The Clean Shower Guide to Marketing
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This one of my favourite posts that was originally published early last year. Now updated and edited to be even more good-er. Enjoy!
I was cleaning the shower the other day. This is something I do regularly. Once a year is regular, right? Just kidding – I clean it a lot more often than that. While sloshing water around and scrubbing the tiles it occurred to me that cleaning the shower is in many ways like marketing your home business.
Read through and let me know what you think.
Firstly it needs to be done regularly. I once lived in a house where we thought the bottom half of the shower door and side was frosted glass, and that round bit on the floor was anti-slip coating. About a week or so after moving in, I cleaned it. Yes, it was ordinary clear glass underneath and plain tiled floor. Yuck.
If you clean your shower regularly, it’s easy. If you market your business regularly, it’s easy. Consistency in small efforts is a lot easier and yields much greater rewards than neglecting it and having to put in hours of backbreaking, gut-wrenching work. It’s much easier to keep up than to catch up.
If it’s done wrong you could end up with a greater mess. Sloshing buckets of water around may be great fun, watching it splash, however it has a tendency to, well, splash. And go everywhere, generally all over the bathroom walls and floor – outside of the shower. Or it just rinses the walls and floor and doesn’t actually clean anything.
You can spend as much money and time as you have on marketing, but if it’s not directed to the right people, if it’s not solving a problem for them, if it’s not compelling them to buy, then it’s a waste of time and money. Know why you’re using a particular marketing tactic, do it right, be focused and see the benefits. Make sure you’re marketing to a niche and not a demographic.
Use the right tools and know why you’re using them. You wouldn’t go to clean the shower with the vacuum cleaner would you? Or with a leaf rake? Of course not, they’re tools for other tasks. You go into the shower with some kind of cleaner, cloths to wipe, some way to rinse off the walls, bleach to clean the tiles if needed, maybe a squeegee. You know precisely what you’re doing (cleaning the shower) and the appropriate tools that you need to do that.
This is where you need to know your target market intimately and thoroughly, inside and out. Why do they buy? Where and how do they buy? What solution does your product provide? How do you market specifically and directly to these people? What medium do they use (online, magazines, forums) to find out about products and ask questions? There’s no point putting an advertisement in the financial times newspaper if your target market loves parenting forums. Don’t put money into any form of marketing just because someone says you should. Know how it relates to your market and what result you expect from it.
It takes work and planning. You clean the walls before the floor. Put bleach on the tiles (my apologies to the environmentalists here) and let it start working before you begin to scrub. And no matter what product you put on the glass and tiles, it still needs some elbow grease to be spotlessly clean. With cleaning, as with marketing, you need to plan the best order to do things.
You can’t sell a product and then tell the customer why they need it. The customer needs to be educated about what it does and why they want it. You, the business owner, need to make this happen. Customers don’t come up and say “I want to buy this widget, what does it do?”. Nuh uh. Customers see your marketing, which tells them how your widget solves their problem and world peace at the same time. And then they come to buy.
And lastly you need to be committed. If you just give the shower a quick swipe over with a dry cloth once a month then you might think you can call it ‘cleaning the shower’. But is it really? If you put an ad in the cheapest magazine once a month, is it the ads fault that no one buys? I have a friend who often tells me that she wishes she could have a profitable online business. And then goes on to tell me how she’s not interested in writing blog posts, or going on forums, or spending money on upgrading her website. She’s not committed to the process or the work required. If your business isn’t profitable, or not as profitable as you’d like, check your own commitment and activity levels first.
What do you think? Are you using the right tools in the right way to clean your shower as efficiently and effectively as possible?
How to kick the “I’m just not good at that technical stuff” blues
This is a Guest Post by Catherine Caine
I once worked in technical support for a webhosting company, supporting 200,000 small business customers over the phone. I learnt a lot.
- I learnt how to configure every email program ever.
- I learnt how websites work.
- I learnt that a LOT of people are scared of technology.
Ten times a day I’d hear the line: “I’m just not any good at that technical stuff!” Sometimes it would be said with an embarrassed laugh, sometimes with weary despair. One woman sobbed over the phone because she didn’t know how to use FTP* for her plumbing supplies website. (* FTP means File Transfer Protocol = how you upload files to your web site/server)
Does that seem strange to you?
We’re not worried about admitting we know nothing about photography or mechanics or aerospace engineering. Why does computer-related ignorance fill us with shame? Why do we label ourselves as “not good at that technical stuff”, when we use a hundred technological devices every day with no problems, from programming the TV to updating our status in Facebook? (Note from Melinda here: I call in my 12yo daughter when it comes to programming the tv. LOL)
I’m going to share with you one of the most powerful things I learned to combat my fear.
Websites 101
Do you know what a website is? Can you describe it? For the longest time I couldn’t. I visited dozens every day, checked my email and did my banking on them and I couldn’t tell you what I really was using. It was scary and overwhelming! How could I learn anything about websites when I didn’t have the faintest idea of how they worked?
But I learned. Here’s my definition:
Websites are a tool for conveying information across networks. At one end, a powerful computer called a web server stores a number of files. When I want to visit a website, my computer (my iPhone counts as a computer in this case) sends a request to the web server that stores the files for the website. The web server transmits the requested information across the internet (the largest network in the world). When the files arrive on the my computer, I can see and interact with the website using my web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer or Safari). If I click on a link in the website – say, to look at a different page – a new request is sent to the web server and in return more information is sent back to my computer.
Too techy? I have a non-tech version.
I want to know whether that new movie is any good; my friend Steve always knows about movies. So I look up his number in the phone book and give him a call. I ask him who the director is and he tells me. I ask if the acting is good and he tells me. When we’re done, I hang up the phone.
In this case, Steve is the web server: he contains the information on the movie. We need a connection to exchange the information, which is the phone. (Without the phone, I can’t ask Steve anything.) He also has a unique identifier, the phone number, that reaches him alone. And each time I ask a new question he provides more information.
For me, that is a good mental model of how websites work. It explains a number of other ideas intuitively:
- I can’t visit a website when I have no internet connectivity because there’s no way to make a connection between my computer and the web server.
- But, if I recently visited the website, the files might still be on my computer. That’s why I can see the page I visited most recently, even when I’m offline.
And I can build on it to make bigger ideas:
- Right, HTML is a way to wrap up the information so I can read it in my web browser.
- Oh, IP addresses are an identifier to tell all the web servers and computers apart from each other. Like a phone number.
Once I had a mental model, learning about websites became much easier. I could add more information and it had somewhere to slot into. And that’s good, because there is a LOT of complexity with websites!
The wires and boxes
- Servers: the powerful computers that store all the files of a website
- Networks: the hardware and software that allows servers and computers to communicate
The geeky code bit
- Languages: Languages like HTML, PHP and CSS that encode the information and its display
- Software: Pre-written packages, written in those languages that perform complex functions like managing your content. Like WordPress
- Design: Altering the look of a website with images and layout
The business part
- Social media: Content that changes as visitors interact with it
- Marketing: Selling, persuading and informing people over the internet
- Content: The words, video and images that you provide
Sound overwhelming and scary? If you look at it all together it is!
But 95% of the individual components are as simple to grasp as the idea of me calling Steve to ask whether the movie is worth watching. Once you have a good mental picture of the relationship between the parts, learning about websites is simple.
Just focus on adding one piece at a time. It gets much easier as you go along.
And in no time, you’ll never say, “I’m not good at that technical stuff!” ever again!
Catherine teaches people how to grow an awesome website and then high-fives them. Today is the first day for her new resource, Awesome Fear-Wrangling: tame your website fears, grow your kick-ass website. Ironically, she’s petrified about it.
How to screw up a cold call and lose customers
We all need to market and sell our stuff, right? That’s the whole point of being in business. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to sell.
Sell something the right way and the person is happy they dealt with you and everyone is pleased by the whole transaction. Sell the wrong way – or try to – and it ends up a bun fight.
How Not to Cold Call
A few weeks ago I had the dubious pleasure of receiving a business cold call. By the time the call finished I was so angry I rang my husband at work to vent – the venting took longer than the call. (Hubby ended up being late for a meeting, and told his boss “She was way angrier than you, and I have to live with her” LOL)
Normally cold calls don’t bother me. We’re on the Do-Not-Call register so if we DO receive any cold calls it’s generally for my business. Usually it’s enough to tell the person very clearly “Nope, not interested, thanks for your time” and that’s the end of it. Not this call. Here’s how NOT to cold call someone:
The one thing they did right
They rang during the day. Ring me in the evening and you’ve got me offside from the second I pick up the phone. Business hours people, that’s what they’re for.
I love you forever, what’s your name?
The salesperson introduced herself and told me the name of the person she was calling for – I slightly know this business owner from a couple of forums that we’re both on. Her script, after the intro, went something like:
Our business helps other small businesses just like yours to grow and make more money. Tell me about your business, what do you do?
Huh? You rang me, you help businesses just like mine, but you don’t actually know what my business does?
Imagine you’re in a bar and a complete stranger comes up to you, takes you in his (or her) arms, looks into your eyes and says in complete seriousness “I love you and want to marry you, have kids with you and be together until we die. Oh, and what’s your name?”
You’d be like “Get away from me you freakin weirdo!”
That’s what this call was like. First you tell me your business is to help small businesses just like mine to grow – and then you ask me what my business is? If you don’t know what I do then how do you know that your business can help me?
Do some research. Look at my website – it’ll tell you. That’s what it’s there for (ok, one of the things). Or at least reword your script so it’s not so contradictory and doesn’t make me think you’re ignorant.
Pushy Pushy
I told the salesperson a very brief and general description of what I do. She suggested that I needed to narrow down my niche. I said it was a lot more focussed but my description would do for now. That didn’t please her at all. Did she really expect me to discuss my business in detail with a stranger who called me?
And then she started on her spiel. She was selling a course on creating info-products. I’d seen some details from the business owner on a forum, so I knew what she was talking about.
“No thanks, I’m not interested at the moment”
You know how in sales books they tell you that a ‘No’ is only an objection? Well, this person had been reading those books.
She began on the marketing questions that are designed so you either have to sound like a complete idiot to turn it down or you open the door for more selling. Her question was something along the lines of:
“Do you want to learn how to sell more effective and higher priced information products to your customers?”
Well, what am I supposed to say? “No, I like being broke and not selling anything” how stupid would that answer be? But if I say “Of course I do” then she’s got an open door to keep pushing the sale.
So I didn’t answer. I pointed out that it’s a typical marketing question designed to either open the door or make me look stupid, and I don’t appreciate being manipulated. And said again “No, I’m not interested in this product”
The pushy got worse
I’m sure she took my ‘No’ as a personal challenge because she continued to try and sell to me. I ended up saying ‘No’ at least three times, very clearly. I told her “I’m not interested and I’m not your ideal client” and she kept on pushing to sell!
At this point I was interrupting her and talking over the top of her. Rude, yes, but it was the only way to let her know I wasn’t interested short of outright hanging up on her.
It ended when I told her (again) I wasn’t interested and was going to hang up. At that point she agreed I wasn’t their client and we said a rather terse goodbye.
Do unto others….
How many of us enjoy having someone disrespect us and ignore us when we tell them no? Who wants to get off a call feeling they’ve just been manipulated and sold something they didn’t really want? Why are these sales techniques still being taught?
A few years ago I read “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by John Cialdini. In it he discusses the brain conditioning and instinctive responses that we’re all wired with. Marketers hook into this brain wiring and structure their questions so we’ll give them the answer they want rather than look a fool.
Marketing or a Used Car Salesman?
Cold calling works – I won’t deny that. But at what ethical cost? Do you really want to sell to someone knowing that they bought because you twisted their responses? That’s why Naomi and Sonia created ‘Marketing for Nice People’ last year, because everyone is so fed up with the manipulative, sleazy sales techniques that are being used. (Marketing for Nice People is no longer available unfortunately, but if you’re looking for a marketing course try the Marketing 101 – great course!)
The point of marketing is to make the customer be panting to buy the product, to be standing there with their wallet in hand throwing money at you. Not because it’s the only way to get rid of you, but because they can see how that product is going to change their life forever and THEY MUST HAVE IT NOW!!!
Pt 1, the end
After the call, when I’d calmed down reasonably, I sent a message to the business owner to let her know that the call went badly and that I hadn’t appreciated being pushed and manipulated by a hard-selling salesperson. Tomorrow I’ll show you her response, and we’ll have a chat about receiving feedback. Let me just say, her reply was even more entertaining than the cold call!
The 70% Principle: Why You Never Get Projects Off The Ground
Today’s post is reprinted with permission from Psychotactics by Sean D’Souza. This particular article is one I keep coming back to, otherwise I’d be rewriting, re-recording and editing for ever. Enjoy!
The 70% Principle
Have you got eleven seconds to learn a simple principle? A principle that will radically change the way you do things?
You do, don’t you?
Ok, tick, tick, tick….here’s the principle.
It’s called..um…the 70% Principle
So what’s the 70% Principle?
If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing 70% right.
You can always come back to do the 20% later.
Yes, read it again, and no, the math isn’t wrong.
If you’re going to build a website, a 70% effort is fine.
If you’re going to do a presentation a 70% effort is fine.
If you’re going to bake a cake, for that matter…do you need all the ingredients?
The perfect cake? With all the perfecto ingredients? Or the cake with ’70%’ of the ingredients?
The ‘perfect’ wording on a website? Or the ’70% perfect’ wording on the website?
And nope this isn’t a case for mediocrity
No one is telling you to do crappy stuff. No one’s saying that you need to keep your project unfinished. But in the quest for perfection, most of us never start.
The 70% principle is about getting your best effort out and into the hands of your clients. That you don’t need to start off with a 100%-kaboom-wow-start.
So let’s tell you about our ‘who pushed me?’ start in 2002
We started Psychotactics,in the year 2002, with a 16 page booklet. We called it the ‘Brain Audit.’ And indeedy-doo, it started with just 16 pages. Those 16 pages, we cheekily sold for $20 or thereabouts.
And you know what?
We weren’t trying to keep the pages down to 16 pages, but we certainly weren’t trying to pad up the contents of the book either.
The 16 pages of information were all we knew at the time. And yes, we could have made it 100% perfect, but decided to put our 70% effort out anyyay.
Did I say, put it out? I meant, I got ‘pushed’
You see, I wasn’t keen to sell the Brain Audit. I wanted to get the e-book just right. But I was forced into putting it on the market.
I was forced to putting it on a sales page, by another marketer who promised to promote the book to his audience.
And he never did promote the book
I reminded him. Gently. Then became a bit of a nag. But that promotion never, ever happened. What did happen was that the ‘Brain Audit’ began to sell.
And as it turned out, I was able to add the next 20%,
and the next 20%, and the next 20%.
And yes, the math still adds up
Because all along, that ‘so-called incomplete’ product was selling. And when you think about it, which product or service of yours is ever complete?
As your knowledge grows; as your customers ask more questions; as you apply the concepts in different ways, your product or service gets better all the time.
And today, the Brain Audit is a comprehensive document that not only helps you understand how the customer thinks, but is also the basis for being a member of 5000bc; for doing any of our courses like the copywriting course, product-creation course.
What started out as a ‘who pushed me?’ product, now helps us get thousands of customers. And helps us grow our business considerably from year to year.
Kinda like the iPod, you see
When the iPod came out at first, it was just 10GB (yeah, pathetic ten gigs).
Then it went up to 30GB. And hey, we got video too. Then whoopsy-doo, it was 60GB. And uppity up it keeps going, both in size, features and ease of use.
Where’s the market for the perfect iPod?
There’s no market for the perfect product or service. The product or service that your customers want, is the product or service you have now.
That 70%-perfect product/service, will do fine for your customer.
How can I be so sure?
Could this article have been at least 30% better?
Couldn’t I have found more examples? More case-studies? Put in more details, perhaps? Tweaked my words just so to make it richer, more vibrant?
Sure I could. But you’ve got the point, right?
If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing 70% right. You can always fix the 20% later.
©2001-2010 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Article written by Sean D’Souza.
Wouldn’t you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas. Find simple, yet electrifying ideas,on website strategy, marketing strategies, copywriting, public speaking, article marketing, sales conversion, psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.
SuperWAHM EZ-Notes – Pre-Release Sale and Giveaway
Our first new product release for 2010. Announcing SuperWAHM’s EZ-Notes!
The 2 for 1 sale referred to below is now finished. Click here to buy the Ebooks.
What are EZ-Notes?
A series of quick and easy to read ebooks, in pdf format, that each deal with a problem common to work at home mums. Priced at US$6.95 each they’re the cheapest, fastest and easiest solution you’ll find anywhere on the net.
We’ll be releasing 1-2 new titles every month, all at the same low price.
What titles do you have?
Our first two titles are due to be released on Monday 25th January. And here they are:
The No-Plan-Preneur
Are you a Work at Home Mum whose business grew from an interesting hobby into a business? Didn’t plan on it being a business at the start but you’re happy it is now? This ebook is for you.
Talking about how you got where you are, and how to see where you’re going, this ebook covers the most common issues that hobbyists-turned-entrepreneurs deal with, and how to avoid getting stuck in them yourself.
Avoid the usual pitfalls and get your business rockin’ ahead with the EZ-Notes No-Plan-Preneur!
The Non-Planner’s Quick’n’Dirty Business Plan
Don’t have a business plan and feeling stuck? This EZ-Notes ebook is for you. Draft out a quickie business plan to get you past that hurdle and moving again, all in the time it takes to do a load of laundry. If the thought of writing a full business plan gives you hives, this ebook will be the soothing calamine that eases the hurt and soothes the pain.
No, it’s not a replacement for a comprehensive plan that takes you years into the future. It focuses on the next 2-3 months, in a format that is simple and easy to use, and quick to put together.
Yes, you can keep on simply writing a Quick’n’Dirty plan every few months as the previous one is finished.
Yes, it’s designed to be quick and simple to use. Generally, a Quick’n’dirty plan should take about thirty minutes to an hour – just enough time when the kids are down for a nap, waiting for a ballet class or football game to finish, or even just while the washing machine is running.
No huge brain pain, just a simple step by step guide to plan your next few months for great business growth with the EZ-Notes Quick’n’Dirty Business Plan.
Special offer and a giveaway for our readers
From now until Thursday January 21 you can by both these EZ-Notes ebooks for our special pre-release price of $6.95 – that’s two for the price of one.
Simply click here to buy both EZ-Notes, valued at $13.90, for just $6.95. That’s both ebooks for the low, low price of one EZ-Notes after next week. Buy now at the special pre-release price and on Monday 25th Jan you’ll automatically be sent a link to download your purchases.
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Leave a comment and win both EZ-Notes Ebooks
Leave a comment and tell us why you became a Work at Home Mom. What inspired your decision? What were the most important factors in deciding to work from home?
On Friday, I’ll pick one lucky commenter – using Random.org – to win both ebooks. If you’ve purchased them already I’ll refund your purchase price, if you haven’t purchased then I’ll send you a download link on Monday 25th. The winner will be announced in the comments on this post, so make sure you click ‘Subscribe to Comments’.
Do you have friends and other work at home mums who you think would benefit from EZ-Notes? Please send them a link, email them, forward on the RSS feed and invite them to come and take a look.
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The web's business planning expert - just for work at home mums. Together we'll find the time for you to make money.