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Ask Your Business and Marketing Guru

6/29/2019

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Small Business Owner... You Are Not Alone!
by Stu Leventhal ~ Guru Marketing Tips



Most entrepreneurs like to do it all by themselves... But you cannot! 

Take it from me; all great leaders, thinkers, inventors had lots of help all along the way. 

You have to ask to get advice. Asking is not a sign of weakness but of being humble. Being able to ask when in need is smart and noble too.

As a member of the human species you are entitled to all the great advances mankind has made before you came on the scene. Now it is your turn to carry the torch. The day will come when you are asked to give advice, give back and consult the next generations. Do not be ashamed to ask.

Here on Guru Marketing Tips there are no dumb biz questions! Ask, Ask, ASK!

What's Your toughest... Biz Question or Problem? ASK NOW!

I'm sure someone out there listening has the answer.


The first step is to define your real biggest problem; get it down on paper. Tell us. We want to hear from you.

You have nothing to lose and can only gain by talking about your business struggles with other biz pros!

ASK AWAY!

Now is your chance to vent, complain, grumble...
No one is going to judge you here.

We are all biz pros... We've been in your shoes! ASK US! 
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Where Does Your New Business Really Come From?

8/26/2018

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How Many Facebook Friends Does it Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?
        By Stu Leventhal – Guru Marketing tips Editor

​I mean really, do you know how many online connections it takes to get you one new customer, client or order? If you were to add 1000 new Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus Fans by the end of this month, how much actual additional business would you expect those 1000 folks to add to your company’s bottom line? How many new orders would you get? How much extra profit would you make?
 
Growing your social media audience to 25,000 connections is the first step and it is not so easy to do but you still have to master a method of turning those online folks into actual customers and buyers. It is one thing to be Tweet buddies and another to get a real customer/client relationship going in which a very recent total stranger is paying you money or buying something from you.
 
Yes, first you have to make people aware that you and your company even exist. Then you can pitch your offerings.
 
You need to show why someone needs to do business with you when they have been getting along just fine without you for all these past years. Most successful marketers will also agree that there has to be a state of urgency to hire you or buy something from you right now, immediately. You have to make it dire that they do not pass up your onetime special offer to get in on this life changing opportunity.
 
Offline sales people, even telemarketers know that if you allow your prospect to slip away from your presence or to dismiss you or shoo you away; there is probably zip to no chance of you getting a sale later on. Online sellers have to take that same premise up a notch because there are so many competitors online that a website visitor or blog post viewer or article reader is not going to find their way back to your webpage, anytime soon! You have to close the deal NOW!
 
Remember that business blogging and business social media is not done the same as personal social media posting. With online business publishing and posting you are targeting a specific type of person; one that you know buys the things that you supply.
 
Do you know how to convert your Facebook friends into customers? Are you asking your Google Plus and LinkedIn connections to introduce you to their friends and associates, audience members that you could possibly do some business with too? How many people have you met online that you are actually collaborating with to create more business for you and your company? How much business is coming in from each social media outlet you are participating on? How much business is offline generated compared to e-commerce? Where are your new offline customers coming to you from? Why is new business walking into your store, office, dining room or factory showroom?

Do you know for sure whether posting great photography or a new video or a text post or a long article gets your company phone ringing the most? You  have to know what is working best so you can do more of that rather than doing more of something no one is interested in.
 
Poll your customers. If you know why people are coming to you already and how they are finding out about you naturally; then you can try to enhance what is already happening to generate even more business for you. If your new business is coming from referrals because your steady customers are telling others about you then you can devise ways to help more of your current happy customers to spread the word. It could be something as simple as printing hats with your company logo on them and giving them to your best customers.

Make it easy for happy customers to spread word of mouth about your brand and they usually will. Make it fun to talk about your company and exciting, even prestigious to say they use your brand! 
 
Everyone is a connection and they all know other people so if they do not do business with you themselves then maybe they can introduce you to someone who may do business with you. If they already do some business then the question is; how can you get them to do more business?
 
Are you sharing your knowledge and exchanging ideas with your various online networking partners? Are you trying to develop new thinking on old problems? Are you working on finding ways to collaborate with other non competing companies that also sell to your same customer prospect pools?

Are you slowly but surely building a powerful audience and marketing platform in various strategic places online that will assure your company’s success for many years to come? Are you strengthening your online relationships forming bonds that insulate you and your company from your competitors’ smear campaigns. Do you and your employees discuss competitor discounting campaigns and price undercutting attempts at stealing business away from you and devise measures to counter, your competitor tactics?
 
What about SEO? Are you using smart keywords so folks can find your social media posts. Are you building backlinks to your website pages? Are you reading up on the emerging internet marketing trends? Do you belong to some social media groups where your customers also are members of? Do you actually participate in these groups; start conversations, comment on ongoing conversations? Are you monitoring how others participate with what you do and learning what your customers like from you and dislike, so you can design more engaging copywriting, exciting, pleasing web content and better ways of communicating in the future?
 
Boy that sounds like a whole lot for business leaders to be constantly thinking of; perhaps that is why so many business CEOs, owners, upper management and crew bosses are so confused. What the heck should I prioritize working on first?
 
It is always a good idea to ask lots of questions of your audience. Poll them. Show that you care about them, as you find out what is important to them. Pleasing your prospect pool is what matters. Ask your social e-fans and customer base to critique your company and what you sell. Is there a way you could improve service? Ask, ask, ASK!
 
Next test the answers you compile… Are you customers, clients, prospects, giving you good business advice? Measure your efforts and keep doing more and more of what is working the best. Cut down on what does not work and try to come up with a new way to achieve the goals you have for any failed marketing campaigns. Do not give up on the goals; just find a few more efficient ways of attempting to achieve them.  
 
TIP: Do you have a strong satisfaction guarantee? Toot about your guarantee as much as possible! People that are on the fence, wondering if they should take a chance with a new company like yours, need assurances, especially e-commerce customers. Show everyone that you stand behind; your company, products and services. A strong guarantee takes all the risk out of trying out, you, the new brand! 
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Marketing Ideas for New Local Real Estate Agents

7/3/2018

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Local Realtor Business Building Philosophy
                              by Stu Leventhal

There are all kinds of ways that realtors drum up business. First off a newly licensed agent should contact all of the folks they know; friends, family, old school mates and workmates to simply inform everyone that you are now a licensed realtor ready to counsel on real estate decisions. Someone may know someone who needs a realtor right now to handle a problem or perhaps they can pass your business card to someone who has been talking about possibly moving soon.

Those who know you and care for you will want to help you get your real estate consulting business going if and when they can but you have to get your business info, office address, phone number to people or they cannot be your promotional megaphone.

Next you analyze the sales territory you will be working in. How many other realtors are there already in the area? What are they each doing? Who is known as the best Realtor in town? Why? What are the top realtors doing well? Can you see clearly why some of the poorly earning realtors are failing? You might want to just ask the head of the brokerage you joined to explain their view to you on why some realtors are doing great while others are struggling to stay afloat. Also ask for tips and advice from some of the seasoned agents in your office. Many new agents get orientated to their new sales territory by shadowing a successful mentor agent rather than trying to learn everything on their own.

Look over the available house inventory and see what types of property you have to work with. Know the price ranges of what is selling the most and where the hot neighborhoods are. You cannot make a marketing plan without knowing what you have to offer to potential buyers. You have to know the details of the perks of moving into each neighborhood. You might be able to get a client more rooms or a bigger yard in a neighborhood just a few miles away from where they are asking about. Remember, each client will have different needs and priorities they are trying to satisfy. Homes are not one size fits all. People have their own perceptions of what is nice and important and we each have our own tastes of style.

Is there some business thing or a specific client type that all the area realtors seem to be neglecting? Ask yourself, what can I become the area’s specialist in and thus make a name for myself.

As you start to gain some knowledge of what types of homes are in your inventory and who, demographic wise, are doing the most buying and selling of these kinds of property; you next start trying to figure out who, locally, you need to meet or be introduced to in order to start mingling with the most potential local home buyers and sellers. Once you determine who you need to network with you then go back to who you already know, friends and family, to see if anyone can introduce you to anyone worth networking with. Know that making one connection, the right connection, is all it may take to spring board your career into high gear.

You have to first be knowledgeable of what kind of property you have to offer, the available properties’ prices and the selling points or perks of buying those properties. Will your selling pitch be, you get lots of square footage for discount prices? Are you selling the prestige and bragging rights of living in a certain community?

Once you know who is buying and who is selling, ask yourself if you have anything about you that might relate to or resonate with these specific kinds of your most promising prospects and potential clients.

If you have identified that young professionals are moving in by the droves, buying their first homes and you and they seem to be very tech minded then that could give you an advantage over some of the non-techie agents trying to impress and connect with this demographic. If not then you may need to learn a little more about these young professionals. For instance, where do they hang out? What do they do for recreation? Do you know anyone who is a young professional that could give you some better incite.

The key of course would be to find out what these young professionals are having difficulties with concerning finding and buying their first home in your sales territory. If you know what their biggest problems are then you need to fix those problems and start marketing that you are their solution. This may require you teaming up with another pro such as a lender or banker who is willing to bend over backward for helping first time home buyers or make some special considerations just for these young professionals so they can become responsible home owners. The incentive is that you should be able to bring your new network partner volume business if they can just ease up a little on their lending requirements or approval terms and conditions.

Of course the problems and your solutions will be different for each realtor reading this article based on the different demographics of your best possible client prospect group and the size and prices of the available properties in your real estate market. Still the business recipe is the same. Know your house inventory and who is buying and selling it. Learn what their problems are with making and closing their property deals and then solve those problems or make handling them easier!

Newlyweds, buyers with school age children, seniors, single women, each group has their own set of difficulties with procuring a home with all of the features they really want at a price that they can afford. Every realtor has their own set of realty scene specifics to work thru. Just remember a real estate consultant solves difficulties for people; the key to your success is first learning what those difficulties are then coming up with the answers to handle them. Marketing is first about giving people a reason to need you and want to hire you. Do that first and then getting the word out about you and your specialty business niche will be easy.

Remember that when you specialize in a specific client type then your ads, sales pitches and marketing campaigns are much more effective. Being the realtor who handles every possible real estate client is too vague of a business identity. Being a specialist or expert in a specific, drilled down, realty scene is much more impressive. You have a platform from which to shout you are the best and it is much more believable.

REFERENCE:
Find Great Business Books for Realtors!
Get Your Guide Book for Real Estate Agent Career Success! 
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Tell us what you think about Guru Marketing Tips?

2/12/2017

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Rate These Business Quotes 1-10 Ten Being GREAT!


"Don't get the idea that I'm knocking the American system." - Al Capone

"Business without profit is not business anymore than a pickle is candy." - Charles F. Abbott

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it is written on." Samuel Goldwyn

"There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow." John F Kennedy

"A lot of fellows nowadays have a BA, MD, PhD... Unfortunately they don't have a J.O.B."
- Antoine (Fats) Domino

We are not alone. We all face many of the same adversities that our ancestors battled. Passing down wit from generation to generation is as important as inventing new things. What important words have inspired you?

Please share your cherished quotes with all of us!
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Having Confidence to Discuss Serious Business Topics

8/22/2015

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Serious Business Discussions...

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When Money is the Issue Conversation gets Heated!
         by Stu Leventhal - Guru Marketing Tips

Business, work and job issues are serious subject matters. But, it is the business leader who stays cool, calm and collected that makes the best impression on bosses, employees and customers.

A Level head during business chaos usually comes from experience under pressure. Good training can also help prep a business manager or team leader for handling adversity.

When a manager goes into a business situation where he or she is confronting a company problem they should be prepared. If possible ask to be briefed as thoroughly as possible so that you do not go in and get blind sided.

Job and business problems usually end up costing someone money. A business leader has to take everyone's point of view into consideration. Gather the facts, weigh the pros and cons and then make an informed decision that takes everyone's positions and opinions into account.

Even trivial business decisions are important when money and profits are at stake.

Remember, the good boss cannot always side with the company and ownership just because he or she works for the company. Often the customer is right and has a legitimate grievance. Also, employees can have a strong case for their point of view too.

The boss or manager in charge is the judge and jury in most cases. Subordinates and customers have little or no other recourse so the boss must take their feeling into account.

Business discussions should always be handled openly and honestly. Customers and employees are expecting a fair shake. Yes, it is probably in the manager or bosses best interest to side with the company and ownership but that may not always be what is best for all.

Bear in mind that when customers feel they are wronged they can do a lot of damage just by bad mouthing the company. So can employees!

The wise business leader will always discuss problems thoroughly and get all the facts possible, before jumping to a conclusion and making a decision.

You have t look ahead and consider the outcome of your decision before you decide. Perhaps the company and employee or customer can compromise?

All the pros and cons must be weighed before a serious decision is made.

How will the decision impact the brand image? What is the immediate cost in dollars and cents for a decision? Will more expenses accrue due to the decision?

Serious business discussions always require serious thought and focus. If there is no firm deadline to meet do not force a conclusion! Take your time, mull things over, consider all angles!

When you act, stand by your decision!
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Guru Marketing on a Limited Budget

8/18/2015

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Small Budget Promotion and Advertising that Works...

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ORDER YOUR COPY OF GURU MARKETING TIPS by Stu Leventhal TODAY!

The Guru Techno Marketing Advantage...

Profitable Geeky Marketing Guru Style

     By Stu Leventhal – Guru Marketing Tips

Technology has certainly put the big time marketing play book into the hands of the small biz startup companies and little business independent pros the globe over. Now, regardless of the size of one’s advertising and promotional funds or bank account we all have the means of making plenty of people aware of our goods and services.

Large Marketing Campaigns are as easy as a few clicks away for anyone with something to say or sell as long as they have the skills and know how to leverage a few of the fast, mostly free, e-communication options available for promoting in cyberspace.

There are a number of huge online audiences for targeting; popular social media platforms, industry forums, online magazines and blogging networks… There are plenty of digital markets for selling your e-commerce goods and offering your services and products directly to clients and customers. There are also e-classified ad websites like Craigslist, online yellow page sites, web auction sites, eBay etc for web promoting and selling.

You can also put up your own website or create and manage an interesting blog to get your message out there.

The key is always to compete with your competitors by trying to be more interesting, informative, entertaining and helpful than everyone else is being.

Your audience has plenty of choices for visiting places online. They do not need you to find out about almost any subject matter that interests them so if what you publish and post are not top notch, very exclusive, one of a kind content that they cannot find anywhere else they have no reason to stay loyal to you.

You must compile lots of very special stuff and present constantly new and often updated info and interesting points of views if you wish people to stay tuned in to your site, blog and social media discussions.

Ideally a combination of news worthy facts and breaking data about your main subject of interest intended to keep your audience informed about the most important happenings in your field of expertise will have people checking in on your site to stay current. But you have to be consistent, stay in the know and updated if you want others to rely on you as their prime, web guru source for the latest news.

You also need to post some unique content that your audience can share with their friends and link to on their social media accounts if you want them to spread the word about your online endeavors.

You have to realize that everyone has their own ideas as to what is entertaining and interesting as well as their own specific requirements for what they feel is of worthy enough quality for them to actually share, speak of or recommend.

Remember, when you are paying to advertise, you may get away with a silly commercial because the viewer may not have much choice but to put up with your subpar promotional work in order to listen to the rest of their favorite radio show or television sitcom they are tuned into. But, business pros cannot always afford to shell out big money to test new products and services or to constantly try out new marketing ideas.

The internet offers free promotions to all who wish to partake and even companies with large bank accounts do not pass up free options.

When you are on a budget the most important thing is to test your ad campaigns before you sink all your funds into them. You have to first find out how a new promotional campaign is being accepted before you throw everything you have behind it.

Testing your biz moves and testing your marketing as well as your new biz ideas is the key for all business success. Just do not get too caught up in over testing! No business pro can afford to be gun shy! Timing is everything!

You have to operate confidently! Yes test first but be prepared to fix your ad campaigns as you go along too! Procrastination or stalling, second guessing oneself is the cause of most business stagnation.

Sluggishness to act or react kills companies!

Business leaders take action! Biz leaders are not afraid to take a chance or to fail!

Business leaders know they can adapt to the difficulties that are bound to arise from any new adventure. Fixing problems, putting out fires, reevaluating the plan and revising a new better business strategy, attacking problems are all parts of the healthy big business and small business process.

Guru Business success is an ongoing endeavor not a once and done decision.

Guru Managers and Guru Marketers make their marketing and management systems work successfully through hard work, development, hands-on management and determination! The Guru Business person cultivates a high level of competitive business spirit that drives success throughout the whole organization; offline and e-commerce!

Those who snooze lose!

The Guru Marketing and Management Philosophy embraces moving and shaking, doing and implementing, action…action…ACTION!

Sitting back on one’s laurels in business is the onset of disaster!

Take what is working great and making good profit for you and improve it even more!

Look over what is not working and really try to figure out why not. Is it fixable? If something was working before and not now then ask why? What changed? What can we adjust to get things back on track?

If you thought a new idea was going to be a business life saver but it failed then you want to know why? Do not just jump to the next idea, learn from your mistakes. You may even find out that your original idea is salvageable with just a few small tweaks.

Just because your genius idea didn’t work out as perfectly as you planned and hoped that it would, is no reason to give up totally on it. Maybe your stalled project just needs a little extra push to get it started.

The beauty of web content is that you can always alter it to improve it!

You need to study your results, good and bad, to determine what works and what does not and know why; that’s real business wisdom! That is called invaluable experience!

You cannot build your experience and add to your skills if you are always scared to try something new.

Studying the data and facts relating to your business efforts helps you to keep improving your future efforts, otherwise you may keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Constantly improving is what keeps a company out front and ahead of their competition.

No matter how big or small your company is your business is going to eventually come up against someone with much deeper pockets and larger budgets and huge payrolls working in their favor than you have. Many competitors are willing to buy their way in by spending whatever it takes to grab a piece of your market place.

The way you compete with big bucks is by being smarter, more innovative and creative!

The first step is to know your customers, prospective clients and audiences better than you know yourself.

The next step is bonding with them!

Remember true long lasting loyalty cannot be bought, it has to be earned!

*If you would like to learn more about running a great business smoothly and profitably read:

GURU MARKETING TIPS - The Online Offline Web Champion
by Award Winning Biz Consutant and Entrepreneur Stu Leventhal
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GURU BEST WEB PRACTICES

7/23/2015

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GURU ONLINE ROI - RETURN ON INVESTMENT!

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GURU PROFIT BUILDING

            By Stu Leventhal - Guru Marketing Tips

Since setting up web property is so cheap to do and can be done by one’s self, many amateur, business minded people have attempted all kinds of cyber business ideas. Many online money makers work fulltime day jobs offline and run their web businesses at night and on the weekends. Cyberspace is full of entrepreneurs hustling to make a buck!

How you conduct your online business is entirely in your hands. You can take your time building a web empire or dive in and go like hell. Just know that it will take real effort to get something of value going online! Web commerce is not a lazy person’s game!

Once you publish content on the net, the web content stays up and is viewable for as long as you wish to leave it up, possibly for years! You should take full advantage of this longevity factor. This means that you can start building web real estate property and concentrate on growing your audience, fan base and fame then worry about figuring out how to make money off of your accomplishments later.

First build your web empire then monetize it!

Remember you really have very little expenses to worry about so you are not under any pressure to make a fortune right away. What does not work immediately to make you a fortune can always be improved and optimized to earn its keep at a later date.

Many unorthodox business models have been attempted online simply because they could be attempted and because not much money was being risked to test out an idea.

On the flip side, if you try to open an offline company you are immediately hit with expenses; rent, insurance, utilities… Yes, you need to have funding to experiment in business offline. You also have to create results like making a profit in a reasonable amount of time, usually fast or you will go broke.

With Online Business and Web Marketing, you have the luxury of being able to take your time to build something special. Every publication posted online can be tested, tweaked and re-published again and again until it is just right.

Even offline marketing and offline promoting are costly and rarely ‘do it yourself’. When you purchase an advertisement offline, such as a newspaper ad, the ad is only active and working for you until the next newspaper edition comes out. The same lack of longevity goes for a radio ad or a TV commercial. Once a commercial runs for the amount of times you have paid for it to be played, it does not get shown or heard any more. On the other hand, your online posts and publications are findable and can keep working for you for years to come, as long as you manage them properly.

Most online marketers and business people do not take full advantage of the fact that their published efforts are live for months and years like web gurus do! Many people feel that since there was not a big investment of money put into publishing a nonproductive online effort then nothing is lost by just forgetting all about a loser attempt and moving on.

The real beauty is that when your online work is successful it can go on working for you, just about indefinitely without causing you any additional expenses. Once you have a winner, all you need to do is keep finding ways to notify new groups of people about your prize content and keep sending them there and you will keep making more and more money from it.

Even when your content does not work well for you, a wise GURU Marketer can figure out a way to optimize the work he or she has already done at a later time perhaps by implementing some minor improvements or by funneling a large amount of people to your poor performer through linking it to a high performer and giving an incentive for people to follow the link.

Remember there is no rush; you are not paying any rent. You have time to improve things and to come up with an idea or a plan to test. With persistency you will improve your bad web content’s productiveness. Often all that is needed to turn around bad web real estate is to come up with a better title or to optimize your poor performing web content for a less competitive keyword phrase. Sometimes just adding a photo or graphic will make your web content more popular.

*There are a number of ways to reactivate web content, web publications and blog posts that slow down.

You can retool the content that you deem needs a quick facelift or easily aim a new traffic source at your dying content to give it a new boost. Just by linking up to your 'poor result' web content from a new source you can create a whole new audience for the work that you have already completed months or years ago.

Small Business Web Tip - You can simply convert a text article into an audio blog post to get more mileage out of the same work! Once it is in the audio state share links to the new content on all your social media accounts for a quick SEO burst!

Read GURU MARKETING TIPS - The Online Offline Web Champion by Stu Leventhal

*Take advantage of years of hands on business management experience and learn practical, time tested biz wisdom that works for any industry! You owe it to yourself and to your e-business ideas to be able to take full advantage of modern technology for conducting e-commerce and making e-profit!
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