article on a third-party website, to determine if people find that article useful to the needs of the consumer.

So you have got to ask yourself, will the “new, new and improved” model of “unique computer-generated content” provide enough value to readers to attract links from third-party websites? If you answer this question honestly with a “no”, then you will have also predicted the failure of the “new, new and improved” model of article marketing, as I have.

Remember Gordon Ramsey’s Advice

“A successful restaurant is one that puts the desires of its customers, above the desires of its owner.”

It is true that article marketing done as I do it (attraction marketing) is more expensive than the “new, new and improved” model of article marketing, but it also produces better results. Just as “fresh food” will attract more diners to a restaurant, the more expensive “hand-crafted” and “polished” articles will attract more links to the article and more visitors to the author’s website.

First off, article marketing - as it was done in the early days of the Internet - will accomplish more than one goal. When done well, the article will find an audience in newsletters, which can introduce your marketing message to thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospects in a single day.

Like you, we also have goals of building links for our websites and achieving a higher search engine placement for our websites, but we consider search engine placement to be secondary to the main goal of attracting customers to our websites’ products and services.

So in order to achieve our first goal of reaching large audiences for our articles, we have to “attract” readers to our articles, by teaching our prospects something of value to them. When our article delivers value to our readers, then the article’s resource box will generally deliver prospects to our website, where the real selling takes place.

In our world, our article on a third-party website will attract links from other websites, because we put the needs and desires of our customers / readers ahead of our own needs. And after our article has been delivered to tens or hundreds of thousands of readers in various newsletters, we will also achieve our search engine goals, because most newsletter publishers will publish a copy of the article in their online archives and people will link to it.

If It Is Not Broke, Don’t Fix It

Yes we consider the search engine goals to be important to our long-range plans, but we find that we don’t have to put a “unique article” on every website to get great search placement. Because we have never embraced the “new and improved” model of article marketing, we know that the “old-fashioned way” of doing things works just fine - even today.

Consider this:

  • Foxnews.com has a PageRank of 6;

    •  

  • Cnn.com has a PageRank of 7;

    •  

  • Msnbc.msn.com has a PageRank of 10;

    •  

  • Nytimes.com has a PageRank of 8;

    •  

  • Online.wsj.com (Wall Street Journal) has a PageRank of 7;

    •  

  • Latimes.com has a PageRank of 8.

    •  

    Besides being news websites, do you know what else these websites have in common?

    They all buy some “news content” from the Associated Press (www.ap.org) and United Press International (www.upi.com). What that means is that all of the news outlets buy and publish the same articles from the same sources, and yet, we don’t see the search engines penalizing the news sites, do we?

    If the search engines are not penalizing the corporate news websites for printing the same non-unique articles, then why should we believe that the search engines are penalizing non-unique content on your website and in your article marketing endeavors?

    In Conclusion

    Article marketing works well when people link to your articles - on one third-party website or a dozen third-party websites. But in order for people to want to link to your articles, the content must be top-notch. People aren’t going to link to crap articles; so computer-generated content should be avoided in the same way that fine dining restaurants should avoid buying canned foods.

    By focusing on the desires of our future customers (solutions for their problems), we are able to use article marketing successfully to promote any website we want to promote. We think about what is important to our customers, and then we answer our customers’ questions. By putting ourselves into the mind of our prospects, we are able to give them the exact kind of content they want to read.

    In doing so, we successfully drive traffic to our websites, AND we create excellent search engine placement for our websites. And when we say websites, we do mean more than one website. We successfully utilize article marketing for dozens of websites, so we know that what we teach can be duplicated by the masses, if only the masses are willing to accept what we teach.

    Trey Pennewell works for http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/ article distribution service and provides process support for the http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com/ Pay-For-Ranking SEO service. Just recently, The Phantom Writers introduced professional Video Articles production, to help its customers take advantage of the new frontier in Video Marketing, using great video content and video sharing sites such as YouTube and others.

    By Mark Silver in Business

    Hunger and fear are good for your business. Not abject hunger and despairing panic, mind you. That’s too much. But a little touch of hunger and fear is very useful.

    I know there are many people out there who would prefer that not to be the case. And I’m one of them. I wish inspiration and love were big enough motivators for action. But for us humans who aren’t yet enlightened, they don’t seem to work so well.

    The problem is complacency. We most often don’t do things until we absolutely have to.

    I’ve watched it happen–a client’s savings account dwindles down over time while they are stuck in fear or uncertainty about what to do or how to do it. Perfectionism has it’s tight grip on them.
    Then the account hits zero, or whatever feels like “zero” to the person in question. And suddenly they leap into action.

    Sound familiar? This is the mother of all feast-or-famine cycles. If you stay in that kind of a cycle, then your business can’t ever move much higher than the ground floor.

    But before we go about seeking a fix, let’s take a look at the Sufi teaching that explains why this can be a good thing.

    Lashed With Hunger and Thirst

    There’s a Sufi story that goes like this: Source, aka God, aka The Divine, was talking to the ego, asking it to leave off injuring itself with various addictive behaviors and surrender to Source. “Am I not Your Lord?” The Divine asked in its inimitable Divine fashion.

    The ego responded. “I am what I am, and you are what you are,” continuing right on with what it was doing. The Divine then plunged the ego into fire in order to purify it–kind of like putting metal into fire to burn away impurities.

    The result? Nada. Twelve thousand years of fire and the ego is still clinging to its self-destroying patterns.

    The Divine then plunged the ego back into the fire adding just a touch of hunger and thirst. Immediately the ego released its grip and allowed itself to be purified.

    Yes, I’m talking about us.

    The Difference Between Pain and Survival

    What this short Sufi story outlines is the difference between pain and survival. Humans have an almost unfathomable capacity to deal with pain and suffering, but we have very little capacity to risk our own survival.

    This is one of the reasons that I think this financial crisis is actually going to be healthy for us in the long run; by threatening our survival, it’s making people take actions that could’ve been done gracefully awhile ago. It’s painful, it’s scary, and a lot of people will end up being hurt. Yet apparently it’s necessary. And some of the actions we’re forced to take now may serve us well over the long term.

    But that’s a far larger topic than I want to delve into, so I’ll just say that and move on.

    Move on? Now you know complacency is a normal human state of being until hunger and thirst are added. So instead of just living with it, let’s move on to how to get your business fanny in gear without your bank account or some other survival button being pushed.

    Keys to Hunger-Motivated Business

    What else besides (lack of) money threatens your survival?

    One of the reasons it works so well to declare goals before witnesses is because your identity as someone with integrity is threatened if you don’t follow through, and your ego sees this as akin to survival. It can be a bullying approach, so I recommend some measure of compassion in it, but it can also be very effective.

    Take a moment in your heart to identify what qualities are core for you, such as integrity, generosity, or love. Now put them in play, usually with others’ help, by setting goals your ego will fight for.
    It’s a little tricky, but then, so is the ego, and it’s okay to push the ego a bit, if the deeper intention is truly from your heart.

    Here’s an example: In the recent Path to Profitability Retreat, we prided ourselves on holding a spiritual container that allowed participants to go deep into their processes. In order to provide that, we needed to double up on our own spiritual practices. So we did. It just so happens that both Holly and I have had a commitment to deepen our spiritual practices, and this goal helped get us there.

    Use actual hunger or thirst to weaken your ego.

    One of the key spiritual practices in nearly any tradition is the ascetic practice of fasting–avoiding food or water or both for a set amount of time.

    Fasting weakens the ego. Whether it’s Ramadan, Yom Kippur, or Lent, devoted followers often report a purity of heart after fasting. The benefit of this purity of heart means that the ego’s grip is looser, and the heart’s intention and inspiration is more available.

    Try taking a single day and, if it’s not dangerous for you medically, fast. Don’t eat or drink for twelve hours. Keep up your meditation and prayer practices during this time to support the process, and notice how you feel afterwards.

    It seems like an impractical business suggestion, but spiritual traditions around the globe have recommended fasting and prayer before big projects or decisions. It creates that sense of purity and resolve that can get you moving forward clearly and in a big way.

    Choose the middle path.

    While fear of survival can get you moving, too much can paralyze you or make you sick. Don’t fast too much. Don’t let your bank account go too low. Don’t set goals you don’t have a chance of reaching.

    The ego has all kinds of built-in mechanisms that can support you in your business, and fear of survival is one of them. You don’t have to think it’s wrong as a motivator, it’s actually very holy. But be conscious of how it works, and use survival with love and intention.

    The best to you and your business,

    Mark Silver

    Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com

    By Joel Christopher in Business

    If you are going to use online marketing tools, you must be well-versed on what makes a page visually appealing to people. Have you ever encountered a page where you seem to feel bombarded or suffocated with the long lines of text and improperly selected colors or templates? Certainly, you would not want your website to be classified under that category.

    You must be able to render some semblance of visual quality to match the quality of your products and your business. Few people are going to put up with lousy visuals no matter how good the offer is or how promising the product seems to be.

    When you are designing your page, you must take into the account the usual manner with which people read. It is usually done in a left to right fashion. So it would do you a lot of good if you will position your subscription somewhere in the right. Also, it will draw the prospects’ attention to the upper right hand side of your page if you attach and image.

    The top and center portion of the page is also a good place to put your killer headline, which must in a nutshell summarize the benefits that your prospect can get if he or she continues to focus on what is being offered in this page or the next.

    Placing anchor text in the midst of your articles or blocks of text regarding similar topics that you have may also help the linger longer in the page and have a desire to explore it.

    Speedreaders are also popular in the Internet. People apparently tend to read material in an S-like fashion. And people are least likely to take breaks while reading, so you must do this minor favor for them by providing lots of white space in the middle of chunks of information so that their eyes can breathe and be able to brace themselves to absorb the next point.

    If anything, the last thing you would want your readers to suffer from is information overload. That will definitely have you in their do-not-visit-again list.

    When you are also providing your contact numbers, please do include it already in your signature. The signature signals the end to the reader, and the text that appears beyond the signature is usually left unread because most people are more than ready to move on to the next page after the signature.

    Before you also provide your readers with information, you might want to strategically place in your squeeze page and have them opt-in before viewing the rest of the page they are trying to read. This way, you will get their email address and have them instantly included in your prospects.

    However, some people may actually put in a bogus email address. To avoid this, have the needed information sent to the email address they placed. This will compel them to give out their authentic email address to be able to have access to the desired information.

    The way you insert the option for readers to opt-in must also be assertive in a non-obtrusive kind of way.

    Joel Christopher is a best-selling author, speaker and mentor, known worldwide as The MasterListBuilder. To find out more on how you can triple your leads, sales and profits. Visit http://www.MasterListBuilder.com

    By Mark Tyner in Jerry Bader's Blog

    Everyone in the marketing field is faced with this daunting task of reaching everyone on the planet simultaneously, on a daily basis. Lets say we have a brand new product, extremely viral, unique, and most importantly never before seen. A whole new dilemma stares you in the face as you need massive amounts of people viewing your offer before “the cat is out of the bag,” in order for you to maximize your profit.

    Realize that what we are asking for is the exact same thing every single internet marketer, every single guru, every single business, is trying to achieve? That is to reach mass amounts of people, all at the same time.

    • The short answer is to be able to email everybody. How about everyone on a list who’s seeking make money opportunities, diet and health products, or a specialty service. If you can swing interest with some who’s got a list, fine, otherwise there’s the usual like blogging or article posting.
    • Write such an interesting article that everyone wants to publish it, that’s quite fast if you can do it.
    • Publish a press release that is so interesting everyone wants to publish it.
    • Do a deal with someone with a long list.
    • Use advertising offline like craigslist, or online like USfreeads.
    • Get your site really search engine optimized, then publish an article to as many article sites as possible. When Google reads them, and they will often, Google will also index your site through the link on the article, and then seo takes over.

    All of the above take time, but we are all trying to get our message out to everyone that we can. Using these tactics are beneficial and just a great common practice.

    The so called “Guru’s” get it out quickly because they have a boat load of affiliates who do it for them and they have a huge list of people to send it to. It’s much easier to have a “New Launch” when you have built a reputation and have a large following.

    A solution for the common marketer

    For the common marketer, a really great way is to rent a list of names, or buy a list of names that has been collected on opt-in subscribes actively searching for your product or offer. That involves using a list someone else owns and marketing to them. There’s usually a fee and the bigger the list the bigger the fee. Let’s focus on this technique.

    I’ve seen many quality lists on specific niches well into the 100,000’s and very reasonably priced. Many will even offer the free emailing software compatible with their list formats. Finding the lists are relatively easy. Search engine dietary affiliate program seekers or MLM opportunity seekers, and you will find huge lists. Just make sure your mailings are CAN - SPAM compliant when marketing this way and the possibilities are endless. A helpful tip is to add the name, email address, IP address, and the date they filled out their opt-in subscription to the bottom of your mailings also. If you get a good quality list, you can expect it to contain all of that information. A quality emailing software will also let you utilize that information seamlessly.

    My suggestion is to go after the huge lists. If you have a good product and can offer something of worth to them, they will respond appropriately.

    Looking for Legitimate Ways to Prosper On-Line? Visit Mark Tyner’s website at YourHomeBiz-Direct Or look in on his latest Business Opp | Retail-Auction.com

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