Strength In Business with Krisz Rokk

Your happiness is up to you. It’s up to you to increase your awareness and use your strengths to develop happiness and fulfillment in life. When you identify your unique strong points, you’ll be able to bounce back from adversity a lot quicker than others. Furthermore, it will give you a good starting point for developing strategies that will keep you “in the flow” so that you can effectively sidestep obstacles, maximize outcomes and savor life’s amazing treasures. This is the ninth part of the Small Business Owners series, which I have started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of Social Media, Facebook Advertising, Twitter, Email Marketing, Podcasting, Marketing Funnels, Amazon Kindle and Live Events. Today, I’d like to highlight the importance of playing to your strengths in business. It has nothing to do with over-analyzing your weaknesses and wasting all your precious time and energy on improving upon these or turning them into opportunities. I’m suggesting the exact opposite. Identify your unique strengths and double down on them. Don’t waste a second on your weaknesses. Know them and outsource them as quickly as possible. The Misleading Passions vs. Strengths Idiom Here comes possibly one of the biggest misconceptions in business and entrepreneurship: “Do what you’re passionate about and you’ll succeed.” Is that really so? Yes, passion is very important. It’s what drives you in life. It’s the fuel that makes you overcome some of the biggest hurdles in life. Passion keeps your lights burning at night when preparing for your next move while improving upon your ideas, strategies and tactics. It is passion that makes you continue your fight when everybody else around you has lost faith in you and what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. But passion alone will not make you successful in business. This ingredient is essential, however, it’s not a must when it comes to building a thriving business. On the other hand, identifying your core strengths and leveraging them is a MUST if you want to create a solid business that will be around for many years to come. Here’s an example to let the concept of strengths vs. passion really sink in: I’m very passionate about medicine and everything that has to do with neuroscience, bio- and nanotechnology, quantum medicine and modern surgeries. I’m knowledgeable about these topics, I work with medical doctors with all kinds of specialties, I attend conferences and workshops, I read about the latest discoveries and yet, despite of all of the above, my core strength doesn’t rely in the medical field. My biggest strengths are in sales and marketing; that is in certain aspects of the sales process and in highly sophisticated marketing areas to be more precise. Therefore, instead of building my business around my passion, which is medicine, I doubled down on my strengths in business and chose the path of a strategic marketing advisor. To take the entire concept to the next level, I embedded my passion into my business by providing services to medical doctors among other professions. You see,

Marketing is not an event. It is definitely not a random event. Marketing is a strategy-based multi-step, multi-media process. If you don’t have proven systems and marketing funnels in place, you’re doomed to fail. Thanks to strategic advisor and direct response marketer Dan Kennedy, I learned this early on in the game. Therefore I’m giving credit where credit is due. This is the eighth part of the Small Business Owners series, which I have started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of Social Media, Facebook Advertising, Twitter, Email Marketing, Podcasting, Amazon Kindle and Live Events. Today, I’d like to talk to you about the importance of having proven marketing funnels in place. You see, most business people do not approach their business and marketing needs in an organized manner that is essential for gaining competitive advantage. Why is that so? Well, because they don’t have systems, processes and marketing funnels. Use Marketing Funnels to Set Yourself Apart From the Crowd Let’s start with the most important building blocks of your business: * STRUCTURE and * A governing MARKETING SYSTEM. The next thing you need to focus on is attracting customers who are predisposed to do business with you, so that you can banish income uncertainty and gain more peace of mind in your business. Why is this important? Because you cannot grow without new customers. Obviously, you can be creative and design all kinds of fancy marketing tactics that will help you increase frequency and transaction value for your current customer base, but ultimately you’ll need those fresh new clients to come knocking at your door. If you cannot confidently and affordably create a steady flow of new customers anytime you need them, things will get shaky faster than you’d imagine to. And this is where marketing funnels come to play. The magic lies in seamlessly integrating offline and online networks as well as horizontal and vertical chains, which allow you to break the silo mentality and operate effectively across borders (whether these are geographical, political or cultural). Marketing funnels will help you navigate through the maze of business complexity. Furthermore, they will give you both the certainty and flexibility to add additional layers to your business structure, thus propelling you ahead of the competition and ever-changing marketing ecosystem. Convincing benefits, right?! How to Incorporate Marketing Funnels Into Your Small Business What type of marketing funnel should you create first? Should you focus on offline funnels and add online ones later on in the game? What about production, supply chain or sales funnels? These are all legitimate questions and there isn’t a general, foolproof answer that will satisfy your hunger to implement the right marketing funnels from the get. To be honest, these sophisticated questions require critical thinking in order to answer them adequately. Furthermore, they require industry know-how and a level of understanding that goes be...

Podcasting seems to be the new marketing “miracle” these days. New shows arise daily like mushrooms after the rain and newbies who join the game are often mislead into thinking they have found “the holy grail of marketing”. Yes, podcasting is very popular. But is podcasting really the holy grail of marketing, or is it just another marketing vehicle you need to master AKA know exactly how to deploy in order to generate business? This is the seventh part of the Small Business Owners series, which I have started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of Social Media, Facebook Advertising, Twitter, Email Marketing, Amazon Kindle and Live Events. Today, I’d like to talk to you about the amazing power of Podcasting for your business. It has nothing to do with joining the current hype. It’s definitely not about adding one more instrument to your marketing toolkit and overloaded business schedule. Why Should You Add Podcasting to Your Content Marketing Arsenal Let’s answer the WHY question first and then we’ll discuss the HOW to. Having your own show, whether audio or video, is one of the best things that you can do in terms of front-end marketing. What do I mean by that? One word: ATTENTION. Podcasting drives significant attention and therefore awareness for you, your business and the products and services you’re selling. Having your own show on Apple Music (formerly iTunes), Stitcher, Google Play Store and thousands of other podcast directories gives you massive exposure. Here are a few more benefits of podcasting: * You have 100% control over the content. * You have 100% control of your RSS feed (self-hosted on your website). * You have real-time access to stats, reports and analyses (with hosts such as Blubrry [Affiliate Partner] or Libsyn, for example). * You can embed your show as often as you want on as many pages as you want (own website and social media channels). * Your show is picked up by Facebook Instant Articles once you’re a Facebook Publisher. * You can invite experts on your show. * You can record and upload new episodes as often as you want. * You can monetize your show and thus add another marketing stream to your back-end sales machine. What about the money, time and energy you need to invest into podcasting? Well, here are some of the things you need to be aware of prior to hopping onto the podcasting wagon: Time vampire: Preparing for the show and interviews, putting the content together, editing, following up with guests etc. takes a whole lot of time. If you’re just starting out, this could easily mean one working day. I’m just sharing from my experience and giving you some perspectives here. Learning curve: Unless you’ve been a radio or TV moderator, or you’ve conducted hundreds of events, you will need to learn the craft of podcasting. Finding out the type of content your audience loves best is tricky.

Huge egos, unapproachable, know-it-all individuals… Medical professionals are a very difficult category of people to deal with. I find that these types of generalizations are always dangerous. Obviously, there are MDs who match the description above and I have encountered some of these individuals, too. However, there are loads of doctors, surgeons and dentists running hospitals, practices and businesses of all sizes who are super approachable and amazingly intelligent. They are wholehearted individuals looking to help as many people as possible in a world that seems to be falling victim to “epidemics” such as diabetes, cancer or Alzheimer. These are most certainly the medical professionals I love to surround myself with and I’ve been fortunate to work with. Medicine has been one of my big passions since childhood. I love to read, listen to and watch documentaries about state-of-the-art surgeries and new discoveries that go beyond traditional med know-how. I go to conferences and relevant trade shows all over the world. And it’s also one of the main reasons why I decided to take my scuba diving knowledge to the next level by joining the community of rescue divers. MDs and dentists make up an important percentage of my clientele. They offer quite unique portfolios of services and procedures enriching my life as a marketing consultant by constantly empowering me to try new marketing strategies and techniques that go beyond mainstream approaches. They also fuel my hunger for testing out new paths and roads less traveled and allow me to build more robust bridges between the offline and online marketing world. Medical professionals who are in charge of their own businesses face a lot of challenges. Just like us marketers, they are human beings, entrepreneurs and small business owners with their own set of problems. Before I reveal to you the three most common marketing mistakes medical professionals I’ve worked with make, let’s have a closer look at the groups of people who are most likely to benefit from these insights. Who Is This For? * MDs/doctors, surgeons and dentists with private practices and hospitals, medical professionals/ doctors who want to start their own business. * Those of you who work with doctors and dentists, who represent your main target audience or one of your ideal client groups in terms of profession. * Small business owners who operate in other related or unrelated industries and who are open and willing to learn from the marketing mistakes of other professionals. The Three Most Common Marketing Mistakes Made By Medical Professionals #1. Marketing Mistake: Focusing on everybody in pain without putting extra attention onto the most valuable patients A lot of doctors and dentists with private practices run their businesses according to the premise that: “everybody in pain is my patient”. Often times they don’t know who their most valuable patients are or how to narrow down their target audience to allow them to focus their marketing efforts on a larger group made up of their ideal patients. EXAMPLE: Let’s say you have a private practice for urology and you are committed to providing state-of-the-art kidney stone removal surgeries and procedures. Your patients include teenagers, pregnant women with kidney stones and adult men from all age groups. After thoroughly analyzing your patients’ portfolio you come to the conclusion that your ideal patients are men aged 45-55 who have developed kidney stones due to unhealthy drinking habits. If this is the group of people who is most valuable to your business, then they should be marketed to differently. #2.

Why invest your precious time on Twitter when you have Facebook, Instagram and YouTube where you can reach way more people and eventually generate higher levels of attention? You see the majority of small business owners don’t fully understand the power of Twitter. Furthermore, they haven’t come to terms with the fact that over the past few years, Twitter has evolved and with that the ‘tweets’ and conversations on this channel. It’s no longer about what you have had for lunch or dinner. If you miss those kinds of stories though, you’ll have to switch to Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. This is the sixth part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of Social Media, Facebook Advertising, Email Marketing, Amazon Kindle and Live Events. Today, I’d like to talk to you about the real power of Twitter for your business. It has nothing to do with mass marketing. It’s not about sending out a bunch of tweets or celebrating likes and levels of engagement. Bridging the Gap Between Your Twitter Feed and the Offline World I’ve been active on Twitter for several years now, since 2011 to be more precise. I tried all kinds of marketing strategies and tactics. I listened to Twitter experts and applied their teachings. I read several articles, blog posts and books about ‘doing it the right way’. I watched videos and listened to podcasts. While everybody is tooting the importance of sending out vast amount of daily tweets, getting likes and followers, starting all kinds of conversations to increase engagement – very few people actually talk about what I’m going to share with you here. Let me break the ice for you: Twitter is a phenomenal tool because it enables you to turn online connections into real-world business relationships and friendships. Unlike LinkedIn where a professional obligation is implied or Facebook where you might receive messages from people who can hardly put together two sentences, Twitter is a place where you can easily cross between professional and personal experiences without suddenly being unfollowed or considered weird. On Twitter the professional and personal worlds mold together harmoniously allowing users to connect more meaningful by building strategic alliances and retweeting each others stories, doing live streams together or catching up over a cup of coffee when visiting nearby locations. How do you do it? 3 Tips to Driving Offline Relationships from Twitter Here’s how you can deploy this amazing tool to take those valuable online connections and transform them into real-world relationships. 1. Use Direct Messages to Start a Conversation One of the most valuable assets yet so underutilized or very poorly used/ utilized is Twitter’s inbox. Every time somebody sends you a direct message, the opportunity to build a deeper connection arises. Obviously, I’m excluding all those DMs that include an invite to sign up to a random email list or a link to follow the sender on some other channel. I’m referring to those direct messages where people show a genuine interest to getting to know you better. Use DMs wisely. Answer to those who ask you personalized questions and ignore bulk messages that are sent out by automation tools. Always wanted to start a one-on-one conversation with a user that keeps coming up in your feed and prom...

Why do you need Email marketing when you have Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat? Everybody seems to be hooked to social media and nobody is reading fancy emails. Is that really so? Then why is it that people are twice as likely to sign up for your email list as they are to interact with you on Facebook? [Source: Forrester] This is the fifth part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of Social Media, Facebook Advertising, Amazon Kindle and Live Events. Today, I’d like to talk to you about the importance of your ideal prospect and customer’s inbox. Let’s have a closer look at the impact of your email marketing. Grab (And Keep) Your Audience’s Attention Can you imagine a world without annoying notifications? A world where you can actually focus your attention on one particular task and message? That environment is your inbox. And if you deactivated all the sponsored ads that appear at the top of your main email overview or at the right hand side, then you’re “safe”. You have no more excuses to not being effective and productive. What a revolutionary concept in today’s day and age. How do you grab your audience’s attention? With a relevant headline that’s click-worthy or newsworthy. And how do you keep their attention once you got it? By providing something of value. This can be in the form of helpful how-to information, a checklist with guidelines, a story that strongly resonates with your audience and provides interesting new insights and perspectives, or an irresistible offer. You know your target audience best. Create an autoresponder series (a set of email follow-ups) that goes out every time somebody joins your email list. 5 Eye-Opening Email Marketing Stats The following stats will underpin the importance of email marketing as a valuable tool for small business owners. * For every $1 invested in email marketing, the average return is $38. [Source: Direct Marketing Association] * According to 80% of small- and medium-sized retail professionals in the US, email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention. In contrast, organic search (62% for acquisition, 36% for retention) or social media (51% for acquisition, 44% for retention) are rated effective by far fewer respondents. [Source: eMarketer] * 72% of consumers prefer communication with companies to happen through email. For example, 48% of people preferred postal mail, 34% preferred television ads and less than 20% preferred social media, mobile apps or text messages. [Source: MarketingSherpa] * 86% of consumers would like to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with at least monthly. 61% of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly. 15% would like to get them daily. [Sources:

What works better: offline or online marketing? Live events – no way! I hate speaking to a crowd of people. Yellow pages have always worked great for us, so why change our strategy now? How about we stick to Facebook and Google AdWords and forget the rest? These are questions that pop up in a lot of small business owners’ minds. Actually they are thinking patterns. They are so ingrained in people’s belief systems and marketing agendas that it’s become hard for them to open up for new ways of driving sales and thus taking the business to the next level. This is the fourth part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of social media, Facebook advertising and Amazon Kindle. Today, I’d like to shift from the online to the offline world, that is I’d like to talk to you about harnessing the power of live events. Adding Live Events to Your Marketing Portfolio The fear of public speaking is considered one of the biggest phobias across the world. According to the Chapman University survey on American fears, published in The Washington Post, 25,3% of Americans say they fear speaking in front of the crowd – making public speaking the number #1 phobia in the country. By now, I can hear some of you loud and clear: “Great Krisz, now you suggest I get up in front of some unknown people and talk about my stuff?” Not so fast, my friends. What I suggest is the following: 1. Allocate part of your marketing budget to running live events. You don’t have to start with a crowd of 300 people; do a live workshop with say 10-20 people. 2. Prepare yourself to talk to a crowd of people that is made up of your ideal prospects. Don’t make the mistake of talking to an unknown audience. Know the crowd. Know their problems, frustrations and pains. Know what they are looking for. This will put you in the best place possible and take out some of the fear you have for public speaking. 3. Master the topic you’re going to talk about. If you’ve been in business for some time and you’ve achieved a certain level of success, your audience will definitely want to know how you got there and more importantly, how you managed to overcome all the obstacles and roadblocks along the way to turn your business around. It’s what savvy small business owners do: they want to learn from successful peers. How to Pick the Right Format There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Some of you will want to talk about best practices; others will prefer to walk the audience through a checklist that has proven to work. Some of you will focus on features, benefits and advantages of certain products; others will do live demonstrations and ask each participant to repeat the process. Whatever topic and format you choose, make sure you follow these guidelines: * Add massive value. * Know what you’re talking about: make sure you have a ton of experience and a proven record. * Answer all questions. In case you don’t know the answer to a question, you email the person the answer later on. * Provide transcripts and other useful materials related to the topic you covered. * Include a strong call-to-action at the end. Make a compelling offer that is hard to refuse. The last rule on the list is critical. You’re talking to your ideal prospects and clients.

Everyone has at least one book in them – a quote that is often used to motivate people to get something done. Replace the word “book” with webinar, podcast or song and you’ll get the picture. This is the third part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently. In the previous months, I covered the topics of social media and Facebook advertising. Today, I’d like to talk to you about harnessing the power of Amazon Kindle. Why Write A Book Let’s start with the most important question: Why should you invest your valuable time into writing a book? “Hey Krisz, I’m a small business owner not a writer. Back in school my English teacher told me I’m a disaster. I could barely graduate and now you tell me to write a book?” Listen, if you’ve been on Planet Earth for a few years, I’m sure the quote applies. You do have at least one book in you. Did you graduate last year? If so, you could write a book and share your best tips and methods on how to discover what matters most and learn those lessons quickly. Have you suffered from a serious illness? If so, you could share your journey to recovery, what you did to get back in shape, the anxieties and worries you and your family have gone through and what you did to get past those feelings, the role essential nutrients played to getting back your energy and vitality etc. How many kitchens have you remodeled? If you’ve been in business for a few years and you’ve invested more than 10,000 hours into kitchen remodeling, I’m sure there’s a lot you can share with folks looking to give their kitchen a fresh new look without breaking the bank and by avoiding rookie mistakes. So here’s my answer for why you should write a book: * Because you don’t want other people to go through the pain and suffering you and your family had to go through. * Because you want to share proven methods and principles, not some fuzzy-wuzzy information that provides no real benefits. * Because you want to help other people shortcut the process and increase the learning curve. * Because you love to serve other human beings while also making a profit. Why Self-Publish on Amazon Kindle Big publishers want to ensure they sell at least 25,000 copies, therefore getting a deal with HarperCollins or Simon & Schuster is tough. Don’t make it hard on yourself. Publish your book on Amazon Kindle and / or CreateSpace and save time, money and headaches. The beautiful thing about launching your book on Amazon is the fact that you can test different covers and book descriptions. You can test different categories for your book to be listed. You can stick to the eBook version first, see how that performs and add a paperback or hardcover later in the game. No restrictions whatsoever. You control the game. And remember, it’s a free game. Yes, you’ll have to pay royalties for being listed on the world’s biggest eCommerce site. In return you get buyers’ attention; lots of attention. And if your book becomes a bestseller, who knows? Maybe the roles change and you get a phone call from one of HarperCollins’ chief editors. Everything is possible. Something similar happened to me. Early 2014 I launched my first German book on Amazon entitled “Die Podcasting-Goldgrube”. Since I’ve reached bestseller status on Amazon, I’ve published a second edition of the book and I had a major German publisher reach out to me to publish my book. All this can very well happen to you, too.

This is the second part of the Small Business Owners series I started recently. Last time I talked about harnessing the power of social media. Today, we’re going to focus on the biggest social network and I’m going to reveal to you a few strategies on how to deploy Facebook advertising in order to boost exposure, onboard more of the right prospects and clients, and increase sales. Facebook is the most powerful social platform on the planet. The company’s portfolio includes major apps such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. Facebook has 1.86 billion monthly active users as of December 2016 and 1.23 billion daily active users on average. More than half of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from mobile; that’s over $1 billion in mobile revenue. The social network continues its solid performance, which means that Facebook is likely to be around longer than some analysts might think or predict. By now, I assume you know that you can have a personal Facebook profile and create several Facebook Pages where you can share the latest news about your business. You can post articles, upload images and videos or do a live webinar. You can highlight your services, create offers and events, add job postings and of course, advertise your business. There are tons of features and Facebook keeps adding new ones on the fly — which often causes overwhelm. In this article I’d like to focus on the advertising aspect of your business while putting an emphasis on the fact that you will get better outcomes if you leverage and integrate both sides of Facebook (organic and paid). This being said, let’s dive deeper into Facebook advertising. Why Advertise on Facebook Let’s start with the most important question first: Why should you spend money aka invest on Facebook? * Because your ideal audience is most likely on Facebook — unless of course you’re in China or selling to kids / young teenagers who spend the majority of their time on Snapchat for example. * Because Facebook provides you with the most powerful targeting options ever available, allowing you to micro-segment and put your message in front of those who’re most relevant to your business. * Because users on Facebook are willing to buy and have the ability to buy. Active users on Facebook are valued at an average of $122 as opposed to $70 for active users on Twitter and $63 for LinkedIn users. (Forbes, May 2014) For a detailed list of reasons why you must add Facebook advertising to your list of marketing weapons, I invite you to read my blog post 10 Eye-Opening Facts About Facebook Ads. The Small Business Owners Dilemma Wait a second: I’m a small business owner, I have ten employees running around in my local store, I have to generate cash flow to pay the bills and on top of everything else, you tell me to do Facebook advertising? As a small business owner, you have more important things to do than posting cute pictures on Facebook or hitting that boost post button. As a matter of fact, your number one job as a small business owner is to get more of the right customers through the door so that you can increa...

Jimmy forgot to load the truck on time, Helena called in sick today and nobody else can take phone calls, Martha is collecting late payments from clients and on top of everything else, some cables burned out in the product showroom and you need to fix that asap. Small business owners — Does this sound familiar to you? Let me take a guess: Yeah, there are those days when you wished you were living a laptop-lifestyle travelling wherever the winds would take you. But that’s not how small business owners roll, who have brick-and-mortar locations and employees to manage. On the contrary, you have to deal with people, processes, operations, logistics, marketing, sales and finance (especially cash flows and profits). That’s a lot of work and responsibility, and if you don’t have a proper team, things can get ugly pretty quickly. Today I’d like to talk to you about the marketing part of your small business and provide you with some actionable tips on how to leverage the time and resources you have available to maximize your online marketing results aka get the word out about your business quicker and easier. To accomplish that, we will use the power of social media. When used correctly, this amazing online marketing vehicle called social media can help you develop your brand, promote your business and find new clients who match your criteria. Yes, you or one of your employees will have to put in the work but the long-term benefits are hard to ignore. [Small business owners: you know exactly what I’m talking about here as you’re not part of the “next shiny object clan”] Results-Oriented Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners Here are three actionable tips you can implement today to boost your presence on social media and get the most out of the specific networks. 1. Pick 2-3 relevant social media channels and go “All In” on those Just like any other marketing channel, social media is a communication network you can use to amplify your outreach. You don’t need to know all networks and you definitely don’t need to have a presence on all of them. Don’t let the sheer amount of social media networks overwhelm you. Have a closer look at your customer base and find out where they like to hang out when it comes to social media. Your job will be to follow them there. If they’re giving a vast amount of their attention to Facebook and spending money on the platform, than you got to be there, too. If they like to communicate and engage in LinkedIn groups, than you will have to be there, too. The following social media channels have proven to work really well for my clients and me: Example #1: Facebook + Pinterest + Instagram This combination is a killer for the following markets: kitchen and home restoration, gardening, cooking, furnishing and home decor AND when the majority of the audience is female or the main decision maker is a woman. Example #2: Facebook + LinkedIn + Twitter This is a fantastic combination if you’re a doctor or lawyer AND you’re marketing to affluent B2B clients. 2. Repurpose your existing content Did you notice the keyword in the headline? I even underlined it. I want you to use your EXISTING content. For now, you don’t need to come up with new and fancy things, you just have to think of smart ways to use what you already have that has proven to work on other channels. [Special note: The products and services you offer have to b...

“Consumers want to feel better about themselves (Self-Image), escape from life’s stress and have fun, if just for a while (Entertain) and be treated nicely (Pamper).” – Brian Gracon In the midst of the most-recent recession, why couldn’t you find a parking place at the mall on a weekend or get into a good restaurant without waiting for hours? Why were there waiting lines at the spa and coffee shop? Why were cosmetic counters, theme parks and tattoo parlors so busy? In this podcast interview, Krisz Rokk and award-winning business consultant Brian Gracon use best practices from recession-proof companies to discuss buying triggers and habits of today’s consumer. Brian Gracon has over 20 years of award-winning experience helping businesses increase revenues and profits through better marketing and selling strategies and through skill development. Past clients include international leaders in retail, beverages, banking, auto parts distribution, energy, and flooring. Brian is s also a speaker and LinkedIn blogger and manages the LinkedIn group “Increase Retail Sales: Training and Meconomics®”. In the Interview: 02:26 – How much money and how are people spending their money during a recession? 05:22 – There’s a customer who believes “I deserve it”… 06:28 – What is it about your marketing that identifies and appeals to a consumer or a business’ client self-image? 09:25 – When a new Apple iPhone comes out – it’s never about the features. 13:13 – It has to be a solid strategy and a solid slogan; repetition is valuable in the marketplace. 13:33 – Managing your cash flow 15:55 – Buying habits have gotten stronger starting with the recession and reinforced ever since… 17:00 – Everybody likes to be treated well 22:30 – All these three lenses self-image, entertain and pamper are emotional buying habits 24:00 – Small business success story 27:50 – Why it’s important to have harmony across your marketing, selling and business management Key Takeaways – Buying Triggers and Why They Matter 1. Recession-proof companies were doing one or more essential things that appeal to consumer buying habits: 1) They were appealing to a customer self-image or helping them create a self-image. 2) They were providing some measure of entertainment or entertainment message. 3) And they were allowing people to pamper themselves. 2. Meconomics touches on three consumer touch points: * Marketing => Why should people buy from you? * Selling => What process do you use to conduct the transaction? and * Business Management => Who do you put in place to operate those processes? This is unique about the book because it uses one umbrella strategy “Meconomics” and addresses all of those three business areas that are consumer touch points. 3. The nuance in Business-to-Business (B2B) when it comes to entertain is “Give me a simple, low-stress process. Don’t complicate things for me”. 4. Brand alignment, simplicity and low-stress processes, and custom solutions are three lenses in the B2B context.   People and Resources Mentioned * Meconomics 101: 16 Ways to Improve your Marketing, Selling and Business Management for Today’s Consumers – Available on Amazon

Little can rival the sense of exhilaration and peace brought by the jump from a boat into the ocean. Every time you cross from one universe to another, magic occurs. All the troubles and worries of the world are behind you: they’re left on the boat and it’s just you, the ocean and your thoughts. If you love scuba diving just like I do, you know precisely what I’m talking about. For watersports’ fans, the “other” universe is water. If you’re snowboarding down cliffs, the “other” universe is the abyss. If you’re skydiving, the “other” universe is the sky. Why are some of us attracted to extreme sports while others are not? Are there any parallels between extreme sports and business? And if so, what are some of the success principles that you can apply to strengthen your mental game and achieve breakthroughs in business and life? I’m fascinated about extreme sports — especially watersports because it takes a certain quality to practice these sports. It requires mental toughness. Whether you’re a Navy SEALs, a freediving champion or you’re simply scuba diving for leisure, you have to be mentally strong. … “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that.” – Michael Jordan It’s not about better genetics. It’s not about physicality. The secret lies in the mind. In a world full of softies and victims, cultivating mental resilience, developing skills and habits to increase your mental strength is the best way to set yourself up for success. After more than 10 years of scuba diving, I’ve distilled 7 effective principles that you can take and apply right away to achieve breakthroughs in your business, professional career and life. … Principle #1: Trust Thyself „All power is from within and therefore under our control.“ ~ Robert Collier Invest time into getting to know yourself better. Once you understand your behavioral patterns and the disempowering beliefs that are sabotaging and stopping you from achieving great things in life, you can change your programming. Learn to quiet the inner chatter that is constantly seeking new, dangerous and mostly fearful adventures. Learn to relax your mind and trust your instincts. … Principle #2: Decide Fast And Take Action Immediately “Anytime you have difficulty making an important decision, you can be sure that it’s the result of being unclear about your values.” ~ Tony Robbins Decision is the ultimate power. Those who can’t or don’t want to decide, get stuck. They remain trapped in the treadmill while the blurry fog of their mind tells them all the reasons why a decision will cause lots of pain and ultimately, lead to disaster. Not all your decisions are going to be popular. There will always be people who disagree with you and consider the decisions you have taken foolish or stupid. Trade being liked for being respected. Decision is the first piece in this puzzle. The next important one is action. You won’t achieve anything if you take a decision but afterwards get a comfortable seat on the couch. You need to go right to the implementation phase. Once you have decided, take immediate action. Remember, you can always course-correct along the way. … Principle #3: Be Prepared To Say No And Walk Away “A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.” ~ Robert Kiyosaki NO is a powerful word. It is by far one of the most powerful words in sales. Don’t be afraid to walk away from deals and people who don’t have the best intentions in mind. Go back to principle #1,

How can you use LinkedIn to build genuine and long-lasting business relationships? Is there a proven way for individuals and businesses to connect authentically on this social media platform? This is a small sample of LinkedIn related questions I received last month during my two day Marketing Systems Master Class (MSMC) in London, United Kingdom. The MSMC is an international live event that we organize for our StrengthInBusiness community three to four times a year. I have therefore decided to use this space and share my thoughts on the above questions with you, too. LinkedIn is my main go-to platform for business relationships. It’s a phenomenal environment that enables you to showcase your individuality and connect with amazing people from all around the world. All you need to do is search for a person or company and reach out to them with a personalized message. That’s right. The message has to be personalized. Now, for those of you who are serious about harnessing the power of LinkedIn, let me tell you what you should definitely avoid doing on this marketing channel, or any other social media network for that matter. Don’t Send Messages in the “Wrong” Language Before you send one of your connections a message, please do your homework and check whether that person actually speaks the language you want to use. Here’s a message in Dutch that somebody sent to me on LinkedIn… Now, I do speak seven languages, however, Dutch is not one of them. And although somebody who visited my profile prior to reaching out to me wouldn’t know that because I only mentioned four languages, they could have used English to communicate. Why? Because it’s the language I used to describe what it is that I do on my profile. Obviously, Dutch isn’t a big deal if you speak German and English or use Google Translate for example to quickly understand the message. OK, so I went through that process and translated everything. The message had to do with recent developments on the financial markets. Next, at the end of the message there was a link included. So I clicked on the link (see link at the bottom of the screenshot above) and I was sent to a four page PDF document — in guess what language? Dutch, of course. This incidence made me laugh, but it also made me realize that most people won’t have the same reaction I had. Actually this is how you get people to unfollow you or delete you as a connection on LinkedIn. This type of bulk spam email doesn’t work. And it works even less when you send it in the wrong language. So, do yourself a huge favor and stop pursuing this strategy right away. People Do Business with People They Like and Trust Let’s go back to the initial questions and allow me to provide you with some hands-on tips on how to build meaningful business relationships on LinkedIn. 1. First, and most importantly, we need to understand that people do business with people. Humans do business with humans. That’s why relationships always come down to P2P or H2H and not Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C) or Business-to-Government (B2G). 2. Second, treat others how you want to be treated. Meaning: Be respectful, polite and friendly when communicating with other individuals. 3. Third, know what the person you’re reaching out to actually does. Do some research. Check their LinkedIn profile, visit their website,

How long can you afford to stay out of the Facebook advertising game? There are more than 50 million Facebook Pages but only 4 million advertisers on Facebook. Why is that? Why is the gap between the number of Facebook Pages and active Facebook advertisers so big? Why are companies (especially big ones) so keen to further dumping large amounts of money into TV ads when Google and Facebook are the indisputable leading platforms in digital AKA social advertising? One of the best answers to the above questions was given by Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia in one of his DailyVee shows on YouTube. He said something along these lines… “Advertising agencies prefer to run ads on TV because the profit margins are great. There’s not much effort you have to put in to buy some ad space on TV. Facebook on the other hand requires a ton of work, meaning you have to create 70+ custom audiences to harness the power of the platform, change the creative, test different elements and all this leads to lower margins. This is one of the main reasons why big agencies who work with corporations and big brands prefer to dump their clients’ money into TV ads.” This is not the exact wording Gary used but it comes pretty close to the message he wanted to share with his community in regards to Facebook advertising versus TV or radio ads. Now that we’ve clarified why running ads on Facebook requires way more planning and strategizing then handing over a cheque to XYZ agency to buy some ads on TV, let’s have a look at three of the most common mistakes people make when advertising on Facebook. Three Facebook Advertising Pitfalls to Avoid A couple of weeks ago, on November 2, I conducted three Facebook advertising workshops in London (UK) and one of the slides that grabbed the attention of the majority of participants was the one about ‘Dangers to Avoid when Advertising on Facebook’. It’s when I decided to write a blog post about these dangers and share some of the key insights with the entire StrengthInBusiness community. Given the fact that the majority of advertisers on Facebook are small- and medium-size businesses (yeah, a lot of corporations still go with the ‘cheque’ method because it’s easier), the following tips will help you improve your overall Facebook marketing strategy and reduce costs per conversion. 1. Targeting the Wrong People This is probably one of the biggest mistakes newbie advertisers make on Facebook. It is often one of the main reasons why the leads you onboard from Facebook are low quality and irrelevant to your business or the money you pay for a result (e.g. clicks to website) is insanely high. Apart from the common advice of creating and focusing on the growth of Custom Audiences such as Email Custom Audiences, Website Custom Audiences, Lookalike Audiences and Engagement Custom Audiences, there are a few more pitfalls to be avoided. These are as follows: * Targeting non-English speakers with ads in English * Targeting non-buying segments (e.g. certain regions or zip codes in a city) * Mixing interests, behavioral patterns and connections early in the game Focus on your targeting from the get-go. Identify your ideal prospects and buyers. Nail down your target audience so you don’t waste money advertising to the wrong group of peopl...

Do you work with local customers or do you have an international clientele? How do you manage business operations and finances without losing sight of all the atypical needs that business owners from foreign countries may have? Working with clients from different countries, backgrounds and cultures requires a whole set of marketing tools, systems and processes you most certainly won’t use and deploy when working with customers from your neighborhood or the same country. If you’re doing business internationally, you need to familiarize yourself with the legal, financial and labor playing field of those particular locations. The last thing you want is being penalized financially or operationally. Instead, you want to enjoy and capitalize on all the benefits – for example having a large pool of experts with specialized know-how, a new target audience or better tech accessibility at lower costs. So, what business and marketing resources do you need to elevate your game? There are a ton of powerful tools out there and it’s quite difficult to choose the ones that will help you get the most out of your international business strategy. To help you pick the right toolkit for your specific business needs, I would like to share with you two online marketing tools that have helped me avoid outrageous bank fees when sending money abroad, closely monitor project performance, increase productivity and maximize outcomes. See what these tools can do for you. 1. Send Money Abroad Up to 8x Cheaper with TransferWise OMG those banking fees. If you’ve ever made a transfer abroad, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Have you ever transferred $100 and ended up paying up to $25 in bank fees? How did you feel about that? Let me take a guess: You were exhilarated about those extra $25 you had to pay for a click… Here’s how you can stop that from happening immediately: Join TransferWise to stamp out hidden charges. Sir Richard Branson and other high profile technology investors have invested into TransferWise to lead the fight against overcharging and expose the hidden cost of money transfers. Why? Because there’s definitely an easier, faster and fairer way of sending money abroad without emptying your pockets. “No fees”, “0% commission”, “one small fee” – none of it is true. With TransferWise you get the real exchange rate, also known as the mid-market rate. Banks on the other hand set their own exchange rate thus being able to make additional money off you. This does not happen with TransferWise. Two Major Benefits of TransferWise * It’s up to 8x cheaper. * You always know where your money is. To underpin the trustworthiness of TransferWise, the platform is authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (The FCA). Disclosure We are an official affiliate of TransferWise. When you sign up via the links we provided, you’ll get your first transfer up to 10,000 GBP (that’s about $13,000) for FREE. I highly recommend this outstanding service provided by TransferWise. 2. Make Managing Projects Remotely a Breeze with Trello What do you do when your team is based everywhere and you work with clients from all over the world? You need to use Trello – a FREE project management tool that enables you to see the status of your project in real-time,