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THIS MORNING, I HAD TO FIRE A LONG-TIME EMPLOYEE. ME.

I’ve always believed that one of the best practices in leading a company is to view your role as you would if this was your first day. It is as if you were just hired by the board (or yourself) this week to lead and change the business. You are taking over the existing operation and are charged (and excited to be so) with making changes and driving new growth. With that, in mind, I am making the following announcement.

This morning, I had to fire a long-time employee; it was hard; he had been around 20 years and, for the most part, done an excellent job. But it was time. There needed to be more passion in his work.
I took it well. Yes, this morning I fired… me.

It was my small business’s great luck to find someone to run the show who has a solid background in building a valuable business and will have that new passion so crucial to a business… me!

Today, as the new Boss, I view everything we do as a company based on the value it delivers to the customer, community, and employee. Today, I am building a new marketing plan and encouraging co-workers to act like owners. I am even building new compensation plans to reward anyone working with us in the same manner an owner might be compensated. I am asking every employee (4) to review everything we do and find ways to improve it.

I have brought in new talent to drive the critical components of our services. I will contact every customer to tell them how committed we are to their success. It’s just a start, but as the new leader of this small business, I understand that every business is vital to the people and communities it touches.

I wish our former leader (me) success in whatever he does in the future, and I welcome the new Boss. (Me). I am confident he will grow the business over the next decade with integrity and a genuine commitment to the values the partners passionately believe in.

Do yourself, your clients, and your employees a favor. Fire yourself and start anew this year.

If you sell Basement Finishing…

And are wondering why things seem slow? Well, they are. Look at this Google Trends report for Basement Finishing (From the Denver Colorad area).

That’s the basic number rating of serches from 2004 to the present. Reasons? So many. The volume of new home production is way down, and most basements are finished in the first year or so of ownership, and the interest rates—double whammy.

So what to do? Call us. 720 254 1234. This is going to take a major shift in your business plan.

Sell more by understanding your Unique Speed in business

Unique speed

Years ago I was a very big thoroughbred horse racing fan. I was lucky enough to live within a mile of our state’s only track. One day while listening to a horse racing television program I overheard the reporter interviewing a gentleman by the name of Barry Fey, who just won another National Handicapping Tournament. You may know the name Barry Fey, he was a major rock concert promoter in the 60s all the way through the early 2000s. The thing that was amazing was Barry as far as handicapping went, is he seemed to win all the tournaments. This, of course, intrigued me, but Barry would never say exactly what he did to win. In this particular interview, the reporter asked him, Barry do you have a secret to handicapping? Oddly enough he answered. He said one thing, I look for unique speed.

So as someone who handicapped horse racing almost every weekend, I started to look diligently for whatever unique speed meant. After a few months, I was beginning to think Barry was just throwing us all off course. But then it happened. I was looking at all the past performances of a 6-furlong race that was coming up in a few hours. And there it was. It seems like all the horses in this race had all been running more than a mile which is more than a furlong longer than six furlongs. Well, there was one horse who in each of his last five races have been well in the lead at 6 furlongs, and then dropped off to lose the race finishing in 2nd through 5th position. Aaha, that’s unique speed. But what if the other horses run just as fast to the six Furlong mark? This race was six furlongs, so I checked all the other horses and not one of them was close to the 6 furlongs speed and position of the horse I was looking at. Yes, indeed that was unique speed. So… with a note of thanks to Barry I placed my win bet on a horse that went off about 8 to 1 and did well as he did win being far in the lead at 6 for Longs.

Later on the same card, I found another horse to have unique speed. This one was actually quite obvious it had won its last three races all going away and no other horse in the field seem to be able to get close to its speed. It was so obvious that is basically an odds-on favorite. But that was fine I wasn’t looking for the highest odds I was looking for The Unique speed and a winner. And the horse did win. Unique speed

So what’s all this unique speed have to do with your business or your career?

After thinking through all this it occurred to me that a business that has some sort of uniqueness, as in unique speed, is the business that prospects will usually choose.

Thinking of my own company, I know that when I’m in a race so to speak with four or five other companies for someone’s business; the thing that consistently sets us apart and the reason we usually win the business is the fact that we have a very detailed process that is completely transparent on what we do when we are producing an SEO program. There are 10 different spreadsheets a client can look through at any time to see what we’re doing. We also have a very strong communication policy where there are conference calls with a client explaining what each spreadsheet is for and what its intention is. We also have a very strong track record with success.

So when it’s down to the final two furlongs and there are still several competitors in a race they can look at our communication process, complete transparency, attention to detail and proven results. That’s our unique speed, that’s what wins the race almost every time.

I have a client whose unique speed, in my opinion, is simply expertise. They’re a major remodeler and having been on numerous sales appointments with both them and others, I can tell you that you’d feel like a fool if you bought from anybody but them. They just have an amazing background and knowledge of how to get things done. Their expertise and walking through your project is enough to give them the unique-speed and win many jobs and that is why have a very high closing percentage.

So what are the things that might be your unique speed?

It can be so many things or it can be a combination of things.
Even your mission statement,
your transparency and how you do things,
how, when, and why you communicate,
it can be a guarantee you offer, or can just be the
network that you’re part of. It’s certainly not unknown of, for a prospect to buy your service because of the people you know or the people you serve.

It could be things as intangible of future benefits or just the results you’ve recently achieved.

Whatever it is you need to find it and you need to clearly define it. Most businesses have a tendency to believe their service is the best, and that’s good, but the truth is many businesses are very similar. When the house painter shows up at my door he better have some sort of unique speed because I know there’s a hundred more right behind them. You have to view yourself as the underdog and developed unique speed.

Take the time to identify your businesses unique speed. Then high light it to your community and prospects. You’ll find your self in the winners circle far often as well as attract more quality prospects consistently.

The Greatest Local SEO Tactic Is Interesting Content.

The Greatest Local SEO Tactic Is Interesting Content Creation.

Once you have your website in shape, and your normal link profile finished, you are going to find the difference between ranking highly on Google search, and just ranking, is all in the content and the attention that content gets from relevant sites and viewers (readers) of that content.

Now, one of the big mistakes in content creation is when a business views a social media “post” as the content. The social post should be viewed as the gateway to the content, and that content should be hosted on your website.

Content comes in many many forms. As long as that content uses the combined principles listed below it doesn’t matter how it’s communicated.

Some content types include:
Graphs and charts
Research
Blogs, articles
Price estimators
Photo galleries
Coupons or savings offers (don’t cringe)

An example of local business content:
I once owned 3 bagel shops. I built the website with a large section for pictures of our customers. We’d take a picture and tell them to check the website. Did they? Yes, and then we had a trivia game on that page where they could win free bagels by playing. It worked, we saw lots of “trivia”
winners cashing in for a free coffee. It increased our customer average visits per week and built a feeling of community.

The “content” was our picture page of our customers!

Here’s the bad news, most Local Content is Ummm, Disappointing. “We offer free estimates” is not unique or interesting.”

Here are the principles that work when used together, any content you post should be:
Shareable (Ask them to share)
Valuable
Timely
Targeted
Unique
Visual

Where do you post to drive traffic or receive attention for your content?
Facebook
Insta
Twitter
G+
Adwords
Promote to bloggers and media
Press release (In certain cases)
Sending emails

When I read posts and articles from local companies on social media, they reek of self-promotion and bore me and I assume, most viewers, to death. Do you know why? Because creating content, if you are not a professional writer, is hard and time-consuming (but can be accomplished).

How do you know if your content is worth the effort? Simple, it is being shared or creating engagement between your prospects and your business. It doesn’t, then you may be wasting your time.

Here’s another little tidbit about Content in 2018. If you expect it to be shared, expect to spend some money getting it out there. You’ll need to pay Facebook for a promoted post, or no one will see the post. In general (unless you have spent a huge amount of time building your companies following on social platforms, and I bet you haven’t) you may need to pay for new eyeballs.

The days (and myth) that social media exposure is free are over my friends.

Let me give you what I think has been our most successful “Local Company” content work
We created a basement finishing cost calculator for a client to answer the number one question prospects want to be answered about Basement Finishing, that being: How much will it cost? By filling out their online form the prospect see’s a ballpark cost range for the options they have chosen. See it here:

We did some posts and after a few months, this page became the most popular on the site attracting 200+ local users a month. It now can be linked to over $600,000 in new revenue a year. Why? Well, it meets the majority of the principles we listed above for content.

Is it shareable? Yes, sites have shared it as a resource.
Is it valuable? Yes, you won’t find anything else like it online and helps answer the number one question people have about basement finishing
Is it timely? It is updated and meets an immediate need
Is It Unique? Very!
Is it visual? Not really but we are working on this.

So 5 out of the 6 principles were present, and at a very high value.

 

If we can help you with your local SEO please call us for a free consultation or video review of your rankings and SEO.

720-254-1234

Amazing Sales Tip. Use Your Sales People For Sales Intelligence.

You know who understands the strengths and weaknesses of your product as well as anyone? You guessed it, your sales reps.

During my sales tune ups and consulting it is most commonly my interviews with the sales people that dig up the best ideas in selling more. So why don’t they tell you? Well, have you asked? Or have they mentioned a few ideas that you have ignored?

Schedule a sit-down lunch or coffee with each sales rep and ask them, what can we change or do to sell more? When prospects don’t buy, what are their reasons?

When they buy from the competition, what is it they liked better? If you owned this business what changes would you make to close more of the people we see? Are the leads you are getting good quality? Are there certain lead sources that are better than others?

How is your compensation? What would you change about your compensation?

You are going to be AMAZED how much information you can get, and if you put your ego asides (if needed) and find ways to implement some of the ideas, your sales will improve.

Sales people love to be listened to. There is also a real value in letting an “outside” person have these conversations. That’s part of what I do during a full sales tune up. Having run sales groups of up to 650 people, I can discern rapidly when a sales rep is being honest, or just making excuses. (Yep, they’ll do that).

Call me for a free consultation of how we can get your sales up fast!
MIke 303 808 1734

Selling A Lot But Still Struggling? Are you selling to the wrong customers?

Even if you are selling at record levels, and selling to the wrong customers, your business will struggle. Business growth is not revenue growth, it’s profit growth and lifestyle related. Making a good profit, and enjoying your life. That’s success.

What’s the “Wrong Customer?”

They are high maintenance, low profit or no profit, demanding, slow pay or fights paying, never seeming completely satisfied, draining company resources type customers. Sound familiar? If you recognize this profile, you need to understand why you sell to them.

Decisions in business are generally made with one of two foundational emotions… fear, or confidence. If you are selling to the wrong customers, chances are you are using fear based decision making.

One primary fear that slows your business growth is the understandable fear of a lack of revenue (not being able to pay the bills) or missing your projections. It can manifest itself in a shotgun approach to sales and marketing that produces a mix of customers, some being the “right” customer and some being the “wrong” customer. You would think that any customer that buys something would be the “right” customer, but, this is not the case and it’s important to recognize because just a few “wrong” customers can kill your profit and attitude.

So how do you change this? By developing high-profit customer profiles and then focusing on selling to them.  You may not change it at all if you follow standard business coaching advice.

Many business coaches talk about 5 or 7 areas (numbers) you need to focus on to increase revenue and profit, assuming that all this will help your lifestyle. Yet all you need is one focus area to become a confident and successful business. This one area will naturally improve all the other areas the business coaches talk about.

Here are those 5 areas (numbers) from a national coaching company’s website: “According to the “Five Ways,” all business is driven by five key profit generating areas: Lead Generation, Conversion Rate, Average Dollar Sale, Average Number of Transactions and Profit Margins.” Other companies expand this list.

All of those numbers are important. Yet they don’t address the absolute main factor in a successful business.

Attracting and selling to the “right” customer.

Let’s quickly address what’s wrong with the 5 numbers type approach.

Starting with lead generation, many business coaches focus on this as a business’s base number that drives all revenue. That can be a mistake. Yes, increasing the number of prospects you talk to can add more sales, but if those sales aren’t the “right” prospects, it can cause a business to actually lose money and their sanity. It also assumes an almost unlimited marketing budget to generate those leads, something I rarely see.

Increasing a closing percentage or getting more business from the “wrong” customers won’t be productive either.

The most important area a business can change to become more successful (more profit and a better lifestyle for owners and employees) is attracting the “right” customer.

Hence, attracting the “right” prospect is more important, and the first step in lead and prospect generation and I’ll tell you why.

When you sell to the “right” customer… all of the “business coaches key numbers” will improve naturally. Therefore:

– Leads will increase naturally through referrals.
– The closing percentage will improve because your “right” customers will buy far more often than
the “wrong” customers.
– Average dollar sale will take care of itself.
– The average number of transactions improves based on happy customers.
– You don’t need to increase your margins, the “right” customers buy at a fair value and are not
price buyers.

How do you identify your “Right” Customer? Chances are you already know who they are. You just need to stop selling to the “wrong” customers.

What’s your “right” customer profile?

Depending on your industry, these are the characteristics that might be part of your “right” customer profile:

– Location
– Job or purchase size
– Type of service or product they are looking for (the more unique the better)
– Age
– Profession
– Income and expendable income
– Personality type (Yes it matters)

If you look at your past sales and pull out all the extremely happy customers, you may have found the research you need to find the same type customer in the future. Now add to each happy customer how satisfied you were in completing the project and look for the customers that have high marks in both categories. They will more than likely find that these have common project types. Or other obvious commonalities. You may have already identified your “right” customer just in this exercise.

You must also honestly acknowledge what you are good at. What jobs or projects do you really like? You will probably find that these are a large percentage of your extremely happy customers.

The “right” customer is looking for you. It’s your job to present your business as the “right” choice for them. You do this through a complete understanding of who they are and what they want. People buy what they want, not what they need.

Attracting your “right” customer will more than likely take a total review of all of your business marketing, sales, operations, and finance, and then making changes in those areas. By reviewing and assessing these areas, you can make a confident decision on exactly what products and services to offer and to whom.

Changes then can be made to your employee training, website, marketing materials, company mission and advertising to start the process of selling to better customers.

This is all part of a good Business Development Program, something we have been doing for many years with both small and enterprise sized businesses. If you would a free one hour consultation, please call me at 720-254-1234. Mike Bayes

 

Hyper-Local SEO in Denver

Hyper-Local SEO works in the Denver area.

Since 2015 Google has been reporting a continue climb in the use of the term “near me”  in search queries.

The old style local SEO focused on large metropolitan areas for good reason, people were not conditioned yet to use near me, or their suburbs or areas location in the search term. As an example, if you are a painter located in a suburb of Denver, your SEO may have focused on the term Denver Painter because that’s was the most searched term even for people in the suburbs.

A Lot, and I mean A lot has changed in the last few years to make this strategy a bit of an anachronism.  I won’t go through the multitude of changes Google has made to provide more accurate local information for searches, but I will say it has significantly change how search queries are displayed and how prospects find your web site.

This is essential to understand if you are a service type business whose customer base is further reaching than the community you are located in.  An example might be that same house painter I mentioned above.  That company needs customers from 3-4 cities within the Metro area. Google’s current algorithm works against this business because of its strong bias towards primary listing businesses for these searches in the city they’re based in.

What a Hyper-local program does is extend that companies reach through a local SEO program that focuses on the contiguous city’s next to the businesses home city.  In doing so a company can double or Triple their leads from the extended areas.

(All of this is contingent upon that business already having a good Google local Maps ranking to start with.  If is doesn’t that’s the first step in the process.)

Hyper-local SEO example

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s an example of one of our clients current Internet rankings using a hyper-local approach.

Notice in the report that they are in the 1st,2nd. or 3rd  position in maps for two major search terms. This extends their reach over 400%. this clients will do well over 2 million dollars i  new sales a year from the Internet.

We specialize in Hyper-local Internet marketing.  Having worked with hundreds of local companies we understand that lead generation needs to work within your business plan, and that a shotgun approach can do more harm than good.  Call us today to get a free assessment on your current  lead generation and Internet reach, and discuss what the potential is by using a HYper-local approach.

Call us today for a free assessment of what Hyper-local SEO can do to create new prospects for your business. 720-254-1234

 

 

 

Sales and Marketing Quiz

Interested in how your company’s’ Sales and Marketing stacks up? This mini quiz will give you a quick view of how you compare in some areas to other company’s, as well as you give you some idea’s on how to improve.

When finished feel free to call us to set up a free 30 minute consultation on the results, and how to improve your closing percentages, lead generation and sales fast.  Call 303 808 1734, or email me at mike.bayes@gmail.com

Average completion time 1 minute.

 

Interested in a full Sales and Marketing tune up that's guaranteed to increase your sales and lead generation quality?  Read about it here . $500 off if you sign up before January 1 2017.  See details on link.

303-808-1734

mike.bayes@gmail.com

See my testimonials on our testimonial page

 

Local SEO Basics. An Interview

Recently, Mike Bayes was interviewed by the Reach Connect Uplift Women show about the biggest issues businesses have with their Local SEO.  Although these tips are not all inclusive, they are very important to your website’s rankings. Listen to this 13-minute video to hear about the main Local SEO basics.

 

Recently we have been hearing a lot from webmasters about recommending citation services for their clients. This interview may convince you to be a little more careful going down that path.

The 5 most important factors that can hurt your site’s ranking are.

@  Inconsistent NPA across the web (Name address and phone number of your company)

@ Use the right meta tags on every page.

@ Don’t use third party tracking numbers

@ Not using your address on your site

@ Not listing in the BIG local directories. (Google My Business, Yelp and others)

And here is a video with Matt Cutts from Google on the  most common SEO mistakes.  This isn’t specific to Local SEO but applies across the board.

 

@ Make your site crawlable

@ Include the right words on the page.

@ Put your business hours on the site

@ Compelling content and marketing (not link building)

@ Title and descriptions of the most important pages

@ Not using Web Master researches.

Between these two videos, you will have a great start  on having a “visible” website in the search engine results.

Call us for a free 30-minute review of your site! 720-254-1234. We  are a Denver area-based Local SEO services company.

 

 

There’s More To A Google Review Than You May Think.

It’s pretty common knowledge that a good review from your customer is going to have a positive effect on your web visibility.  Clearly those map listings that, in addition to  the standard information also show a star rating, are more than likely to get a better click through rate. Note the screen shot below. Which two reviews are going to catch your eye?  But there’s more to the power and value of a review than just click through rates.

5-27-15basement finishing company   Google Search

Semantic SEO is playing a larger and larger role in how your site will be ranked and who will view it (depending on Googles perception of the searchers intent.

How that might affect your sites visibility is in the words the reviewer uses in the review. It would seem to be common sense,  but when asking for a review, you may want to help your customers with some of the words they could use.

If I was a dentist, and I wanted a certain type of dentistry to stand out, I would ask for the reviewer to mention  “Orthodontics“.  I don’t think you need to ask them to use the word…. but you could suggest they mention the procedure they had. 

When you request a review or encourage your clients to write one, it’s very helpful to them if you give some ideas on what they might want to say….

For our clients we  suggest they send out a request, with full step by step instructions on the process of getting to the review page, and then give a few ideas to get them started.

Things like… what was the project we worked on for you?

What city are you in?

Were you happy with the?

– Service

– Scheduling

– Office staff

-Customer service

– value delivered.

By helping in this way you should see a better response, and a better result in web visibility because semantically your reviews are matching the services you want to be highlighted.

And it doesn’t hurt to take a look at your company description on your Google My Business listing, and make sure it reflects your business goals as well.  Again, if you are a Dentist (And we don’t do web visibility for Dentists) and you want to do more Orthodontics,   well then you may want to use that word as well as the phrases that relate to it in your description, and mentioned in reviews.

And, I guess it goes without saying, ask the type of customers you want more of to provide reviews. <<<<<  Smart.

I want to caution you to never write a fake review or have one written. Following Googles guidelines is important,  as well as any other platform you want to see reviews of your business on.

Call me if I can help!

720-254-1234

Mike