•10 Phone Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
10 Phone Marketing Mistakes to Avoid by Charlie Cook10 PHONE MARKETING MISTAKES TO AVOID"I hate making marketing calls. I don’t know what to say and how to say it. I’ve been assigned to find new clients and in the past 4 weeks I brought in zero new clients."Do you ever feel this way?Are you tired of being turned down?Are you frustrated by your limited success selling on the phone?Making any of the mistakes below takes the fun out of your job and can kill your sales.1. Using Push Versus Pull...
•4 Steps to Selling More With Your Web Site
4 Steps to Selling More With Your Web Site by Charlie CookMost web sites are more like stage sets than real buildings; they make a good impression and they look substantial at first, but when you open a door, you end up back stage in the dark. They don't generate large numbers of leads, help build relationships with prospects or generate the desired volume of sales.Is your web site helping you get attention for your business?Does it prompt prospects to contact you?Is it helping you build...
•5 Breakthrough Marketing Ideas
5 Breakthrough Marketing Ideas by Charlie CookDo you ever get frustrated with your marketing? Are you putting in a lot of effort but not getting the results you want? Don't you wish you could just hit a switch and get a better response from your mailings, sales calls and web site?You hear a lot about breakthroughs; is it all hype, or can you really create a breakthrough in your marketing and sales? I know that you can.I spent last weekend skiing in Vermont with my spouse, nephew and his...
•5 Ways to Generate Leads with Your Web Site
5 Ways to Generate Leads with Your Web Site
by: Charlie Cook
If you sell services one of the biggest challenges is identifying qualified prospects who want what you have to offer and are ready to buy. It is possible to waste time on cold calls and other marketing activities that turn up little in the way of sales. Wouldn't you rather have a steady stream of hot leads, leads that not only include contact information but give you an idea of what the prospect needs, the problem they want...
•7 Steps to Web Sites that Sell
7 Steps to Web Sites that Sell
by: Charlie Cook
Your web site is like a fight of stairs into your business. Once you've got prospects to your home page - your online front door - you want to move them to action. If you miss a step or two, prospects will fall and won't make it in the door to your business. If you put the last step first and your first step last, prospects won't find the steps you want them to take.
There is a hierarchy of information and elements you need to present to...
•8 Common Marketing Mistakes
8 Common Marketing Mistakes
by: Charlie Cook
Advertising can be one of the fastest ways to market and grow your business or it can be one of the quickest ways to go out of business. With the right ad you can attract clients to your business and increase your profits. With the wrong ad you can spend your way into bankruptcy.
To grow your business you need to attract the attention of your prospects, advertising can help you do so if used correctly. Unfortunately, many small businesses owners...
•Are You Ignoring These Marketing Principles?
Are You Ignoring These Marketing Principles?
by: Charlie Cook
In marketing as in science there are basic principles that govern the movement of bodies in space, or prospects and clients. Just as people instinctively know the law of gravity, they are aware of the fundamental principles of marketing. Unlike the law of gravity which is hard to deny, many small business owners often neglect to apply core marketing principles to attract clients.
Even if you've never been hit on the head by an...
•Are You Marketing and Selling What People Buy?
Are You Marketing and Selling What People Buy? by Charlie CookDo you ever wonder if you’re speaking a different language thanyour prospects? You may have recently launched a business,designed an innovative process or purchased state of the artequipment that leaves the competition in the dust, but no matterwhat you say or do, you aren't attracting as many prospects asyou need.Lauren called me from Michigan with just such a concern. She andanother friend had opened a fitness salon about a year...
•Are You Marketing Backwards
Are You Marketing Backwards by Charlie CookMarketing is like rowing a boat. When you know how thepointed bow moves smoothly forward through the waterencountering the least amount of resistance. Rowingbackwards, the square stern of the boat pushes against thewater, requiring more effort and increases the risk ofhaving a wave come over the transom (back) and swamping it.Yet most people market backwards, trying to grow theirbusiness while pushing against the greatest level ofresistance.Wouldn’t...
•Are You Marketing to Your Potential?
Are You Marketing to Your Potential?
by: Charlie Cook
Many small business owners struggle to grow their businesses only to find themselves stuck in a morass of marketing, management and delivery tasks. As your business becomes more complex and time consuming, the original vision of the business usually changes or gets lost, and it can become increasingly difficult to define and implement a marketing strategy that helps you achieve your business potential.
As a marketing coach I have many...
•Are You Marketing With A Deaf Ear?
Are You Marketing With A Deaf Ear?
by: Charlie Cook
Can you imagine having a phone conversation where you couldn't hear what the person at the other end was saying? You would have difficulty getting much done and you certainly couldn't tailor your response to their needs and interests. Yet this is the way many people market their products and services.
Most people make the mistake of thinking that marketing is one-way communication. The tendency is to create marketing materials and push...
•Are Your Emails Gettting Through?
Are Your Emails Gettting Through?
by: Charlie Cook
If sending email to a mailing list is part of your markëting or business building strategy, you want to make sure your messages are reaching your audience. Are your readers getting your emails? Due to the proliferation of sp@m, ISPs (your web access and email provider) have added content checkers to try to reduce the flow of unwanted mail. In principle this is a good idea. In practice, lots of sp@m is still getting through and many...
•Building Web Pages That Move People To Buy
Building Web Pages That Move People To Buy
by: Charlie Cook
The purpose of your marketing is to attract prospects and help them make a series of decisions that lead them to purchase your products or services. The sequence of information you provide on your web site and its visual presentation can drive clients to contact you about your services or buy your products - or it can send them away.
Many small business owners have web sites but few are making as much money from their sites as...
•Catch More Clients Using Strategic Networking
Catch More Clients Using Strategic Networking
by: Charlie Cook
Is networking helping you bring in the new clients you want? If you are like most independent professionals and small business owners, you put hard work into getting your name out there and distribute your business card wherever you go. You may even attend a weekly or monthly networking group or occasional business conference where people share leads. And like most people, your time and effort isn’t generating a steady stream...
•Cleaning Up Your Marketing
Cleaning Up Your Marketing by Charlie CookHas your once well-organized marketing plan come toresemble the jumble of stuff in your closet (not to mentionthe garage and the attic)? If you are like most people,each time you come across a new marketing idea you try toadopt it and add it to your existing approach.Strategies and tactics tend to accumulate and linger evenwhen they may not be working as well as you'd like. Likethe ill-fitting clothes that accumulate in your closet orthe broken tools...
•Creating Marketing Fireworks
Creating Marketing Fireworks
by: Charlie Cook
If you live in a small town like mine on the Connecticut coast, you will spend the 4th of July watching fireworks, along with everyone else in town. Why is it that people love fireworks?
Fireworks grab attention with a dazzling display of color and lots of noise. Unlike the sparkers you can hold in your hand, the sound and size of fireworks can't be ignored. Imagine if your marketing was as effective at getting people's attention!
Diane was...
•Creating Sales Conversations
Creating Sales Conversations by Charlie CookYou've got a great product or service that beats the competition by miles. Once you get in front of people or get them on the phone, they're sold. The only problem is you're not getting enough of those initial conversations with prospects started so you can convert them to clients. Instead of having your phone ringing of the hook with requests, you feel like your firm is the best kept secret in your industry.Sound familiar?Bob called from Alabama...
•Eliminating Objections to Increase Sales
Eliminating Objections to Increase Sales
by: Charlie Cook
You want to increase the flow of sales revenue, but you are stymied by prospects' seemingly endless objections. Prospects say they're not interested. They tell you your price is too high, or this isn't the right time. You've heard all the objections. What can you do to get rid of these once and for all?
Engineering Your Marketing
When I was seven one of my favorite ways to spend a hot summer day with my friends was playing a...
•Explaining What You Do in 15 Seconds
Explaining What You Do in 15 Seconds
by: Charlie Cook
You're in the elevator and your friend John introduces you to Barbara who is the CEO of one of the companies you'd like to do business with. Barbara asks, "What do you do?"
Here is your chance to make a connection with a prime member of your target market. You want to get her attention, make a positive impression and get her interested enough to continue the conversation. You've got about fifteen seconds to do this.
Whether you are...
•Frugal Marketing
Frugal Marketing
by: Charlie Cook
You want to market your business but you don’t want to spend a lot of money. You may be just starting out and have precious little capital or you may have a successful business but want to spend as little as possible for the greatest results. Or, you may just be cheap. How can you create a marketing strategy that results in a steady stream of new clients on a shoestring budget?
The key is having the KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, SYSTEMS and TOOLS to create and...
•Get Business Now: Play by the Marketing Rules
Get Business Now: Play by the Marketing Rules
by: Charlie Cook
Marketing a business is like any game. If you know the rules you are much more likely to win. All to often small businesses spend their limited time and money on advertising, networking, making calls, mailings, meeting with prospects, yet only achieve middling results. The problem isn’t that they don’t know their business or provide high quality products and services, its that they don’t know the rules of the marketing...
•Get More Clients using Pull then Push Marketing
Get More Clients using Pull then Push Marketing
by: Charlie Cook
Marketing is like rowing. You pull hard on the oars to go forward, then lift them out of the water and push them back to finish the stroke and get ready for the next pull. Once you’ve got the sequence of the stroke right, you and your boat slip forward through the water and build speed and momentum. If you push when you should be pulling, the boat goes backwards, or, even worse, you lose your balance and fall into the...
•Getting Lucky with Systematic Marketing
Getting Lucky with Systematic Marketing by Charlie CookIn early-August, I got a call from Barbara at theAssociation of Management Consultants wanting to knowwhether I was interested in running a marketing workshopfor their members. I asked how she had gotten my name;Barbara told me Jeff had referred me. When I mentioned thatI had met Jeff over two years ago, Barbara said that I surewas lucky he still remembered me.Luck had nothing to do with it. Jeff asked to be put on mymailing list after...
•Getting Noticed by the Search Engines
Getting Noticed by the Search Engines by Charlie CookYou've got a web site; and you want to attract lots of people to visit it so you can grow your business. But you're only getting a handful of visitors currently. What is the first thing to do to help people find your site?A top listing in the search engines, especially in Google, can increase visitors to your web site and help. Let's say you sell web design services. If your site was at the top of the list when people searched for "web...
•Getting Off the Advertising and Sales Rollercoaster
Getting Off the Advertising and Sales Rollercoaster by Charlie CookGETTING OFF THE ADVERTISING AND S/ALES ROLLERCOASTERBy Charlie CookSeeing the results of advertising your business can be likewatching a roller coaster. The day you run your ad you see aflurry of activity; your ph0ne starts ringing, your web sitetraffic increases and/ or potential clients visit yourstore. Your hopes soar. sales go up. Two or three days passand the response goes down. You look at the bill for theadvertising...
•GOT MEME? How to Attract Your Clients' and Customers' Attention
GOT MEME? How to Attract Your Clients' and Customers' Attention
by: Charlie Cook
No "meme" isn't a typo and Got Milk, the more commonly know phrase, is actually a marketing meme. If you've opened up a magazine or watched TV in the last ten years you've seen the fun and memorable Got Milk ad campaign using celebrities with a milk mustache. Chances are it got your attention and you remember the phrase, "Got Milk".
A good meme is simple, provocative and infectious. An effective meme rolls off...
•How to Avoid the Marketing Blues with Your Offers
How to Avoid the Marketing Blues with Your Offers
by: Charlie Cook
"Here's a little tip I would like to relate Big fish bites if ya got good bait."
To attract more prospects and clients, you need what Taj Mahal calls "good bait" in his song the Fishin Blues. One of the biggest mistakes you can make, as a small business owner, is forgetting to use good bait in the form of your offers. Whether you use direct mail, a web site or media advertising to market your business, the success of your...
•How to Earn More by Visualizing Your Marketing Success
How to Earn More by Visualizing Your Marketing Success by Charlie CookDid you ever imagine yourself lying on a beach enjoying the sunor spending the holidays relaxing with relatives? We alldaydream and picture ourselves in places we'd like to go to, ordoing things we enjoy or have always wanted to try.What do you do next if you want to make your daydream real? Ifyou want to take a vacation you make plans, buy your planetickets and reserve a hotel room. When the date arrives you headoff to...
•How To Generate Leads And Grow Your Business
How To Generate Leads And Grow Your Business
by: Charlie Cook
If you are an independent professional or small business owner, building the list of prospects you market to should be one of your core marketing activities. The more people who are interested in your products and services, the better your chances of growing your sales.
Wouldn't you like to have the contact information for another thousand or ten thousand prospects for your products and services?
Obviously you want to choose...
•How to Get the Right Clients and Avoid the Wrong Ones
How to Get the Right Clients and Avoid the Wrong Ones
by: Charlie Cook
If you are like most service professionals and small business owners one of your primary concerns is generating as many leads as possible. And that may be your biggest mistake, resulting in wasting time on unqualified prospects and working with to many clients you wish you didn't have to.
Bill is a financial advisor looking for clients. Working from his stack of leads he picks up the phone‘ and starts making calls. The...
•How to Grab Attention with your Headlines
How to Grab Attention with your Headlines
by: Charlie Cook
You've got just a few seconds to grab your prospects' attention, spark their interest and motivate them to keep reading whether they're looking at your web site, your letter or your brochure. Headlines are the first thing your prospects read. Four out of five people determine whether they keep reading to learn about your products and services on the basis of your headline.
Do your headlines capture your prospects' attention or do...
•How to Keep Your Business Healthy
How to Keep Your Business Healthy by Charlie CookCan you imagine you're ninety years old and still hiking upmountains with your grandchildren, bench pressing more than mosttwenty year olds, and making millions of dollars?Recently Jack LaLanne, America's first TV fitness guru, turnedninety. Not only is he still sound of mind, in great shape, he'smade millions and is still earning more.How does he do it?You know it is important to eat your fruits and veggies,exercise regularly, avoid drinking...
•How to Organize Your Marketing
How to Organize Your Marketing by Charlie Cook"I hate sales pitches!" You may have felt this way yourselfor heard others say it. If it's such a common response,what's the best way to organize your marketing to attractnew clients and customers?While getting all aspects of your marketing right can becomplicated, the simple truth is that you can attract manymore clients and be far more successful by doing just onething.To get the attention of your prospects and gain their trustand their...
•Is Your Marketing Full of Holes?
Is Your Marketing Full of Holes?
by: Charlie Cook
You wouldn't try to collect water in a bucket that leaked or catch fish with a torn net, but that is what many service professionals and small businesses do. They work hard to attract clients and customers but too often their marketing is full of holes.
The biggest holes in small businesses’ marketing efforts are in lead generation. For those that don't know it already, identifying, attracting and building a steady stream of prospects is...
•Is Your Marketing Message Holding You Back?
Is Your Marketing Message Holding You Back?
by: Charlie Cook
Your marketing message is like a key. If you've got the right one, it will help you unlock doors to new business and start the process of converting them to clients. If you've got one that is the wrong size or poorly crafted you'll be locked out in the cold, wondering why your business isn't growing faster.
Unfortunately too many independent professionals and small business owners market with messages that just don't work. They...
•Is Your Marketing Strategy Killing Your Profits?
Is Your Marketing Strategy Killing Your Profits?
by: Charlie Cook
With the wrong marketing strategy you could be killing your profits and limiting your business. Your marketing strategy is like the driver in a car, with marketing tactics being the engine. If you know where you want to go and how to get there, your marketing tactics will help you attract many more clients, if not you could crash.
Every business uses one or more of the following tactics to attract clients; mailings,...
•Let Your Mistakes Improve Your Marketing And Your Profits
Let Your Mistakes Improve Your Marketing And Your Profits
by: Charlie Cook
Have you ever sent out a sales letter and received little or no response, or put up a web site and found hardly anyone visiting it. Have you worked hard on an article only to find that few people read it and even fewer contacted you as a result?
Let's be honest; everyone makes mistakes. The difference between the winners and the losers in business is that winners recognize their mistakes and avoid making the same...
•Marketing Smarter to Earn More
Marketing Smarter to Earn More
by: Charlie Cook
An accountant once told me that he never met anyone who didn't want to make 30% more money. Whether you want a better lifestyle or to take more vacations, buy a fancy car, spend more time with your family, send your children to college or to give it all away, you could always use more money.
If you sell services, your primary limitations on earnings are your costs and the number of hours in a week. Most independent professionals are...
•Moving Beyond Marketing Rituals to Increase Profits
Moving Beyond Marketing Rituals to Increase Profits
by: Charlie Cook
You're at a networking meeting and someone asks for your business card. You hand them a fairly typical card with your company's name, your name and title, and contact information on it. What happens next? Do they get in touch with you? Do they become a client?
Nine times out of ten, the conversation ends when you hand someone you've just met your business card, and you never hear from them again. Wouldn't you like to use...
•Open the Door to More Business with Your Ideas
Open the Door to More Business with Your Ideas
by: Charlie Cook
Visualize your business as a building. Whether you are an architect, lawyer, coach, graphic designer or accountant, to bring in more clients, you need to make it easy for them to enter. The more doors you create and open the more prospects will come in and become clients. Too many small businesses inadvertently put up walls instead of opening doors to new business.
People buy products and services from firms they know and...
•Overcoming Objections to Price
Overcoming Objections to Price
by: Charlie Cook
How much more could you earn if your prospects didn't object to your prices? You'd close more sales and be more successful.
Like most service professionals and small business owners chances are you struggle with objections to pricing on a daily basis. You lose business because prospects get stuck on price. Your pricing will never satisfy everyone but the following ideas will help you eliminate pricing objections from the majority of your...
•Overcoming Your Biggest Marketing Obstacle
Overcoming Your Biggest Marketing Obstacle
by: Charlie Cook
At times, no matter what you do your marketing is stuck and you're not attracting new clients quickly enough. It doesn't seem to make a difference how much time or money you put into it, its like you are driving in slow motion. You just seem to be spinning your wheels and not getting any traction to move your business forward as quickly as you'd like.
What is it that's keeping you from growing your business and your revenue?...
•REMOVING OBSTACLES TO SALES
REMOVING OBSTACLES TO SALES by Charlie CookREMOVING OBSTACLES TO SALESby Charlie CookDuring the summer Olympics I watched the men's and women'shurdles. I'm always impressed by these athletes' ability to runat full speed and leap the hurdles without breaking stride.But each time I watch this track event, I have the samereaction. If they just went out on the track and removed thosebarriers, it would be a heck of lot easier to get around thetrack. The athletes could run faster, more smoothly...
•Secrets of Building and Maintaining Marketing Momentum
Secrets of Building and Maintaining Marketing Momentum
by: Charlie Cook
SECRETS OF BUILDING AND MAINTAINING MARKETING MOMENTUM
By Charlie Cook
Some people seem to steadily increase their income while
others just make enough to pay the bills. What's the
difference between the people who make millions and the
people who struggle all their lives to get ahead?
If you want to attract more clients in order to build a
more profitable business you need three things. You need
clear goals,...
•Shift to Full Power Marketing
Shift to Full Power Marketing
by: Charlie Cook
Marketing should run like a car’s engine. Give it the right fuel and you'll enjoy steady acceleration when you step on the gas, but let the tank run dry or put in diesel when your engine runs on gas and it will sputter and stall. If you’re marketing isn’t helping you attract a steady stream of new clients and accelerate the growth of your business, chances are you aren’t using the right fuel to market your business.
The first step in...
•Taking the Mystery out of Marketing
Taking the Mystery out of Marketing by Charlie CookKnowing where to start to improve your marketing can be a bit ofa mystery. Is it your marketing message, the places youadvertise, your web site or what? By measuring the results oryour marketing efforts and collecting feedback, you can uncoverthe secrets of what is and isn't working and learn what torefurbish or replace to generate more leads and increase sales.Tom called me with a question about how to increase sales fromhis web site....
•The Key to Eliminating Objections and Increasing Sales
The Key to Eliminating Objections and Increasing Sales by Charlie CookYou're in a meeting with a promising prospect. You review the project and the services you provide and then, just when you're hoping to get the okay, the prospect raises an objection. They may tell you:"I haven"t got the time right now.""Send me a written proposal and I'll think about it.""We already have a supplier.""We prefer working with a larger company.""Its too expensive.""We really don't need your services.""I need...
•Use Product Research to Position Yourself as the Expert
Use Product Research to Position Yourself as the Expert
by: Charlie Cook
You have an idea for a new product or service, want to get feedback from prospects and position your firm as the experts. How do you do this when you haven’t ever provided the particular service or sold the product?
Let’s say you are in the planning stages of starting a collection agency. (Your clients could be lawyers, building contractors, clothing manufacturers, etc.) How do you find out what your potential...
•Using Your Web Site to Grow Your Business
Using Your Web Site to Grow Your Business
by: Charlie Cook
A snowplow operator in a New Jersey suburb was hailed by a woman asking him to plow her driveway so she could get out. Wading through less than a foot of fluffy snow to her SUV, he asked her why she didn't put it into four wheel drive and simply back out. Her puzzled answer was, “Four wheel drive, what's that?”
A web site is just a means to and end, like a car it will get you where you want to go only if you know how to use it. Too...
•What Is the Most Effective Way to Advertise?
What Is the Most Effective Way to Advertise?
by: Charlie Cook
Bob from Ottawa wrote to ask, "What is the most effective way to advertise locally at a friendly price. Thinking of postcards..."
Bob has an unusual business. He paints murals on the walls of children's bedrooms. While his occupation is unique, his question about the best way to spend advertising dollars is not. I regularly get the same query from realtors, executive recruiters, and other service professionals and small business...
•What Is Your Marketing Really Costing You
What Is Your Marketing Really Costing You
by: Charlie Cook
Small business owners are justifiably concerned about the expense of marketing their business. Many look at marketing as a line item in their budgets, and minimize marketing expenses in order to maximize profits. But to grow your business and be more profitable, you need to evaluate the costs of marketing from a broader perspective.
Like most small business owners, you know what you earned last year, and you'd like to earn more....
•What Santa Knows About Marketing
What Santa Knows About Marketing by Charlie CookWhat's that ringing sound you hear at this time of year? It'sthe sound of store registers ringing up the sales generated bySanta Claus. Just because he's old, overweight, long haired,unshaven and dresses funny, don't overlook his marketingsuccess. Santa is a marketing expert and you can become one,too, if you follow his marketing methods.What's that you say? You don't believe in Santa Claus or youdon't celebrate Christmas? It's true that Santa...
•WHERE TO FOCUS YOUR MARKETING
WHERE TO FOCUS YOUR MARKETING
by: Charlie Cook
Imagine that you ran an ad, mailed a brochure, or sent an email ad to a new list of people who fit your target market profile and everyone who saw it responded right away and made a purchase.
Has this ever happened to you?
Of course not. The first time people hear about your products or services is the least likely time for them to buy.
When you go out for a night on the town, do you go to a new restaurant you've nevër heard of or do...
•Which Of These Words Attract Your Clients
Which Of These Words Attract Your Clients
by: Charlie Cook
Whether it's your business card, tagline, article title, web site title and description or ad, just the difference of a few words can either pull in prospects and clients or push them away. Getting it right can determine whether your phone is ringing off the hook or you are twiddling your thumbs hoping someone will call.
Just by changing a word or two or combining a couple of phrases, you can increase your response rate...
•Why Some Web Sites Sell and Others Don't
Why Some Web Sites Sell and Others Don't
by: Charlie Cook
Why is it that some web sites help sell products and services while most languish in obscurity and only serve as a drain on finances? Web sites are relatively low in cost to build and manage, and have worldwide reach. They can help you grow your business and in some cases be the primary source of new business. Yes, a web site can be the next best thing since sliced bread.
Why don't most web sites attract prospects, help convert them...
•Writing Marketing Copy That Sells
Writing Marketing Copy That Sells by Charlie CookWhen your prospects see your marketing materials, your brochure, your web site or your ads you want them to read them. You want prospects to read not just the first sentence but the majority of your copy. Once they've read it, you want them to decide that they need your product or service and either make a purchase or contact you for more information.When prospective clients and customers see your web site, ads or brochures, you want them to...
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