Last Thursday’s FREE business blogging TeleClass hosted by the Business Owner’s Journal and powered by the Business Owners Coaching Club was a BIG hit. On Friday September 23rd we shared part 1 of the audio business coaching session in a business podcast.

Now today we have part 2.

Whether you’re new to business blogging or you’re blogging for your business with little results — this two-part business coaching podcast specifically for small business owners and professionals will reveal the core secrets to the successful integration of business blogging, business podcasts, and RSS into your overall marketing strategy.

With what you’ll learn in this two-part podcast you’ll have a huge jump-start on your competitors. And you’ll have a decided advantage over the vast majority of business bloggers struggling to get it right on their own.

Don’t miss out!

Listen to part 2 of Boosting Business With Business Blogs on your MP3 player or desktop via the MP3 enclosure (a true business podcast.)

Or if you’re new to business blogging and business podcasting — listen online using the easy to operate buttons below.

Are you a business owner or a professional who would like to have everything at your disposal to start reaping the rewards of effective business blogging in a matter of weeks - instead of stumbling through hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in needless trial-and-error?

Then no matter what your experience level of business blogging — Marketing With Business Blogs is the competitive advantage you need. Check out the limited special that’s now being offered.

Just click on the manual below…

Enjoy!

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club™. He’s a published author and weekly columnist for the business section of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business coaching company RPM Success Group Inc.®

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc.® and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Yesterday’s FREE business blogging TeleClass hosted by the Business Owner’s Journal and powered by the Business Owners Coaching Club was a hit. Whether you’re new to business blogging or you’re blogging for your business with little results — this two-part business coaching podcast specifically for small business owners and professionals will reveal the core secrets to the successful integration of business blogging, business podcasts, and RSS into your overall marketing strategy.

With what you’ll learn in this two-part podcast you’ll have a huge jump-start on your competitors. And you’ll have a decided advantage over the vast majority of business bloggers struggling to get it right on their own.

Don’t miss out!

Listen to part 1 of Boosting Business With Business Blogs on your MP3 player or desktop via the MP3 enclosure (a true business podcast.)

Or if you’re new to business blogging and business podcasting — listen online using the easy to operate buttons below.

Are you a business owner or a professional who would like to have everything at your disposal to start reaping the rewards of effective business blogging in a matter of weeks - instead of stumbling through hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in needless trial-and-error?

Then no matter what your experience level of business blogging — Marketing With Business Blogs is the competitive advantage you need. Check out the limited special that’s now being offered.

Just click on the manual below…

Enjoy!

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club™. He’s a published author and weekly columnist for the business section of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business coaching company RPM Success Group Inc.®

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc.® and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Here’s a common question that business owners have when looking to leverage and optimize both online and off-line marketing channels.

Business Coaching Question: I’m ready for the next phase of marketing for our training workshops for chiropractors. We’ve fine-tuned our sales letter and follow-up messages as you suggested in our last coaching session. How do you think we should proceed — with email or traditional mail delivery? What’s going to give us a better response rate?

Business Coach’s Answer: To be perfectly honest, as far as the response comparison of e-mail versus snail mail … I don’t know. Anyone who tells you that one method will pull better than the other is full of it. You will never know what delivery method is most effective until you test.

The only comment I would have on the surface is based on what we know about your target market. You’ve even mentioned a number of times the fact that many chiropractors are “behind the curve” when it comes to the Internet and e-mail. But that’s subjective, and we need to test that observation.

We can develop a plan for testing email versus traditional mail delivery in our next coaching session. I’ll need to know the answer to a few basic questions:

· Who’s the list comprised of? (I.e.: are they warm prospects that you’ve contacted before? Or are at a brand-new prospects who’ve never heard of you?)

· How many doctors are on the list?

· Out of the total number of doctors, how many have e-mail addresses? (More importantly, how many have e-mail addresses that show they have their own web site? This is a good indication of their use and understanding of technology and the Internet.)

This should keep you busy until our next business coaching session.

Once we have the answers to these questions, I can help you to split the list for testing. And we’ll develop a timeline and marketing plan for your upcoming workshops too. With this approach I’ll help you minimize misses/mistakes and maximize your response rate because you’ll be marketing scientifically instead of subjectively the way most business owners do.

Aloha, and make it an awesome day!

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club. He’s a weekly columnist for the business section of the Honoulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business development company RPM Success Group Inc.

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

“Tagging” is currently all the rage among click-and-mortar business owners, business bloggers, and just about anyone else addicted to or immersed in digital content. If you’re not familiar with tagging or how it works, I came across an excellent article that helps explain the process in simple terms. You’ll also learn about the pros, cons, and some of the inevitable detours down the road for tagging.

With this introductory article on tagging you’ll have a better understanding of what tagging is and just how much time you should invest in it right now.

If you’re a digital info junky, you may not be able to resist jumping headlong into tagging (if you’re not already there.) BUT … if you’re a small business owners with limited time — you must test the waters and enter slowly.

How should you start tagging posts, images, and video?

I would never coach a busy business owner to avoid tagging altogether, that would be sticking your head in the sand. However, I also wouldn’t coach an owner to jump into tagging all their existing digital content either.

Start by tagging new content as you produce it. Test by implementing tagging in incremental steps with different types of content. Track your results and let measurable results prove the worthiness of tagging — not the hype.

There are a lot of bugs that need to be worked out of the filtering software for tags, and overly aggressive internet marketers and spammers may crash the system before it even gets going. Let’s hope not though. Tagging has the potential to be the salvation of busy business owners as we attempt to sift through the ever expanding mass of digital data available on the net and our own hard drives.

Be prudent in the amount of time you and your company team dedicate to tagging before it proves itself. If you get started systemizing the tagging of new digital content in small steps you can’t go wrong. If tagging takes off, you’re already started and just have to ramp up your efforts. If it fizzles out, your downside is protected because you didn’t go whole-hog retroactively tagging all your digital content.

If you’d like to learn more about tagging, check out this introductory article on tagging here.

John-Paul Micek
The Click-and-Mortar Business Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Consumer generated media is fast becoming the most important factor in marketing effectiveness for many industries. And for those industries where it’s not yet a major determinant of marketing success, it’s just a matter of time.

Consumer generated media (CGM) is the combination of comments, reviews, critiques, and complaints wielded by consumers and devoured by prospective buyers in the world of blogs, forums, and online social networks.

CGM is nothing more than word of mouth. And word of mouth marketing — which marketers have always desired — is now on multi-media steroids.

As your business coach, I’d be remiss if I didn’t warn you of the irreversible transformation taking place in the marketplace of the new millennium. The consumer is in control with all the information, commentary, and comparisons she could want at her fingertips. If you haven’t already begun to adapt your marketing strategies to today’s marketplace, you need to do so immediately.

One example from the auto industry

In the automotive industry, the Internet is now inseparable from the purchase cycle. Nearly 75 percent of consumers cite word-of-mouth recommendations as the most influential factor in their car buying discussion. If you want to think of it another way, over $300 billion in global auto sales are influenced by the recommendations of others.

That’s some pretty serious power behind word of mouth. And this is where CGM comes into the picture. Here’s what you can learn from the big auto makers that you can use to supercharge your small business growth.

In an article Who’s Behind the Wheel Now? Pete Blackshaw outline how auto shoppers increasingly rely on the digital trail of high-impact consumer-generated media (CGM).

* CGM Impressions: The Web hosts over 100 million auto-related comments from consumers. This barely factors in the explosive growth of experience-rich blog commentary. A growing percentage of these public comments are fortified with highly-persuasive multi-media imagery such as photos or videos

* CGM Reach: Comments act as de facto ad units. They’re served in a highly-targeted manner against nearly one billion auto-related searches every year.

* CGM Hot Spots: Millions of comments provide specifics on auto-related fraud, lawsuits, and safety problems.

* CGM Impact: A growing percentage of auto shoppers walk into showrooms with a stash of Internet commentary, blog reviews, Edmunds scorecards, and more to increase negotiation leverage. Data equals power.

The auto industry is just one example of the new marketplace dynamics that companies must deal with. The small business owner who makes stimulating a dialog with consumers and monitoring CGM a top priority now will be the one to establish a firm leadership role in his or her chosen niche.

What you need to do to succeed with your small business

It’s the same thing as big corporations — you need to listen to your target market, and provide them an easy way to communicate with you. There’s a major difference for you though.

In making these adaptations to your marketing and business operations, you have two distinct advantages as a small business owner.

1. You’re already a lot closer to your clients and customers than big corporations can ever hope to be.

2. When it comes to changes and improvements, you can make them a lot faster than larger companies can.

These are BIG advantages held by small business owners, and they’re not to be taken lightly. Consumer behavior, desires, and demands are changing in every industry large and small. You can use the advanced research and tracking of big corporations to adjust and improve your marketing and business growth.

So what are some of the things you can do to put CGM and word of mouth in your corner?

1. Position yourself as a trusted expert. That means positioning yourself and your company in areas that people in your target market visit (online and offline) for information or education related to your industry.

When they see you have a presence where they visit, you’ll be more trustworthy. This is something we’ve seen have significant impact on sales closures for many of our business coaching clients.

2. Make it easy for consumers to learn about you, your company, and what makes you a better choice than your competitors.

That means having a web site that is user friendly and easy to navigate. And in some cases it means providing direct comparisons of your product or service benefits over your competitors right on your own web site. Consumers will find that info on their own anyway, so you might as well save them the time. When done properly, this is another powerful ally in attracting new clients to your company.

3. Open channels of dialog and provide multiple ways of channels for developing a relationship with you. An essential first step is having your own business blog. They’re low cost, easy to manage, and extremely effective in this area.

A business blog provides a less formal area (than your “regular” web site) where people can get to know you and your company. Consumers can interact with you at will. And you can generate a significant amount of trust with prospects and clients by communicating through words, audio, or even video that you can publish to the web in a snap.

Note: If you don’t yet have a business blog and would like to learn how to use one to develop a long-term strategy for attracting more qualified clients, boosting traffic, and building trust with prospects before their eyes or ears ever meet a marketing message — check out the master level multi-media course How to Master Business Blogging.

The most important thing you can remember if you want to succeed in the 21st Century marketplace is that consumer comments, opinion, and satisfaction are one with marketing. There is no separation and you can’t overcome CGM with traditional marketing, not matter how much money you put behind it. (The auto industry has learned that the hard way, so learn from their mistakes for free.)

How to get started today

If you remember those essential facts, your mindset will begin to shift when it comes to marketing and growing your business. Then, with coaching in the right strategies and actions, you’ll be able to establish a firm leadership role in your chosen industry or niche. You can do it on your own, or significantly speed things up with the help of your business coach — but which ever path you choose — start shifting your approach today. If you don’t, I can guarantee one of your competitors will.

John-Paul Micek

The Click-and-Mortar Business Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Business Owner’s Question: Should I have a business blog AND a newsletter? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having both?

Your Business Coaches’ Answer: Yes – we recommend having BOTH a blog and a newsletter – for a variety of reasons. But for the sake of brevity, here are just a few ideas to get your brain thinking creatively on the concept of using business blogs.

1. Until your market catches up with the world of blogging and RSS feeds, you’ll want to keep your newsletter up to date, keeping in constant contact with your clients, subscribers and referrals. Offering both delivery channels keeps you from losing any subscribers who don’t understand what RSS feeds are or who are unwilling to step into a new technology yet.

2. Publishing both a business blog (using RSS technology) and a newsletter does not have to be double work either. You can even use RSS feeds to automatically CREATE your newsletter for you — including content. You become a resource center for your target market, saving them valuable research time. If you’re the type of business owner who prefers not to write articles, this is a neat strategy.

3. If you do like to write, with some pretty basic programming steps to customize your business blog — your blog can actually SERVE double duty as your newsletter. If you keep a client-centric focus no one will even realize the change.

Your subscribers would just think your format changed a little, but otherwise, they would continue to appreciate the valuable content you provide for them – sending it directly to their inbox.

If you are commited to learning more about blogging and RSS, and are ready for a more indepth understanding of blogs, RSS and leveraging the technology for your business you’ll want to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog: http://www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com

John-Paul Micek
The Click-and-Mortar Business Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

I was recently in a forum on Ryze.com, and the question on whether to have a website or not came up, (shockingly from a very brave newbie) with my corresponding answer in the Q&A blog post written yesterday.

I wanted to share that answer with my blog readers, because it’s such a critical question that many ponder, and most people still don’t realize how they can reduce the time it takes to get a website up and running, through the creation of a business blog.

Literally within 10 minutes of creating a business, or business name, you can have a free blog up and running on the internet.

Within 24-48 hours of creating your blog, you can have it crawled by a popular search engine spider like Google. (ah… but that’s a strategy beyond the scope of this blog Q&A.)

If you’re looking for more specifics on how to set up a blog, including free videos that walk you through the process of setting up your first blog in under 10 minutes, you’ll enjoy this link: http://www.AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com

In the meantime, here’s my response to that Question on having a website (or a blog substitute), and what Bill Gates has allegedly said.

>>Coach Deb replies:

Bill Gates was “semi-right” - because there will ALWAYS be people who exist in a “non-connected” universe, while still finding food and water to survive on.

Sure, they may still “BE in business.” BUT - they certainly won’t be THRIVING in it.

But if they took advantage of all the powerful advantages of having both a website and a business blog they could instead attract traffic that converts to clients that churns out CASH!

There are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many things you can use a website and a blog for. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

(Boy, I should write copy for a web designer, b/c I can think of at LEAST a dozen different ways that a website can increase the profitability of ANY business - even an old-fashioned brick-and-mortar business who never even considered adding a website to their business marketing plan.)

Show me a business owner who doesn’t want to make a good profit while also having a nice life, and more time on their hands, and I’ll show you someone addicted to a life of hardship and martyrdom.

Perhaps that’s how Bill Gates should have worded it. They may still “be” in business - but they’ll also be complaining and whining about the complexities and hardships of running it all the time.

Deborah Micek
The Communication Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Yahoo is expanding its Yahoo Local search service by providing a free web site to business owners that will automatically be integrated into Yahoo Local listings. This aggresive new program is available to any U.S. small business owner who has a physical presence serving a local area. Believe it or not — approximately 50% of businesses in the U.S. stuill do not have a web site according to the Kelsey Group. And Yahoo wants to grab as many of those business owners as possible.

If you’re a small business start up, or if you just have not had the time or energy to get your website up and rolling, Yahoo’s “point and click” site build will get you there quickly.

Free business sites are similar to Yahoo Local enhanced business listings—with a key difference. With both basic (free) and enhanced ($9.95 per month) local listings, businesses submit information directly to Yahoo. This information is merged with other sources of information like maps, user reviews and so on, and is returned in Yahoo Local search results.

The new free business web sites, by contrast, are stand-alone destinations over which an owner has full control, and users can be sent directly to the site’s URL. Yahoo will link to these sites in Local business listings, but perhaps more importantly, even though free business sites are hosted by Yahoo other search engines can crawl them, potentially broadening the scope of exposure for a business.

So, if you already are paying for an enhanced Local listing, should you stop and switch to a free web business web site? That depends on the type of traffic you’re receiving. Enhanced business listings allow you to include additional content in your Yahoo local listing, such as photographs, promotional messaging, additional links and so on, and also provide reporting.

You can get more details and learn how to get your free small business website here.

John-Paul Micek
The Click-and-Mortar Business Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

In our coaching with small business owners around the world, I see it over and over again. Inexplicable refund requests are one of the most frustrating things for well meaning companies. But do you know what single factor is responsible for almost every refund request and nearly every piece of returned merchandise?

Buyer’s Remorse!

Since this is an emotional problem that causes the dissatisfaction, you need a high-power, emotion-based solution.

When does Buyer’s Remorse take place?

The minute the cash has transferred hands, fear enters the heart of your client. Warning sirens sound, and their subconscious starts prodding them, “Did you really make the right decision?”

This happens because most client’s have been burned before, so it’s only natural for them to have thoughts of skepticism and concern. Plus, it’s human nature to look for something negative in a situation. The bottom line is that most people are almost expecting something to go wrong.

Studies have determined that 90% of the problems we worry about never come to pass. Never! Yet, we all fall prey to worry despite of this fact (some more than others.) The question is though — what are you doing to answer all that’s going on in their head?

It’s your job to put your client’s fears and concerns to rest. Why would you let them worry when you know you’re going to take care of them - no matter what? (You’d take care of any problem they had anyway — wouldn’t you?!)

What you can do to minimize or even totally eliminate buyers remorse

One of the best ways small business owners can put their client’s concerns to rest is to offer an iron-clad guarantee. Not just a guarantee to induce prospects to buy your product or service, but using that guarantee to reassure your client immediately after the sale.

For many business owners this seems a little daunting when I first suggest the strategy, but fear and confusion quickly melt away when they see how easy this powerful reassurance tool is to put into use.

When they see the results on their new clients and cash flow — I often have to stop these achievement driven men and women from kicking themselves around their office for not developing a structured guarantee system sooner.

A simple strategy that changes the entire mindset of your clients and prospects

This simple gesture curtails potential fears in the minds of your clients. They are able to tell themselves, “Hey, if something does go wrong, I don’t need to get all worried because all I need to do is come back, and they’ll replace it for free.”

The other thought that goes through their mind, and often seals the deal more easily than you might imagine is, “Well, if they’re going to offer a lifetime guarantee, than this must be an excellent product. They’re willing to stand behind their product/service 100%, and the risk is squarely on their shoulders.”

After a little internal conversation, the next thing they hear their brain say is, “This is a no-brainer decision. I’m buying!”

Business Coaching Corner:

So now it’s time to take action. Here are some serious questions to give you motivation to get rolling right now.

If the majority of people experience buyers remorse, then why don’t the majority of business owners have some type of plan to address this for their own client base?

And if the majority of your competitors are offering some vague, namby-pansy guarantee and you come along with a rock-solid detailed guarantee the inspires confidence — how big will your competitive advantage be?

So … what type of system do you have in place that prevents buyers remorse in your customer?

What are you willing to put into place in the next 30-days?

If you don’t yet have a structured guarantee system in place that protects both your clients and your company, Coach Deb or I would love to help you out. A few private coaching sessions and you’ll be ready to thrill your clients, and leave your competitors heads spinning asking “how can they do that?”

About the Author: Known as “The Cash Flow Coach,” John-Paul Micek works with business owners and entrepreneurs to help them achieve the freedom, fulfillment and financial independence they want. If you’d like to learn how to boost your personal performance, supercharge your communication skills and create a “systems driven business” that delivers the type of net profits you want, John-Paul would love to help you set your own rules so you can win the game of business success. Learn more about working with J.P. one-on-one at http://www.BusinessOwnersCoaching.com. You can reach him directly at “JPM-at-RPMsuccess-dot-com” or toll free at (888) 334-8151.

© Copyright 1999-2005 by RPM Success Group ®, All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of RPM Success Group ® is prohibited. You may use this article/post in part with an active trackback, or in it’s entirety as an RSS feed without previous permission, so long as it is published with the full authors tag and copyright notices. Call RPM Success Group toll free at 888-334-8151 for offline reprint permissions, or by email editor@rpmsuccess.com.

It’s the oldest form of marketing in the world, and it’s the most effective. Now, with the technology consumers and business owners have at their fingertips, Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOMM) can be leveraged for more bottom-line impact than ever before in history.

Online forums; blogs; vblogs (video blogs); moblogs (blogs fed from mobile phones or PDAs); podcasts; and a host of other emerging technologies all combine to put consumer opinion on multimedia steroids.

WOMM is on the move, and this is not subjective analysis either. A 2004 Forrester/Inteliseek study found “recommendations from others” and “consumer opinions posted online” significantly outranked TV, radio, print, and online advertising on the trust scale. Research from Jupiter Research, NOP World, and Capgemini echo this theme as well.

IF you want to succeed in the marketplace of the new millennium, gaining consumers’ trust is critical. With consumers being exposed to more than 3,000 marketing messages per day, trust is essential to overcoming the clutter and noise of traditional interruption advertising. And most importantly for business owners, trust is an undeniable prerequisite for persuasion.

The reality is that, done correctly, WOMM is a solid strategy for effectively attracting highly qualified prospects to your company’s doorstep.

BEWARE though – WOMM is a powerful tool that cuts both ways

Try to deceive or trick the consumer and blog-powered “word wardens” will snap into action. Try to shaft the consumer and search engines will remind the world of your foolish actions for years by ranking the most scathing testimonials at the top of any search for your company name.

There are strategies and techniques that you must learn, and certain rules that you should adhere to – but don’t be afraid to jump in. The information and coaching you need to successfully market in the 21st-century marketplace is available. The bottom line is, you must make WOMM part of your click-and-mortar growth strategy before your competitors do.

How you can start implementing WOMM immediately

There are two simple steps you can take to begin learning how WOMM works and start integrating it in your business.

1. Dedicate some time each week to be active in online business networks, online communities, and blogs related to your industry or niche. This will begin to give you a feel for the multiplication power that technology and the Internet have on WOMM.

2. Whether your company is large or small, local or national – you should have your own business blog. This will help you build rapport and trust with consumers by giving them insight into your business operations. It’ll equip you to respond immediately to situations in your company or industry. Plus, a properly structured business blog will help you achieve top search-engine rankings too!

You can learn more about this powerful pair of Word-of-Mouth Marketing Multipliers, and learn how to start putting them to work for you and your small business in this special four-part series at AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com.

Taking action on these steps will allow you to build trust, gain permission, and maximize your leverage of WOMM. And when you develop a click-and-mortar growth strategy that integrates permission-based marketing with WOMM – you’ll catapult your company to a leadership position in your industry or niche.

© Copyright 1999-2005 by RPM Success Group ®, All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of RPM Success Group ® is prohibited. You may use this article/post in it’s entirety as an RSS feed without previous permission, so long as it is published in it’s entirety with all copyright notices. Call RPM Success Group toll free at 888-334-8151 for offline reprint permissions, or by email editor@rpmsuccess.com.

About the Author: John-Paul Micek and his partner Deborah Cole Micek are Business Growth Coaches. They help small business owners like you, achieve profit-doubling growth in one-third the time it would take to do on your own.

In just 12-months with your membership in the www.BusinessOwnersCoachingClub.com you can bridge the digital divide and transform your small business into a click-and-mortar powerhouse that delivers the profits, personal fulfillment, and free time you want.