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Ninja business coach Matt Burkinshaw of Synergy Business Coaching joined me on a teleconference call to share his breakthrough business development strategies with our tribe. Those in attendance walked away with proven ideas they could immediately put to use in their business. If you couldn’t join the call live, the seminar audio transcript is below for online listening or to download to your iPod.

Herbert Spencer said, “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action…” Put this knowledge to immediate use.  I dare you…

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Finding success in attracting new customers to your business is much like approaching a multiple choice exam.  We are not born with the right answers but we can certainly rule out the wrong ones.  During this months Q & A conference call my guest Donna Maria Coles Johnson founder of Indie Business Media and I addressed challenges faced by many in our tribe as they struggle to build systems that can deliver a predictable stream of customers and clients. Consider these your Ten Leadership Lessons in business growth and development for the month. 

On the call we cover:

• The one proven way to make social media work for your business
• 3 guaranteed ways to overcome buyer resistance on your website
• The myth about using Twitter and Facebook for business
• How to build influence and authority that leads to new business
• The secret to building website traffic
• How to use virtual assistants to free up time to do all of this marketing stuff

Listen to the call

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“Success leaves clues and reading is one of the
best means to absorbing such clues…”

Anthony Robbins

Beyond the hail of ooohs I would have never guessed this little pixel book would become one of my greatest business development tools.  That’s right my Kindle helps me win new client relationships and it can do the same for you.

Because I have instant, downloadable access to some half a million book titles, newspapers and magazines I am able to efficiently consume information about my focus expertise increasing my value to clients and inspiring trust that our web development team will get the job done.

More than smart

In addition to making me smarter (okay, stop laughing) the device allows me to easily highlight and notate text and because my notes are in digital format I can easily export them to create book summaries that I offer to prospective clients increasing my attractiveness.

Instant audio book…

If sharable, digital notes weren’t enough the Kindle can turn just about any book it stores into an audio book with a digitized voice that reads the book aloud. Plug this guy into your car stereo and turn dead driving time into new insight. Some publishers have disabled the audio feature but I have a feeling that the groundswell from users will get publishers to see the light.

If the knowledge you share with prospects is your chief trust-building asset (hint: it should be), then the Kindle is the new killer business app! iPad’s work pretty good too but they are so freakin’ big.

Bonus…the eBook Wars

Have you ever known a successful business owner who didn’t know a lot about their products, service and industry? Communicating your knowledge through text, audio and video content is your single best opportunity to build authority that leads to explosive sales and adding a blog to your website is the most efficient tool for building your business’s content library.

Mastering The Rule of 8:16

Friend and mentor Steve “Doc” Yankee taught me the rule of 8:16 which states it takes 8 communication touches over a 16 month period before the person who wants to do business with you actually pulls the trigger. By blogging consistently (3 times per week, minimum) you can get to that magic 8 touches far more efficiently than picking up the phone 8 times.   Blogging also gives you valuable leverage allowing you to reach hundreds or thousands of people with the same piece of content.  Try doing that with a telephone call.

Efficient Publishing

Writing and posting pdf and Word documents to your website is an ineffective and clunky publishing solution. First, visitors must have the proper plugin installed. In addition readers can’t search, comment to or otherwise organize downloadable files.  Blog technology with it’s simple implementation, categorization capability and interaction through comments is a far more elegant and efficient publishing process than uploading a bunch of files.

The fallacy of, “I don’t have enough time…”

I won’t lie to you; blogging takes time and commitment. Brainstorming post ideas, writing, editing and adding images is work; but doesn’t being successful take a lot of hard work? If your sales are through the roof then by all means pass on this opportunity but if you are struggling you can continue the cycle of lackluster performance or do something about it.

Whenever I hear people say, “I don’t have time to do all of that…” (after complaining about poor leads and sales, mind you); I tell them “You don’t have a time problem, you have an organization problem.” Hire an employee to take over some of your tedious work; find a virtual assistant to do article research; outsource all the mindless busy work that prevents you from doing your art…engaging opportunities. You will be surprised by how much time you find.

Now When Will You Start Your Blog?

Partnering with other blogggers in your niche is the single most effective tactics you can use to grow your online influence and business. If you have made it a part of your business marketing strategy to build relationships with remarkable bloggers, Feedly is a great tool to stay on top of their updates. For today’s lesson I prepared the following screencast video to get you started.

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The Tools

Feedly’s free service bolts onto the Firefox browser through a plugin and arranges all of your blog rss feeds into an easy to read, magazine-like interface.  You can create groups to organize your feeds and it is in these groups where the power of Feedly as an online networking tool shines.

The Strategy…

Organize a group of 3 to 5 bloggers who commit to supporting one another through guest posts, blog comments, idea exchanges and promotion through social media. The best team members are those who sell a complimentary product or service to the same target customer. Complimentary business owners will find it easy to contribute to the collective, as their expertise will be naturally relevant.

Once you have a few good social media folk in your personal network add their blog feeds to a Feedly group to monitor new posts and jump into discussions that draw your interest by adding comments; promoting great posts on Twitter and pointing your Facebook friends in your partner’s direction.

Tell us about your online tribe?

In his book Linchpin Seth Godin sites the death of cheap and quick, noting that you can’t get much cheaper than $.50 mp3 music download.  What this statement says to me is that technology is making the creation of any product or service an easily delivered commodity but it won’t make the product remarkable and it is the remarkable product, the one that truly works that markets will reward handsomely.

How are you remarkable…

There is some way your services are or could be made outstanding but because you are a perfectionist you always see your work as falling short.  In truth your customers and clients are in a better position to reveal your remarkable brilliance.

The one question to ask…

The next time you communicate with your best customer, your raving fan make sure to ask her the following question, “What did we do that is not easily imitated?” You are likely to hear such responses as you took the extra time; you helped me understand; you showed me. The one thing you probably won’t hear is the mention of price because being cheap is not exceptional; anyone can achieve it.

Now put the answer to work…

This is not survey data or a focus group exercise.  Once you have input from 3 or so fans; replace your dead tagline or USP with your customer’s answer to our question.  Because this insight comes from a source much like the people you are attempting to reach, the message is more likely to be heard and internalized.   Add your new message to the top of your website, to your case study page and build a testimonial video around the new theme. Remember there is a groundswell of people who will reward the remarkable, so don’t let your fears sidetrack you.

Are you remarkable?

So your website has all the bells and whistles but only a trickle of business seems to be coming from it.  If this sounds familiar chances are during the development phase you made the all too common mistake of placing too much emphasis on the way your site looks, its design. 20% of your website’s success is a function of design.  Building trust in the minds of your visitors makes up the other 80% of the success equation. Trust building is where you should be focusing the majority of your effort if you want your website to deliver a torrent of hot leads desperate to do business with you.

Ever heard the statement, “people do business with those they like and trust”? It just so happens to be the one firm truth in business and by adding a few trust-building assets, your website will be fulfilling your expectations in no time.

1. Great Content: Teaching (not hard pitching) sells and adding useful, free information that helps your customers make better use of your products and services positions you as the market authority inspiring trust in the process. Interview your best clients at your blog, write an eBook detailing product use strategies or prepare a downloadable list of 10 great tips for using your services in PDF format.
2. Newsletter
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   : Prospects must see your (trust-building) messages multiple times before they take action and sending a monthly newsletter filled with helpful, useful content (not sales pitches) simplifies this task.

3. Free Q/A Conference Calls
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   : Use virtual conference services like Free Conference Calls or DimDim to answer your prospects’ questions about creative ways to use the valuable services you offer. Use these service’s recording tools to create audio versions of your sessions and add the recordings to your site or blog to reach an even greater number of prospects.

4. Social Proof:  The principle of social proof teaches that humans are genetically wired to shortcut the decision making process, thus we naturally seek the opinions of others to help us choose the right product or provider.  Proper use of testimonials on your site adds the social proof your prospects need to take the desired action, contacting you.
5. Media hits: If you actively pitch story angles to the media about your company (if you don’t, start!) adding press mentions to your site provides a stamp of approval from an authoritative and “objective” source.

As long as your site’s design passes the professionalism smell test, every dollar you spend beyond this point is money wasted. Shifting your focus from flash and pop to trust building is the best way to turn your site into a customer generating machine.

Do You Still Think Looks Mean Everything?

Does researching, writing and editing images for blog posts three to five times per week seem like too daunting a time investment to make? Instead of pointing my finger and giving you a lecture about the importance of investing time and money in your business’s success I thought I would pass along a few tips to make the idea of blogging a bit more approachable. My lecture will come later (smile).

Don’t Kill Yourself

Blogging and social media are cornerstone tactics for building the necessary buyer trust that leads to sales and below are some shortcuts you can use to publish quality content and avoid killing yourself in the process.

1. Partner: Don’t do it all yourself! Invite a couple of good writers who cover topics that compliment your own to blog with you. Allow each partner to promote their interest on a blogger profile page and let them add links to their website or blog at the beginning or end of each post.
2. Hire an assistant
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   : Hiring a virtual assistant can significantly ease the burden of researching post topics. If you find a savvy VA he or she might be able to further assist by editing images for your articles and help promote your posts on Twitter, FaceBook and other online communities.

3. Schedule:  Commit to a realistic schedule that works for you.  I get up early in the morning and write my posts while I workout and edit them soon after. By the time my kids are on the bus I am finished blogging and ready to move on to other things.
4. Use idle time: I blog or brainstorm post ideas while waiting on movies to begin, at auto service appointments or during any “dead” space in my schedule.

It is a fact that there is no ROI without “I”, so to make your business work you have to commit time and money towards its success.  Blogging is one of the most effective tools available to attract prospective customers (and Google) to your site and more importantly to engage visitors is an ongoing dialog that turns the casual browser into a willing buyer.

What is Your Blog Process?

I define a system as a series of repeatable steps leading to a predictable outcome and to their detriment its the one thing most businesses don’t use to generate referrals. Most rely on what Internet marketer John Jantsch calls accidental referrals and I refer to as “hope and pray” referrals where you do a good job and hope the recipient passes your name along. Accidental referrals do happen but you can’t count on them to materialize and because there is no process to ensure they occur, the result is infrequent unpredictable cash flow.

The best referral system

The most powerful referral system by far is the referral exchange alliance where you agree to exchange referrals with 2-3 businesses who sell a complimentary product to your target audience. With these relationships referrals pass without much work because your partner’s client’s already want your service and the same is true for your customers.

Alliance partners are motivated to send you referrals because they know you will do the same; they sell a product that compliments yours so referrals occur automatically and because they sell their service to the same customer base as yours you will get fewer tire-kickers. This system flat out changed my business overnight.

Empower your referral network

Once your dream team is formed, add a section to your website to fan the referral flames and consider including the following content:

1. Program details
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   : To sell prospective partners include information explaining the benefits and details of the referral alliance system.

2. Partner newsletter: Send a short monthly newsletter to your network partners with tips for generating more referrals, a motivational message to keep them fired up along with updates on referrals generated by the network.
3. Partner links
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   :  Add links to partner sites and promote this page to your site visitors to create “no work” referrals.

4. Add a Forum: Add a community forum for alliance members to share referral lead ideas, stories about new relationships and to train new alliance program members.

Follow this approach and you will soon be wiping “I need more customers” off this years to do list.

How do you generate referrals?

Introducing your website visitors to helpful tools they can immediately put to use in their businesses and in their lives is a powerful way to build trust and liking in the minds of your prospects.  Just in case you didn’t know people do business with those they like and trust; so if you have adopted the strategy of offering useful content, the best way to accelerate your success is to show your prospects how to use the tools you uncover instead of simply pointing them out.

A quick break to make a point

Avoid the “now what” syndrome…

By stopping at simply identifying the resource you lose the game because anyone can do this and quite frankly you leave your prospects thinking, “That’s interesting, so now what?” For instance I can tell you that Feedly is a great gizmo for organizing the content from all of the blogs you read but if I walk you through the steps it takes to use Feedly to build strong alliances with influential people in your networks, this can have a bottom line impact on your business and is far more useful.

Always remain relevant…

Now replace that dead, lifeless page of resource links with a valuable blog or article database that teaches your site visitors to become master users of the resources you dig up. Finding resources, great….making them work for others, priceless.

How do you use resources on your site?