Do these balloons really make you want to come in and buy a car?

Why is it that when small business owners see a dip in sales, they reach for a gimmick? I’m talking about weather balloons flying 200 feet above car dealerships, people holding up signs on street corners, or the worst, and what I experienced twice this week, people in costumes.

Does the mattress store really think that a guy or girl in a mattress suit (exactly like it sounds!) standing on the edge of a busy highway is going to make cars stop, come in and buy a mattress? I saw this today on a 55-mph, 2-lanes in each direction, highway. The only thing we’re doing is swerving so we won’t end up with a queen-sized person on the hood of our cars.

And earlier in the week, I saw a young girl dressed like a sub sandwich waving at me from this same highway, only further up in the 40-mph zone. She looked cute, and I wondered how bad things were that she had to take on this type of job, when she could have been behind the counter, asking people to sign up for the shop’s mailing list, email list or whatever-list. I’ve been in the store before, and the only thing they ask is what type of sandwich they can build for you.

What really works for mattress stores and sandwich shops? Referrals for one. Weekly newsletters, samples, try-before-you buy demo’s and social media. And what about just talking to me, asking me what made me come in the store, or for my email address?

The only person who wins more business is the business who rents costumes, balloons and other oddities!

My advice to small business owners: give up the tricks, and become social sellers.

And it’s only halfway through!

I’ve been absolutely blown away by some of this content — and these are just quick, 15-30 minute TED-type talks.

I can’t even begin to imagine how awesome the full Summit will be!

Anyway, if you haven’t checked out the Pre-Summit Series yet, do it right now.  There are still several presentations coming up in the next week or so…PLUS, you can go back and listen to the recordings of those who have already presented.

There’s still time to get in on all the Pre-Summit action — and it’s completely complimentary, so why not?  Just check out the link below…

https://modernmethods.infusionsoft.com/go/wbecs/bf1

New Solution Introduced by Former Founder of Jaspersoft Now Operates Within Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM On Demand

Analyzing and Ranking Opportunities from Your Extended Social and Professional Networks

Reachable is introducing their flagship product, previously known as PeopleMaps and now named after the company itself – Reachable, gives sales professionals remarkable new opportunities for success by uncovering connections and relationships from your extended network of professional and personal contacts, all in real time.

Reachable consolidates contacts from social and professional networking sites, email clients, and other public data sources, and then adds new contacts from its database of 65 million professionals to uncover new connection paths to almost any other professional or company. Finally, Reachable distills the thousands of possible connections into the strongest and most direct paths.

To further strengthen an organization’s outreach capabilities, Reachable leverages the combined networks of teams to exponentially increase potential leads. By analyzing the best paths based on millions of connections and thousands of possible links, the technology lets professionals focus on the strongest path to a particular target contact to get the best possible introduction.

“Networking in the digital age is more advanced, more extensive and moving faster than ever before. By harnessing the power of networking, Reachable is reshaping the sales landscape,” said Al Campa, CEO of Reachable, and former founder of Jaspersoft. “Moreover, by reviewing a person’s connections in real time, we can uncover opportunities that simply would not have been realized in the past, as they become available. Reachable is the indispensible tool for a new era in professional networking.”

Reachable is tightly integrated with popular CRM systems like Oracle CRM On Demand and Salesforce.com. The solution is ideal not only for sales professionals, but also recruiters, human resource personnel, and other networkers intent on building new professional relationships.

“Our mission is to help professionals leverage all their contacts, both online and offline, to extend their professional networks so they can reach more people, build stronger relationships, and conduct business faster and more efficiently,” said Campa. “We feel that the name Reachable is more consistent with that vision, and the value we provide our customers.”

Reachable offers a free trial of its technology in both online and CRM versions. To sign up for a trial or to view a demo on how Reachable works, go to www.reachable.com.

The one thing you should keep in mind about opening your dream business is that it is a significant amount of work. The trick is understanding where to start and knowing what to do first. Before you even put the “open for business” sign on the front door, there is a lot you need to do.

Write a Business Plan

An entrepreneur should never attempt to get a business off the ground without a business plan. Your business plan is your sales pitch to potential investors, your employment brochure to prospective new employees and your personal blueprint to running your company. This plan should include projections of expenses, business insurance (if you haven’t gotten it already, you can find good rates on websites like BusinessInsurance.org), and projected growth and estimated expenses of that growth.

A good business plan also outlines exactly what your company does, the methods you will use to get products to customers, and your sales and marketing approach. Everything you will ever need to know about your business will be in your business plan, and it will become an essential document to running your company.

Secure Financing

After you have written your business plan and scouted around for potential locations for your company, it is time to get that first infusion of cash that will get your company off the ground. If you are able to fund your start-up yourself, that is the ideal solution. Your business plan will tell you how much money you will need to get started. If you cannot provide all of the start-up cash you need, then it is time to go out and get financing.

Before you run to the bank and fill out a small business loan application, you may want to consider looking for a partner or an investor. A partner or investor can not only supply you with money to get started, but he can also help you run your business. You may even be able to find a partner that can help you get your first few large clients. A partner is an active investor in your business that will help you get results. A bank is a passive investor that will just sit around and wait for results. It is always better to start off with an active investor.

Marketing

Before you even open your doors, you need to start getting the word out about your company. Put together information fliers and start handing them out to people that may be interested. Get your family and friends to start talking about your business to the people that they know.

Once you are ready to open your doors, put together a focused marketing plan that will get your information in front of your target audience. You cannot sustain a business without customers, and marketing is how you will drive people to your company.

Getting a business off the ground is hard work. But if you lay a good foundation, then you will give yourself a better shot at success.

Pre-Summit is about to begin!

In just a couple of days, the World Business and Executive Coach Summit (WBECS) Pre-Summit Series is set to begin.

This is your chance to hear from some of the business and executive coaching industry’s top minds — at no charge.

It’s a series of 15-30 minute “taster” sessions (like online TED talks) that give you an exclusive sneak peak at what’s coming in the full Summit set to start in June.  What’s more, each Pre-Summit session is designed to provide you with valuable, actionable information you can use to improve your business or executive coaching practice immediately.

Better yet, there are NO sales pitches of any kind.

A small selection of thought leaders presenting at the summit will include:

• Sir John Whitmore—pre-eminent thinker in leadership and organisational change
• Verne Harnisch—named one of the “Top 10 Minds in Small Business” by Fortune magazine
• Dr. (VG) Vijay Govindarajan—world’s leading expert on strategy and innovation
• Dr. Marshall Goldsmith—#1 leadership and #7 business thinker in the world…2011 Thinkers 50 ceremony.

To register for the Pre-Summit Series, check out the link below…

https://modernmethods.infusionsoft.com/go/wbecs/bf1

This is THE industry event of the year, so you don’t want to miss any of it!  If you haven’t yet, head over to the WBECS page and register for the Pre-Summit Series!

https://modernmethods.infusionsoft.com/go/wbecs/bf1

For anybody to be extremely competitive, they should consider the power of social. In particular, real estate agents must have a presence on the Internet specifically the social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Foursquare. Maintaining a presence on websites such as the ones mentioned here is highly beneficial for real estate agents because it gives them a place to communicate regularly with their clients. A less explored advantage is how social networking websites help turn potential clients into customers.

After they log into their Facebook accounts, real estate agents often focus their attention on the houses that have just recently entered the market. They also discover what is going on in the industry through their Facebook pages such as the events that are coming up, the news that is important to them and the trends that are occurring.

If the fairly unused technology, GPS, were implemented more often by real estate agents, they would find that their direct sales efforts would be much more efficient. For this purpose, real estate agents will need to let their locations be known to the public from their Facebook Places pages. They will also learn what they need to know about the houses they are considering purchasing such as the asking price and when they become unavailable.

Real estate agents will find it easy to update their locations when they are on Twitter or Google+. If they are away from their computers, they can still update their locations if they have an iPhone. When people take advantage of the app “Find My Friends,” they will be able to use their phones to find where their friends are located.

Although the best way to update one’s status, receive and make comments and view the media is to go directly to Facebook or Foursquare, real estate agents with Google+ can update their locations more easily so that their friends, family and anyone interested can find out where they are. Other real estate agents may be curious to know which houses other real estate agents are showing!

It cannot be expected that every time a real estate agent sends out information on a new listing that all of the followers will receive them. It would be impossible for one real estate agent to manage several clients at once, remembering the details of everything they are searching for and making sure to send a message to every client that might be interested in a new listing. Even so, it still offers real estate agents several benefits to be able to inform their clients whenever they can through the social media.

It’s possible that the information that is being sent to each client will not be what they are looking for at that moment, so Facebook, Google+ and Foursquare make it possible for real estate agents to place their clients into groups. Each group will only receive the information that is relevant for their needs, and it helps to prevent the real estate agent from showing any favoritism toward any client.

The bottom line is that the locations feature makes a real estate agent’s job a lot easier. Real estate agents constantly need to be on the road, and using Facebook Places, Google+, Foursquare and Twitter to update their locations is excellent for keeping their followers updated on their whereabouts.

The World Business and Executive Coach Summit emerged with a simple mission: to dramatically improve the success of business and executive coaches the world over.

How?

By cutting through the hype and noise of so-called “experts” who don’t know what it REALLY takes to build a successful coaching business, and introduce the global coaching community to the handful of thought-leaders who are truly driving the industry forward.

Over 7000 coaches from around the world tuned in to listen to renowned speakers like Brian Tracy, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Michael E. Gerber and Michael Port.  For the first time ever, all the major experts in the business and executive coaching space were together under one virtual “roof,” providing high-value, cutting-edge training, strategies, and advice.

The feedback from across the world truly was incredible.  And this year WBECS is back…and better than ever.

With another all-star line-up, and NO SALES PITCHES ALLOWED, this is going to be an industry-wide event that raises the bar of the entire profession.  Again.

You can attend the initial WBECS sessions at no charge with WBECS’s famous pre-Summit series — a series of online “TED”-type talks from the thought leaders who will be presenting at the full Summit.

Just check out the link below to learn more and register:

https://modernmethods.infusionsoft.com/go/wbecs/bf1

WBECS is THE industry event of the year — I’m excited to be partnering with them, and hope to see you there!

Do we really need another social network?
Simply put, Google+ will be a game changer. For starters, it’s owned by Google, and there are already more than 90 million users. Additionally, your +1 links may rank higher, and sites on Google+ get indexed quicker.

The intuitive circles for organizing your following, hangouts to formally or informally chat with others, and the ability to create a page for your business make Google+ a sure winner.

The book is broken down into 14 chapters, including:

• The Opportunity of Google+
• A Day in the Life
• First Moves with Google+
• Circles
• Posting
• Growing an Audience
• Sharing

And more. My favorite chapter was “A Day in the Life”, where he cleverly detailed daily suggestions for seven different types of occupations. This chapter also features interviews, including Problogger Darren Rowse and Scott Monty from Ford Motor Co.

I also liked Chris’ explanation of how he set up his circles. It wasn’t a how to, as much as it was a here’s how I did it, and why.

Clearly, the opportunity on Google+ is authorship, focusing on the person, rather than the company. The book is easy to read, and  makes the case why you and your business must get on Google+ sooner, rather then later.

Don’t forget to circle me up on Google+ !

First, visit your Google+ page, and copy your account number (it’s the long string of numbers at the end of the URL). To see your account number, just click on your profile picture. Doing this will populate the numeric values associated with your Google+ account.

Open a new tab or window, and visit the Google Developers site to build your profile badge.

Once you pop in your account number, you’ll have two choices: a simple icon linking to your Google+ profile, or a more interactive badge, which also includes your name and the ability for a user to “Add to circles” right from your website.

Then, simply grab the two pieces of code (one piece shows authorship and the second displays the badge or icon) and add to your website or blog.

Once you’ve done this, verify your markup by putting in your URL on Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool. Don’t forget to circle me up on Google+!