Like it or not, we live in a world of sound bites. No one has time to listen to your full story unless you hook them in with something enticing in the first ten seconds. Some gurus will tell you that you need an “elevator speech”. They say you need to have a thirty seconds to one minute planned speech that can grab attention and make someone ask you questions or in some other way want to talk to you more. I agree and disagree at the same time with this. Sure, you need an elevator speech…but in reality, you probably won’t get a full thirty seconds unless you have an appointment to pitch someone.

Here’s what you really need:

• 1-3 line hook and response
• 15 second hook and response
• 30 second hook and response

Everything is done in hook and response. Listen to the most common questions about your product or service (except price…don’t mention it unless you really do have the lowest price or you’re directly asked) but leave that question up to the buyer to ask. Force them to think about it and ask you for information. Then you’ll have their full attention.

You’ll most often find yourself giving your 1-3 line hook and response. When someone sees your product or asks you about your service, you must respond with something in 1-3 lines that hooks their attention and makes them want to talk to you. Confidence goes a long way here. If asked about your product, respond with something as short as, “This is the best “widget” ever and you’ll never believe what it can do!” Any normal person will then say, “What can it do?”. Now you’ve got their interest.

Remember that hook and response means that you give a one line hook, listen to their question, and give them a response. You’ve already told them the hook and heard their question, so you need a similar response. Try something concise like, “It can save you lots of money by (fill in this blank)…” or “It protects you by (fill in this blank)…” or something similar. If your person is interested in it, you’ll get a response like, “Can I see how it works?” or “Can I hold that one for a minute?” Now all you need to do is wait until they ask all their follow up questions and ask for a price.

You can use as much as three lines if you want, but you need to develop this short conversation that almost forces the other person to lob you easy questions.

Develop your sound bite now if you don’t already have one. Make sure you get a few different lengths for the times that you might actually be in an elevator or waiting in line somewhere.

- John

If there’s only one thing that today’s marketing gurus agree on, it’ s that marketing takes time.  If you’re going to build an empire, you first need to build a brand.  You’ve got to give the public quite some time to get used to you.  They need to feel that you’re an established business and not just the “new kid on the block” that may be out of business next week.  If you’re marketing on a budget, you need to be resourceful, but most of all you need patience.  Things just won’t happen overnight.  Despite how much the entrepreneur in you wants to swim against the current, you can’t become a household name in a week.

You have to tell the world how great you are.  The first thing to do is to send letters to journalists that write on subjects related to your business.  Newspapers, magazines, freelance writers, anybody else you can find an physical address or email address for.  Tell them how experienced you are and that you’re available to give an expert opinion when they need one.  How powerful is it if you can get your message not just in the ad section of the newspaper or magazine, but right in the middle of the article…while being boasted by the reporter as an expert on the subject?  That’s extremely powerful marketing and it’s 100% free!

Be aggressive.  If you’re not following up those emails and letters with phone calls, someone else more assertive will.  If the public doesn’t hear about you, nothing will happen.  You’re fighting for your business, your income, and your life here.  Get out there and meet people.  There is no replacement for passing out business cards and shaking hands and looking people in the eye when you speak.

Put your product under your arm and go knock on doors.  Pass out fliers.  Hand out coupons.  Give demonstrations.  Advertise everywhere.  Write press releases.  Give interviews.  Hold contests and giveaways.  Go to trade shows.  Whatever you do, just get out there!

I loathe math.  I dread April 15th.  I love my accountant.

You may think that you can’t afford an accountant, but more than likely you can afford one.  You might not be getting the “Rain Man”, but you can certainly get a sharp, young, recent graduate who will work harder than anyone else because they need to prove themselves and build a client list.

One of the greatest benefits is that accountants are dealing with business owners all day and generally know what they can and can’t afford.  They talk about money all day and often talk about investments.  It benefits the accountant to set up a small business owner that needs private capitol and the well-to-do business owner that wants to invest his money.  This helps both of his clients stay happy, and they do it ALL THE TIME!

An accountant can also save you huge amounts of money for you on taxes.  There are probably thousands of dollars of deductions that you’re not taking because you didn’t know you could.  Your accountant will know what deductions you can and can’t take.  Professionally prepared documents with no obvious “newbie” errors are less likely to bring undue scrutiny from the IRS and can significantly reduce your chances of an audit.

In the interest of people that have no common sense whatsoever, here’s a word of caution:

Check your accountant’s work!  You need to make sure that your accountant isn’t “fudging” the numbers.  You should verify that all the funds are where your accountant says they are and that things that are marked “paid” are actually paid.   It is extremely rare, but it has happened.

- John

Building websites is not beyond your capabilities. It’s so easy, even a child can do it. (…and they do!)

If you come from a generation previous to “generation x” you’ll be happy to know that the youth culture love giving stuff away for free online. With sites like W3schools.com and the hundreds of free tutorials available online, learning to write or edit html couldn’t be easier.

Even better that learning how to do it for free, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of websites that give free layouts (if you didn’t take the time to learn CSS for free).

Can it get any better than free education and free tools to start with?

Sure it can…with open source code.

If you don’t want to learn JavaScript and/or PHP (or any one of the other scripting languages, you can simply use an open source script for your customer’s website.

You should follow the rules and make sure that you read and comply with the licensing agreement for whatever you decide to use. Some open source scripts are only free for non-commercial use. Most often, you’ll find that you have to leave their link in the footer of the page or just tell your customer that what you’re using is free online, and you only charge a fee for your time and effort setting it up.

I learned to build websites (and use open source code…like this blog) in an afternoon. I put an ad out in the local paper for $300 for a month and got 6 jobs at an average of $250 each. That one ad and a few hours of my time netted me $1,200.00 after expenses.

$1,200.00 isn’t bad for what you can learn in an afternoon. I’m sure that with more advertising you could do much better than I did. Give it a try!

- John

Google AdWords have launched many businesses and certainly increased the business of many existing companies…but unless you’re willing to pay big bucks in clicks for people you can’t do business with, you’ll need to find a way to qualify your leads before you pay for their clicks.

Step 1: Be Descriptive.

Let’s say you have a carpet cleaning business in Boise, Ohio. If you Google the search term “carpet cleaning” what are you going to see? You’ll get not only carpet cleaning services, but also stores selling carpet cleaners, do it yourself articles, chemicals for cleaning carpets, and much more. That’s a pretty wide range of things someone could be looking for, and if your small business doesn’t sell carpet cleaning machines nationwide, carpet cleaning chemicals nationwide, and have offices all over the US offering local carpet cleaning services…you MUST say that in your ad. If you only offer local services, it’s probably best that you skip this and just move on to step #2. If you do sell some things nationwide but do other things locally, tell your customer in your ad. If your business is in Boise, Idaho and someone in Spokane, Washington needs their carpet cleaned…can you help them? Not at any reasonable cost, you can’t do the local service, but if they’re looking to buy a cleaning chemical you have…that could work!

Step #2 - Localize.

If you have a local business (such as the example carpet cleaning service) you should definitely use that in your search terms. Let’s say your business is located in Tampa, Florida now. Your search term shouldn’t be “carpet cleaning” because you’ll get nationwide (and even world wide) views and clicks from people you can’t do business with. Try using something like, “Carpet Cleaning Tampa” and “Carpet Cleaning Tampa FL” and other combinations with commas, abbreviations, and common misspellings.  Use the words “local” and “service” where you can.  If someone is searching for “Carpet Cleaning Service Tampa Florida” they likelihood that they can benefit from your local Tampa carpet cleaning business is very high.

Step #3 - Make a promise

People want to hear promises. If you saw two identical ads and one said “satisfaction guaranteed” or “money back guarantee” but the other one didn’t…which would you choose? I’d go for the money back guarantee too. Even though the other service may be better, I feel more comfortable if they advertise a guarantee. If your product or service is what you claim (and it better be) your refund rates will be very low and certainly worth the increase in security for your customer.

One last tip on guarantees — Keep them. If a customer requests a refund, do so promptly and without a hassle. Just because someone got a refund doesn’t mean you’ve lost the customer. If they are treated well, you’ll get great word of mouth advertising, they may come back for more at a later time, and if they do neither of those, at least they won’t go telling everybody what a bad experience they had with your business.

- John