Small business owners should be utilizing the power of sharing interesting, practical, and highly relevant knowledge over the phone to groups of prospective customers.

We prepared a quick 3 minute instructional video for small business owners on the 3 easy steps in recording your teleseminar.

What are your questions on how to record your teleseminar?

FOR: This 45 minute audio seminar is intended for small business owners wanting a specific process to receive and distribute customer endorsements, testimonials, and case studies.

ACTION GUIDE: Download Action Guide (PDF) for this Teleseminar (CLICK HERE) action-guide-testimonial

Do you have a process for receiving customer testimonials?

Does it work almost every time?

By listening to our teleseminar, How To Receive a Customer Testimonial as a Small Business Owner, you will discover:

• Exactly what to say when requesting a customer testimonial.

• How to “coach” vs. “tell” your customers to say what you want them to say that is their true belief about you.
  

• The easy 2-step approach of creating audio customer testimonials.

• The difference between an endorsement, testimonial, or case study.

• How to use testimonials to get more customers.

Brand Autopsy shares guidance on Testimonials in this brief video below:

If you are a start-up entrepreneur or a small business owner and you want to learn more about our Virtual Business Gym giving you complete access to our web marketing design and strategy team where we teach you how to monetize, time-shift, and repurpose your sustainable business idea then click on link below.

===>> The Virtual Business Gym

Rather listen than read?

We believe the greatest opportunity in our market place today is to work with local small business owners in making successful off-line businesses successful in our on-line world.

Specifically we are talking about local small business owners who either don’t have a web presence or those who have an ineffective web site with no strategy to be found in the way their ideal clients are searching for products or services that should lead them to that local small business owners web presence and begin to develop a know, like, and trust business relationship.

You may have a million-dollar (+) business if you can:

• Take charge of a local small business online sales + marketing system
  
• Get a local small business to show-up in the top of search engines
• Grow the revenue of a local small business
• Develop a sales + marketing process enabling prospective customers to either exclude or include themselves in taking a call to action to either become a paying customer or a disinterested prospect

I don’t have a clue if those of you reading this post right now have a business serving as a solution to the huge needs and opportunities I just mentioned…

I just know the future is bright for those who do.

So how do we at The Strategic Incubator determine if we will partner with a local off-line small business and take responsibility for creating and driving on-line revenue?

This simple chart shows how we determine our ideal local small business client.

• Customer Value- How much will a customer pay for your services or product?
• Search Volume- What is the expected frequency that people will be searching for your service or product?
  

How might you use this approach to capitalize on serving your own local small businesses?

Please comment below your own thoughts or even your own local market success story.

How do you respond when a prospective client that said NO to your offer six months earlier calls you up saying they want to have another discussion about becoming a client of yours?

How do you feel when you receive those phone calls?

Are you happy, surprised, optimistic…

What will you say to that person that six-months earlier said NO to your proposal and now just told you he would like to reconsider discussions about becoming your client?

Here is what I say in that situation…

“I really appreciate you calling and telling me you would like to have another discussion on becoming a client, but can I ask you a question before we discuss that possibility?”

“What is different now compared to when you said NO to our offer six months ago?”

Why do you think I ask this question emphasizing the words different and NO?

How do you believe the prospective client will answer this question I shared with you and what are you seeking to uncover by asking this question?

Please comment below your response to my questions.

Gone Fishin'

Rather listen than read?

Want to hear a fish tale?

This is not the one about the “fishers of men.” Some modern day Pharisees (Marketing Consultants) don’t like that one so much.

I’ll share the fish tale relating how your most reliable indicator of small business marketing profit is the “quality of your {marketing} stream.

So how does fishing apply to your marketing?

Most people will tell you that your marketing success is about the tools you use, your talents, or even your luck.

I know this is hard for some of us gadget guys. Hey, I have all the latest fly rods, waders, and even the Range Rover to complete the fly-fishing Rennaisance Man picture.

But the truth is the key to a successful day of catching fish and landing clients comes down to two factors:

• How many fish (prospects) are there in the stream?
• How hungry are the fish (prospects) in the stream?

Here is the cool part that marketing and fly-fishing legends are made…

The people who know how to find the streams (markets) where the fish (prospects) are abundant and are hungry enough to bite the bait are the ones who return home in the shiny Range Rover, after only a short time fishing, with a trunk full of fish that will sustain one’s family for the night.

How will you know if you are fishing for prospects in the right marketing stream?

What will be the specific incident that causes you to fish for prospects in a different stream using different bait?

Have you heard of Veruca Salt?

If you are under the age of 30, then just stop thinking. For those of us over the age of 30, I’ll give you a hint by watching the video below.

After you watch the video, I’ll share with you how Veruca Salt and her lack of time and patience in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is like trying to deliver a message to our busy and distracted listeners.

Veruca has no time or patience for anything other than exactly what she wants.

Our listeners today have the same communication expectations of you and I as Veruca did with Willy Wonka:

1. Content must quickly and obviously meet the needs of your audience. What you’re sharing or selling cannot be about you–the person communicating, the company, or the product; it has to be about them.
2. Your audience expects to find what they need immediately. They don’t want to wander up and down the aisles of your literal or virtual store searching. They want you to take them by the hand or mouse and lead them right to where they assumed you knew they wanted to go.
3. You don’t have the luxury of time or patience. Veruca said, “I want it and I want it now!” Our listeners are saying the same.
4. People won’t pay attention to information just because it’s interesting. You must be more exciting, fun, practical, and helpful for people to pay attention to you.
5. The most relevant communication is “all about your listener” with information that directly relates to your listener’s needs and wants.
6. No matter how compelling or personally relevant your communication might be, your audience won’t pay attention if they have to work too hard to find and understand it.
   

How will you apply what you learned to either your written or spoken communication?

Please comment below on how this post impacted your communication with your prospective clients.

The concepts of this blog came from the book Paul Brown, Your Attention Please: How to Appeal to Today’s Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Audiences.

You may learn more about this book here.

Riches Are In The Niches!

What specific incident taught you as a small business owner that you were going to get your butt handed to you if your business was not {a/the} solution to a {unmet or under-served} problem of a highly focused market?

Maybe it was:

• You are days or moments away from quitting your dream of having your own business.
• You are willing to compete on price to earn new business and you learned the painful lesson that there is always someone willing to go out of business faster than you by offering a lower price.
• You are preparing to explain to all your friends why you decided to fold your business and join the workplace again.

Although my intent is not to share with you everything you need to know as a small business owner to create and implement a sustainable business strategy around a highly focused market niche, I will share with you what I think is most important of what I’ve learned in co-building our own successful implementation company in working only with highly focused market niche clients.

It’s simple, but not easy to choose a highly focused market niche.

Here are the three ingredients for all of my fellow small business owners to succeed in earning more money in less time and with less effort by choosing a highly focused market niche:

1. Is my ideal prospect experiencing expressed pain and emotion by not having the best solution to their particular problem?
2. Is my prospect proactively looking for a solution?
3. Does my prospect have few or no options?

How about a brief case study…

What can we as small business owners learn about choosing a highly responsive market niche from this Hasidic Jew reggae singer?

Do you respect how Matisyahu, the Hasidic Jew reggae reggae singer you just watched perform on David Letterman, created a unique market niche?

I get that many small business owners reading this blog post right now are saying, “the Jewish reggae singer is cute, but he is an artist and that does not apply to my real world as a small business owner.”

First, stop being a putz and being closed-minded.

Second, I seek to open your mind about the possibility of becoming the Matisyahu of your market sector.

Here are my random thoughts on why you should create your unique market niche:

• More profitable. Would you rather receive the paycheck of a highly successful minimally invasive pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeon or a general surgeon? Loaded question I know, but same fair or unfair rules apply to specialists in the small business world.
• Get found easier. Regardless of what you do or sell, your prospective clients are using the internet to try to find you. Over time, consumers are more savy about conducting highly-focused Google search phrases based on problem + location. By being highly focused on a particular market niche, you can be found much easier and perceived as truly unique in the sea of sameness of your competitors.
  
• You will not be a copycat marketer. John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing warns us that most start-up entrepreneurs are really good at something and most of these entrepreneurs don’t think of themselves as marketers. So they look around at what everyone else in their industry is saying and doing and they mimic both off-line and on-line. Within months the creep of not being found and not being regarded as an expert begins to ache. Meanwhile, you read about the success of someone who took an obscure, seemingly tiny market focus area and became the rock-star of her market. Your shoulders drop in pain and weariness.
• Perceived as an expert. By getting there first in your chosen market niche, you can be perceived by paying customers as the expert first. Remember, it’s not enough to be considered the first mover in your industry, you must be the first mover who get’s it right to be considered an icon.
• More interesting story to tell & hear about. I could give a rip about the next new shoe company. What about you? But, I really care about Tom’s Shoes. In fact, I will buy them not only for me and my family, but also I’m essentially buying a pair for a deserved person, because I know with my purchases Tom’s Shoes will match my purchase by giving away the same amount of shoes that I purchased. It makes me feel good about telling that story. And when I hear the Tom’s Shoes latest commercial it makes me want to buy more.
• Fewer competitors. It works like this. As the market focus gets smaller, the marketplace narrows, and fewer small business owners are spending time and energy in that particular market. You remain and you will have fewer competitors.
• You will become a sustainable business. When you successfully dominate a highly-focused market niche by being more efficient, profitable, and unique, you are establishing your business to becoming more sustainable in any economy.

Let me illustrate a fun demonstration on how you might refine your chosen market niche:

• You are a consultant. {You and everyone else who left Corporate America-Pal}
• You work with small business owners to grow their business. {What the heck defines a small business anyway & every consulting firm in the world promises the same thing}
• You have experience in sales & marketing. {You & every other liberal arts major-Big Deal?}

You could (Watch how I refine the focus of this particular market niche):

• Equip professional service owners to grow their business with a proven sales and marketing process.
• The professional service owners would be fee for service medical professionals not working in a hospital and not requiring graduation from medical school.
• You could focus upon massage therapists.
• Massage therapists working with cancer patients.
• Who live in greater NYC area.
• Willing to sign-up for 3-months minimum.
• Who don’t have to travel to you because you are willing to meet them in their home.

Let’s play this story out…

• You are a proven sales & marketing expert in your own business experience.
• Your life was impacted when your loving mother was diagnosed and ultimately loss her fight with this horrible disease.
• Your mother did not feel pretty or even feel like she deserved to be pampered while dealing with cancer.
• You could only imagine how your mother deserved to feel, even if for just one hour a week, if she received a massage at her own house from a trained massage therapist at the comfort of her own home.
• You could teach massage therapists a sales and marketing system that would make them unique in a crowded market of working, generally, with only healthy people.
• You don’t have to really know much at all about being a massage therapist, you just need to know how to equip the massage therapist with your proven sales and marketing process.
• You may even be able to help the massage therapists who will pay you to teach them your proven sales and marketing process by uncovering insurance companies that may even pay for this massage therapy treatment.
• You would certainly be able to receive positive media exposure for your good deeds.
• You could dominate a new market and get paid very well to teach cool people to authentically market their services to deserving people who really need your services.
  

What comments or questions do you have for us in why it makes sense for you to create a highly sustainable small business by dominating your particular market niche?

Company: Sweet Pea Bicycles, Portland, Oregon

Target Focus: Custom made bicycles for women

Overview of Sweet Pea Bicycles: (Watch Videos)

sweetpea bicycles from daniel sharp on Vimeo.

Natalie Ramsland, Founder of Sweet Pea Bicycles is featured in these free promotional videos. Some produced local in our home of Portland, Oregon and others produced by HP feature.

I’d like to point out some key marketing points of this project:

• Personal & Professional brand reconciliation. Natalie is a former Portland bike messenger that identified a problem: We need bikes custom built for women. She has the “look.” We noticed very quickly this pierced & maybe tattooed (Portland Cyclists Rite of Passage) 100lb bundle of energy is both evangelist and artisan. The girl can make a custom bike-not just ride one. In summary, she “reeks” of her brand extension of women who re-imagine a new way to get to work in style. In a recent mention in Outside Magazine, Natalie is described in a DIY section-”In a league of distinguished gentlemen-and one bad ass bike building gentle-women.”
  
• Artist, not a manufacturer. Natalie’s artistic brush stroke is not a paintbrush, but rather a welding iron. We viewed her as a niche expert in the already established artisan community of craftsmanship in Portland. At a cost of $3,500 dollars and a 16 month waiting time, you better call yourself an artist. Yet enough people are willing to wait and pay for an artistic expression that can be theirs vs. buy it on the spot at a local store.
  
• Lives in her ideal market place. Natalie lives, works, and plays in her market of Portland, Oregon. Portland is voted the #1 bike friendly big city in the United States. Attractive pixy women pedaling their custom made Sweet Pea bike in the bike friendly streets of Portland, much like Amsterdam, are a moving billboard.
• Marketing to women. Sweet Pea is not trying to be all things to all people. Just cute girls with pierced noses wearing scarfs and a beanie around the streets of Portland.
  

• Sweet Pea, the brand name, just sounds like it fits. Natalie says in this video, “I wanted to have a term of endearment. Why not be plain about it.”

• Authenticity “molded” to brand. Sweet Pea bikes have meaning to owners. When owners are asked by people on the streets of Portland while chaining their bike to the plentiful bike racks in the city where they can buy one of those bikes…owners don’t want to say, “at any bike store or REI.”

• Visual brand comparison metaphors. We always encourage you to be able to answer, “What brands do you admire either within or outside your industry?” This enables you to plant a brand memory that people can possibly link to your brand. Why not benefit by “attaching” yourself to your most admired brands. Natalie even provides people with a Talking Logo (John Jantsch & Duct Tape Marketing) when she says she admires Patagonia as a brand “because they build stuff for people who don’t want a lot of stuff, but what they have, they want to be meaningful.”

Strategic Incubator Recommendations:

• Website needs a kick-stand. Sweet Pea Bicycles website here can use some major, but easy improvement. We recommend a Brian Gardner Revolution Two Album theme as seen here to really highlight the visual emphasis of the custom bike process. The argument can be made by some people that the simplicity of the current blog site is of minimal importance because they are busy building bikes. We say to those people…that is a lame excuse. For free or for $59 dollars Sweet Pea can convert their entire website to a platform that reconciles on-line the artistry displayed off-line in actually making a custom bike.
  
• Monthly Progress Video. Every month Sweet Pea should provide a personalized 5-minute progress video on each bike under construction. The video would then be uploaded to a section of blog for all to admire, but especially for the future owner to beam with pride with public adulation. This re-purposing strategy not only provides the person who is having a custom bike built with a progress report, but also builds a community of future Sweet Pea customers peering through the “virtual store-front window.”
  
• A dedicated testimonial & recent press page. Every Sweet Pea bike owner is asked to prepare a 3 minute or less video of their experience. Each testimony video has a simple viewing rating system underneath the video for anyone to rank their favorite Sweet Pea experience. The monthly winner who created the voted upon most popular Sweet Pea experience testimonial wins a quarterly free bicycle tune-up compliments of Sweet Pea. Right now, Sweet Pea is placing testimonials and press coverage in a blog format. The problem is since a blog is published in date sequence, the testimonials and press coverage will be buried vs. a dedicated page that is easy to find and view.
• A 1 hour a week Friday Sweet Pea Mogulus Live Stream. Mogulus is free. Here is the concept: Sweet Pea chooses 1 hour every Friday to have a webcam in the Sweet Pea factory. If Sweet Pea is a Mac, a great webcam is already built into her Mac computer. If Sweet Pea is a PC, they can buy a $58 dollar Logitech video webcam and connect by USB. Sweet Pea simply answers any questions about the custom bike building process. People can see the bikes in various stages of completion in the background and may ask whatever questions they like. Natalie may even invite Sweet Pea bike owners to interview. A simple Twitter message to alert interested people and Sweet Pea is live! See the video below to see how Mogulus may work for Sweet Pea:

Strategic Incubator Brain-Jam:

• Is there any part of Natalie’s story that is your present or hopeful story?
• Name your ideal Vision Brand Comparison Metaphor?
• Should we conduct your case study?
  

]]> http://strategicincubator.com/2009/04/25/sweet-pea-bicyclesthe-strategic-incubator-case-study/feed/ 2 http://strategicincubator.com/2009/04/24/the-confirming-conversation/ http://strategicincubator.com/2009/04/24/the-confirming-conversation/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:41:38 +0000 Matthew Scott http://strategicincubator.com/?p=907 What if your client conversations were similar to meeting with a dear friend at your local coffee shop?

Use Your Cafe Voice

What if your workshops were like being on a subway and you are pulling into your stop, but all the sudden a band starts playing and you decide to stay on the train and see where it takes you as you enjoy the music?

Use Your Subway Voice

Perhaps you can’t relate to these questions or imagine these comparisons because we have personally led and received crappy communication devoid of any experience take away?

I am evolving from awareness to mindfulness in creating new and unique client experiences. I am committed to delivering a whole new experience in the seemingly mundane of such activities as introductory phone calls, capability presentations, course of action presentations, and even the traditional boring proposal process.

I started by choosing a desired future-perfect action verb to describe my ideal client engagement experience?

Is worship too bold for you?

What is your process to create a meaningful client experience in the mundane of a meeting or workshop?

In case you don’t, we do…

And you can repeat them over and over again in your on-line and off-line promotional activities.

The 4 Questions Are:

• Here Is What I have to Offer You Today
  
• Here Is Why It May Be Right For You Today
  
• Here Are The Most Frequently Asked Questions We Receive
• Here Is What You Need To Do Next If What We Have To Offer You Is A Fit For You Today

In fact, we have used these exact questions, word for word, to generate:

• sales copy
• presentations
• preview calls
• webinars
• tele-seminars

What are your questions of how you can instantly ask & answer these proven 4 questions to tactfully promote and grow your business?

Share the impact below in comments section.

Meaningful Conversation?

How do you know if you are delivering meaningful conversation?

I’m asking you to consider the big picture in deciding if you are engaged in marketing or meaning-making?

I was reading Lois Kelly’s, Beyond Buzz this weekend. We made the book pilgrimage to the Portland landmark, Powell’s Bookstore where Beyond Buzz by Lois Kelly found me.

It’s not buzz or more information that people want; it’s meaning.

I have been engaged in the profession of sales & marketing since 1994.

Of this I’m certain… I have not been engaged in the profession of meaning-making since 1994.

Meaning helps us make sense of information.

Meaning making helps us make sense of an idea, concept, or product, showing us how it relates to what we already know and believe.

Take our consulting project with Blue Cross-Blue Shield. Lois Kelly mentions the challenge we faced in her book:

Consider the 2006 Medicare Drug Plan, the biggest expansion of Medicare since the health care program began. Information explaining the new prescription drug benefits for senior citizens is so complex and confusing that nearly 80 percent of people eligible for the benefit said they don’t know whether or no they will sign up.

We were hired to equip Blue Cross-Blue Shield to prepare employees to clearly explain Medicare options to people turning 65 and becoming eligible for Medicare.

We met with men and women who were turning 65 to people in their 80′s. We also worked with Blue Cross leadership, front-line employees, clergy, nursing homes, pharmacy owners, and state agencies.

Everyone, including Blue Cross-Blue Shield, were confused about the complex Medicare options.

Here is a picture of me traveling across a state meeting with senior-citizens living in an assisted facility center. The gentlemen somewhat smiled in the picture, but he was confused and frustrated over his options. The Blue Cross-Blue Shield representatives were frustrated as well because they could not legally tell the people who reminded them of their Grandmother or Grandfather “what to do?.”

Can you even imagine for a moment the emotion we felt when seated on a piano bench in a small senior-citizen activity center where many of these fine people we were asking for advice were drinking stale coffee and focused on coloring between the lines in their favorite donated coloring book?

"What do I do now?"

What about you and your own “Blue Cross-Blue Shield” project?

Next time you need to create meaning with your idea, product, or service, try these ingredients for success.

Here are 4 + 1 meaning-making ingredients from the book:

• Relevancy. Relevancy is the function of the brain to make a connection of how something applies to us. In my example of our Blue Cross-Blue Shield consulting project, we made the Medicare options relevant by reminding people turning 65 to open up their mail, turn-on the TV, and pick-up a prescription at their home town pharmacy. Their drug rates were were going up, their coverage options were going down, & they thought once they turned 65 that health care would be covered with little or no charge.
  
• Context. Context applies to how your idea will be meaningful only if it relates to your listener’s experience. For example, car makers talking about hybrid vehicles in the context of being less dependent on gas and being better stewards of the environment.
• Pattern Making. The book, Beyond Buzz points out, marketing anything requires explaining ideas within people’s existing frames of reference-that is, in a context they already understand. Pattern making is when you connect the dots within a larger frame for people. An example is Best Practices or How to pieces. Take a look at some of the best-selling self-help books to prove this point: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die; The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People; and The 48 Laws of Power.
  
• Emotion. Our strongest emotion is love. Figure out how you can share your points of view that are not just rational facts, but ideas that provoke emotionally charged conversation. An example is a personal or third-person story.
• My + 1 is Format. One of the keys to delivering the right meaningful message to the right people in the right way (the way they want to receive) is format. When should you deliver a meaningful message by text, audio, or video? When you are selling something, you should incorporate the most intimate format available to you. That could be the most intimate such as in-person or a video. If you are educating, you can choose a less intimate and more time-shifted format such as text & audio.

What are your meaning-making ingredients for your business?

Comment below…

There are so many great examples of super interesting bloggers that can ignite conversation amongst a community of readers. But, I’m interested in uncovering examples of very popular online figures who receive very few comments.

So I ask the question…

Can you really be successful and have few or zero comments from others?

Let’s take a look at two very talented and successful online entrepreneurs. First, Daisy Whitney of New Media Minute and secondly, Laura Fitton or more commonly known on Twitter as @pistachio.

Daisy Whitney is one of the first multimedia reporter and journalists to launch her own online newscast covering the business of internet video. Her webcast show New Media Minute is carried on many top networks including ABCNews.com and TVWeek.com. This Brown University Art History graduate is breaking new ground as an internet entrepreneur.

What’s interesting is she has very few comments posted on her wonderful videos.

Could it be that because her videos are re-purposed across different networks that might explain why she receives few comments on her website? Maybe people who watch online videos are less prone to comment compared to bloggers who write their message? Maybe?

Are you familiar with Laura Fitton more commonly known as @pistachio on Twitter?

Laura was already widely known before Seth Godin mentioned her in his book Tribes. I’m sure that did not hurt her by having now almost 27,000 followers paying attention to her consistent Twitter updates throughout the day.

Would you be surprised to know that she has very few comments on her personal blog?

Could it be because most are following her Twitter comments and are less interested in her blog? Maybe?

How does this apply to small business owners who may not have a huge following?

I believe in the following ways:

• Impression, credibility and commenting . What matters most is when your ideal prospects and customers arrive at your site they are provided with a web presence providing them with opportunity to get to know, like, and trust you. I have witnessed first-hand that your content can be wonderful and be perceived as a virtual agency and people will not always feel the need to contribute their opinion to your community of readers. Especially in this day and age where many people are reading to consume and not participate. To participate takes time and thought, both are lacking in our increasingly busy and stressful day.
  

• Physical Action vs. Discussion. Many people struggle to get people to take a physical action in their blog posts. For example, you write a blog post and invite people to comment & share their thoughts on this post. Many more people really struggle with creating a physical action (ex-”click on this link or “add to shopping cart) leading people to a product or service. There is still a feeling that you should not “sell” on your blog posts. If you don’t tactfully tell your ideal readers what you would like for them to consider doing, you can almost be certain they will do little.
  

• Blogs are the new websites. More and more small business owners are finding a Word Press template they love and with relatively little technical support are up and running with a beautiful and potentially “spider” search engine optimized site. Since blogs often serve as a new primary website, I believe you must create consistent and relevant changing content, but I don’t think it matters as much as before if your company online store front (blog) does not contain a ton of comments in the blog section. If your goal is to become a well-known community blogger, of course it is critically important to empower and succeed at having people comment on your blog posts.
  

• You might not be that interesting. Of course, what you write about may not be worthy of anyone taking the time to comment.

In my own personal experience, I have little success in building a community of readers who decide to comment on my blog posts. However, I’ve been very successful in converting my readers into clients or paid customers.

I think the best case scenario is to have a blog focusing on a market relevant topic for your version of an ideal client where your communication skills (text, audio, video) ignite conversation and tactfully give your ideal client the opportunity to uncover for themselves what they would like to do next and perhaps even what you would like for them to do next.

I’d like you to comment on this post. But if you are too busy, distracted or even dis-interested, I understand.

Perhaps you would like to buy something from me while you are waiting for something to say ?