Fishbowling - The Art of Internet Marketing

During my career in business, I have had to wear many hats.  One of the hats I wear regularly is the salesman hat.  I am still involved in the sales process for my businesses and I have found as many of you know that prospecting is the lifeblood of a business.

Every business needs an infusion of new business and a good salesperson is worth their weight in gold.  To be good in sales, one must develop good face to face techniques and excellent phone skills.  Not just anyone can pick up the telephone and make a sales call to set up an appointment or to qualify a prospect.  It takes training.

A very good friend of mine, Wendy Weiss, is a premier sales trainer who specializes in helping salespeople develop the most important skill to be successful in sales and that is prospecting with the telephone.

Wendy is known as ”The Queen of Cold Calling”, a moniker she has earned because she is the best.  As an accomplished author and highly sought after sales trainer, Wendy has successfully helped many sales people double their income using her cold calling techniques to develop new prospects and close more sales.

And on April 24, 2008, you can join Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling, as she discusses how she helps entrepreneurs, business owners and sales professionals, just like you and me, prospect fearlessly and schedule more new business and appointments in less time.  See details here of her Preview Call  http://wendyweiss.com/previewcall.html

What if…? 

Wendy asks,

What would happen to your business if you were able to double the number of qualified, prospects you are able to reach?

How would it affect your bottom line if you met with and/or had comprehensive telephone conversations with twice the number of qualified, decision-makers?

How would it feel to have qualified, decision-makers eager, willing and delighted to meet with you?

Prospecting is the most important skill that entrepreneurs, business owners and sales professionals must master to be truly successful.  Without prospects you have no customers, and without customers, you have no sales,  and without sales you have no business, and without … well you get the point.

But what if you are struggling with prospecting on the phone?  Many sales professionals see prospecting as difficult, but it doesn’t need to be.  Cold calling is a communication skill and like all communication skills, it can be learned.

The Struggle Is Over

Because so many people struggle with cold calling, appointment-setting and new business development, Wendy’s top priority is to help you get your business to where you want it to be - to increase your income - possibly double your income! 

Join Wendy as she hosts a teleconference call where she will be giving away for free many of her cold calling and prospecting techniques that have catapulted the income of many sales professionals who used her tips.

Here’s what people are saying about Wendy’s “Cold Calling College”:

‘I recently called six companies and was able to get four solid introductory appointments on my calendar with minimal effort! If I can keep up this pace I can make more money in less time.’ - Tracy M. Brodd, Account Executive, American Identity

Why make money slow?  Accelerate your earnings through the power of prospecting.  Make more money in less time!  You can have the same success as Tracy.

Don’t wait, the Preview Call is scheduled for April 24, 2008 see details here:

http://wendyweiss.com/previewcall.html

This call is guaranteed to help you, right now, regardless of your sales experience or background.  So go and register for the Preview Call and make the money you deserve.

http://wendyweiss.com/previewcall.html

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

Sign up today!

There are many opportunities to network when you are engaged in business, but one of the best places to expand your list of contacts and potential customers is where like-minded people gather.  A seminar brings together groups of people who are generally all there for a similar purpose.  Knowing how to leverage this opportunity can give your business a boost. 

I just came back from an Internet Marketing seminar - The Warrior Seminar in Austin Texas.  I went there not only to learn from some of the top players in the Internet marketing field, but also to make business contacts to expand my business.

I was very pleased by the information I received at the seminar — all of it was relevant to anyone looking to further their career as an Internet Marketer (IM).  There were speakers there that I had heard about but never had the pleasure meeting face to face or hearing them speak live.

While I enjoyed the teaching and learning aspect of the seminar, I made use of the many opportunities to network and make new friends and business contacts with other attendees.  This particular event has also set up a networking event after the Saturday presentations were completed.  Anticipating that I would be meeting people of influence and potential customers, I made sure I had my “20 second” down pat and I brought along marketing materials with me to hand out. 

How many times have you gone to a seminar and wasn’t adequately prepared to do a little business?  If you are in business for yourself you should be in business 24/7.  Some people will disagree with me on this, but you never know when one business contact handled properly can result in a small fortune for you.  Being prepared makes all the difference.

Here are couple of pointers to be ready when networking opportunities arise:

(1) Make sure you have your “20 second” so well memorized and practiced that it rolls right off your tongue.

(2) Practice your “20 second” in front of the mirror.  Alsoask someone you trust to critque your delivery, your posture, your smile, etc.

(3) Make sure you have business cards to give out and make sure you don’t have to dig for them in your wallet or purse.  While fumbling around for your card, your potential contact make become distracted and wind up talking to someone else who has approached him/her.

(4) Bring along some marketing materials to hand out to people who take an interest in your products or business.  A brochure, a one to two page handout, a foldout, etc.  Nothing too big or too cumbersome.  You want it easy for someone to be able to put it in their notepad, purse, planner, briefcase, laptop bag, you get the idea.

(5) I saved the best for last.  Be a good listener first.  Make sure you take an interest in your contact’s business and ask for their business card.  They will appreciate the opportunity to “pitch” you.  If you are just a “pitching” machine to everyone, you will not develop the good vibes that are needed to launch a new relationship.  Business is built upon relationships and trust. 

I made some wonderful contacts and actually madea couple of deals with some of the speakers (the people of influence) to help me promote my product.  I also came out of the seminar with orders from attendees.

The most important thing I was able to accomplish at the seminar, was that I met some wonderful people and learned about their businesses and products.  Now I can refer them when the opportunity arises because I have gotten to know them and I can trust that their work will be reflective of their personailty.  And I am sure they will also refer me as well.

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

 Sign up today!

With the millions of bloggers all competing for web surfers, there is a lot of talk about how to make a blog more popular.  One of the easiest ways to create traffic for your blog is to use social bookmarking.

Social bookmarking is a system for web surfers to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages using tags.

In a social bookmarking system, web surfers save links to pages they want to keep private or share only with specified people, groups, networks, or the general public. People can see these bookmarks by category or tags, or through a search engine.

Social bookmark services organize the bookmarks with informal tags the surfer determines. This organization by tags allows the bookmarking site to show the number of users who have bookmarked them also.

Most bookmarking services provide a feed for bookmarks organized by tags. This allows subscribers to the feed are notified of new bookmarks saved and tagged by other surfers.

Some services, such as Digg, allow ratings and comments on bookmarks. Also there are browser toolbar plug ins to import and export bookmarks and email bookmarks.

Here is a list of social bookmarking web sites

Blue Dot
BookmarkSync
del.icio.us
CiteULike
Connotea
Digg
Diigo
Fark
Furl
GiveALink.org
Linkwad
Ma.gnolia
My Web
Mixx
Netvouz
Newsvine
Propeller.com
Reddit
Simpy
SiteBar
StumbleUpon

After every blog post you make, you will want to go to onlywire (dot) com and use the social bookmarking tool they have.

It’s free to sign up. 

Hope this helps.

If you need a professional to help you with your SEO, go to SEO for business websites and sign up now. I am offering a free SEO evaluation and consultation (normally valued at $999.00).

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

 Sign up today!

Over the last two years Google has been making a shift in their algorithm where they are now emphasizing “Authority” web sites.  What I mean by “Authority” is that the web site is given “Authority” from other web sites and from Google itself.

“Authority” is gained through the following items:

• Content
• Links
• Web 2.0 

Content — Google loves lots of good fresh content.  Your web site needs to have lots of good relevant content targeted towards the keywords you are optimizing for.  You need to be adding new content on a regular basis so your content is changing and not growing stale.  With lots of good fresh relevant content, Google will see your web site as a resource for the keywords you are optimizing for and give your web site “Authority” over web sites that do not have a lot of targeted content, or no new content has been added or their content is growing old because it hasn’t been updated in months.

Links — Google looks at the number of links pointed at your web site, to what pages they point to, and for what anchor text is being targeted in those links.  In-bound links that are one-way (to you only — not reciprocal) give your web site “Authority”.  Google sees these one-way in-bound links as votes that your content is good enough for another web site to link to you.

Most link exchanges will not give you the value you need to gain “Authority” from Google.   It is the same as exchanging votes for each other, however, there can be value if the web site you exchange with has more “Authority” than you.  The link (a major endorsement if it comes from a highly ranked web site) to you will transfer some of the “Authority” of the more important web site to you.

The number and quality of one-way in-bound links to you is one of the most important factors in getting your web pages to rank higher.

When optimizing web pages for specific keywords, you will need anchor text links pointing to you using those same keywords you have optimized for.  An example of anchor text would be “training Golden Retrievers” for a web page you have created about, you guessed it, training Golden Retrievers.

Web 2.0 — Who doesn’t know about the Web 2.0 explosion.  Web 2.0 is all about video, social networking web sites (My Space, Facebook, etc), blogging and social bookmarking web sites ( del.icio.us, Furl, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc).  Google loves new cutting edge technology and they love video and social networking web sites, hey, remember they bought You Tube for a few $billion!!

Creating video and using social networking , blog sites and bookmarking web sites is the newest way to leverage the “Authority” Google has given these types of web sites.  If your content can be found on these types of web sites, your content will be given more “Authority” than the same type of content that cannot be found on web 2.0 web sites.

Consider these three points and determine if you are doing everything you can to rank higher in Google.  Remember “Authority” is the key for SEO for Google.

If you need a professional to help you with your SEO, go to SEO for business websites and sign up now. I have arranged with the best people in the SEO business to offer a free SEO evaluation and consultation (normally valued at $999.00) for my subscribers to my The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter.  If you are already a subscriber, you will be receiving an email with the link to the contact information for the free consultation.  If you aren’t a subscriber, sign up now to get the free evaluation and consultation.

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

 Sign up today!

Being involved in the arena of business marketing, I am always asked about SEO (search engine optimization) techniques for websites.  To be direct and to the point, no marketing program on the Internet can be complete without SEO for your business website.

SEO techniques come in different “color hats”.  What I mean is that there are different things you can do and they are classified by “white hat”, “gray hat”, “black hat” and who knows what color they are going to come out with next.

White Hat SEO tactics can be best described as the techniques that are approved of by every major search engine.  Some of these would include the proper use of <META> tags, <img alt> tags, <H1> tags, etc.

Gray Hat SEO Tactics go a little further.  Some of the techniques might be considered borderline “Black Hat” (meaning search engines mostly do not approve of them) techniques.  Some of these are forced or artificial link building, purposefully creating content laden with rich keywords, using the <img alt> tag to add additional keywords to the page, etc.  None of these would probably get your website penalized or banned, but you can see they go beyond the basics.

Black Hat SEO tactics are those techniques that the major search engines disapprove of.  Some of these techniques include cloaking of page content, automated link creation, content creation for the sole purpose of SEO ranking, off-site techniques, etc.  There are numerous other black hat techniques, but they are secret.  This is what makes them “black hat”.  The major search engines can’t figure out what the black hat guys are doing to stop them and they aren’t going to share this technology with anyone.

Unfair you say?  Maybe — maybe not.  You can’t blame anyone for trying to gain an advantage when it comes to the serps (search engine result pages).  A higher or a coveted front page listing on Google can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenues or even millions in additional revenues, depending on your business model.

White, Gray or Black Hat SEO, you can choose where you think your website belongs.  No website should be without a solid SEO program in place.  If you think you can just build your business on the web without a powerful SEO program in place you are mistaken and you will be severely disappointed when “newbie” websites have leapfrogged over you because they have implemented a proper SEO program.

Because of the importance of this issue for business owners, I am currently creating a report on how businesses can implement a proper SEO program.  For those who want a do it yourself type of program this report is for you. 

For those of you who want to hire a professional, I’ll provide you a link where you can get a free consultation and a quote on what you will need to have done so you can go after that prime real estate — the first page on Google’s serps for your keyword.If you want to sign up in advance for the report, you will get it at least 1 week before I make it public. 

Go to SEO for business websites and sign up now. I have arranged with the best people in the SEO business to offer a free SEO evaluation and consultation (normally valued at $999.00) for my subscribers to my The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter.  If you are already a subscriber, you will be receiving an email with the link to the contact information for the free consultation.  If you aren’t a subscriber, sign up now to get the free evaluation and consultation.

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
The Fishbowl - Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

 Sign up today!

Good to be be back.

I have been ill for about a week now and my wife who had been bitten by the “flu bug” before me is still down and out.  The funny thing is, she had a flu test performed by her doctor and it was determined she doesn’t have the flu.  What?  After what we have been through and how terribly sick we were, now knowing it wasn’t the flu, I wish we had had the flu instead.  We might not have suffered so bad.

Back to topic.  If you remember, I mentioned that I had a draft of a foreclosure report that was coming out and I now have the final report and it’s very informative and anyone who is interested in real estate, either investing or purchasing to own, needs to read this report.

I will get it set up on the website in the next day and have available for download to anyone who signs up for my Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter - The Fishbowl (it’s Free right now during our intial launch).

The report goes into how investors can lose their shirt or blouse if they are not aware of certain dangers about forclosures.  The report details these items in depth along with a final page of a quick hitting list of other items to look for when investing in foreclousres.

This report can save or make you a bundle of money if you get the knowledge before you make a BIG mistake.  Don’t miss it - it’s awesome.

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey 

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter Blasts yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

Sign up today!

I hope American Express doesn’t get upset that I am borrowing their line for my post title.  But if you are not thinking about this little item, you could be missing some big chances to do business.

I am always networking with people and looking to build up my businesses.  Even while I go about my personal life, totally outside of my place of business, I happen to run into someone and wind up talking to them while in line at a store, etc.  The conversation always turns towards work and business.  It would seem likely because I am speaking mostly to men who tend to identify themselves by their work.

And for some reason, I wind up talking about my business :)  At some point in the conversation we exchange business cards.  I like to network with people as you never know who knows who which could lead to more business for me.  And it also allows me to market this person as I now have their information.

Sounds great until you open your wallet and find out that you don’t have any business cards in it.  You look very unprofessional, not a good first impression.  Of course, you can always write your information down on one of their business cards and promise to email them or send them your information, but… again, very unprofessional.

Many business owners I have met did not have their business card on them.  They say something like, “I wasn’t expecting to do any business tonight”.  I don’t know about you, but my door is always open!  It’s only a business card exchange — we aren’t sitting down drawing out a contract to import widgets from a foreign country. 

A good habit is to check to make sure you are always carrying business cards with you — in your wallet, or a card holder, etc.  Also carry some in your car to refill if you forget.  You never know when you are going to run into your next biggest customer.

What’s in your wallet? 

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey 

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter Blasts yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

Sign up today!

On Sunday, March 2nd, my wife’s mother passed away.  My mother-in-law was the matriarch of my wife’s family.  She was a widow before I met her having lost her husband suddenly due to a heart attack.

Ever since I have known her, for almost 13 years, I have found her to be a tough and amazing person.  She had debilitating arthritis in her hands that made the things we take for granted about everyday life very difficult for her to do.  Small things like turning the water off and on, using the car key to unlock and start the car, opening jars and bottles of medicine were difficult for her.  Still she persevered everyday.

In the last few years she had been attacked by a neighbor’s dog and was knocked down injuring her hip which led to an eventual hip replacement.  This slowed her down a lot and she started using a walker and a cane.  But even with these issues, she still got around by herself.

She would watch CNBC everyday and listen to all the stock reports and gurus and she became an extremely clairvoyant investor making very wise investments including owning Cisco, Microsoft, Intel when they were all charging up the Nasdaq ladder and recently Google during one of the stock’s tremendous run-ups.  What makes this extrodinary is that she doesn’t have a computer or online access and her first language was not English.

She was very generous to us at Christmas giving my wife and I money for our kids to save for college.  She was the link that held everyone together for the holidays.  Being a very religious person who attended church regularly, she made sure that we always prayed as a big family before the holiday meals.

She was always very nice to me whenever I saw her.  Although we could not communicate very well, since she her first language was Japanese and I speak English, you can imagine how our conversations went.  She would smile at me and nod her head when I spoke to her, at least I believed she understood me.

I will remember her, not only because she is my mother-in-law or my wife’s mother or my children’s grandmother, but because I will remember an amazing woman who was all the aforementioned things and more.

God Bless Her.

Chuck

This is an old but true cliche — “you only have one chance to make a first impression”.  I am going to change it a little by adding — “so don’t blow it”.  This generally applies to meeting someone for the first time.  I am not going to cover making first impressions as far as meeting poeple.  But something happened recently to me that reminded me how important first impressions are.

If you have a traditional business, you probably receive a little before the holiday season some samples of “advertising give aways” that you can give out to your customers.  Typically, these range from a pocket knife, calendar/planner, mini-calculator, pen, etc.  I received all of these this last year.  I also receive these same types of items all throughout the year.

I like to give out pens to customers.  I feel that pens are useful, everyone needs one every now and then and they are easily carried.  I pass them out all the time and I have received rave reviews about the pens I give out — everyone seems to like them.  Why is that you ask?  Because I try out every single pen I receive.  I only buy pens that I am totally impressed by.  Sometimes I lend the pen samples to other people for them to try out as well and get their honest feedback.  They are willing testers as I always give them a couple of the pens I eventually select.

I bring this up because, I recently received a sample pen from a promotional items vendor.  It was beautiful looking pen and it came in a nice box and very professionally enclosed in a mailing envelope and even had my company name on it.  No doubt the promo items company that had sent the samples to everyone had spared no expense.  But that’s not the whole story.

The pen I received I naturally tried out myself.  I carried it with me from the moment I received it and used it for a couple of days.  That’s right – only a couple of days!  The pen wrote weakly and ran out of ink almost immediately. 

I tossed the pen in the round file and moved on.  I didn’t think of it again until the phone rang about a week later and it was a salesperson from the company where the pen came.  She did the normal greet and get to know you and then sprung the question, “How did you like the pen?”.

Well I told her that I liked the look and feel of the pen but it wrote weakly and ran out of ink very fast.  I also told her that I would not give out any pen unless it passed my user tests.  She told me that the pen was only a sample and that sample pens are sometimes shy on ink.  Good comeback I thought, but I wasn’t buying and told her so.

Basically, my stance was this — I have tested many pens and most of them had plenty of ink in them and lasted the normal (at least what I think is normal) amount of time.  I did not buy every pen because there are other factors which influence my decision.  However, the pen her company sent, died quick.

That pen was the company’s first impression to me.  They failed miserably.  It doesn’t mean squat to me that the pen is a “sample” pen that might not have a full ink supply.  The enclosed brochure that came with the pen didn’t state it had a non-standard amount of ink.  How do I know that all the pens they sell are shy on ink or not?  Whenever giving a sample to anyone, it should be of the highest quality, not some “second quality kick down so the sales people have samples to give out” type of sample. 

Your sample is your first impression of your product and maybe of your company and it better be first quality otherwise you’re blowing it.  You are going to look, sound and feel like a fool if you have to start answering questions by saying, “Well it’s only a sample (that’s why it’s junk).  Our actual product will perform the way it’s supposed to (see my best smile to get you to trust what I am saying)”.

Another point about the pens I give away (sorry to beat this to death) is that it represents something from my company.  Why would I want to give an inferior promotional item with my company’s name on it to my customers?  Yes, the customer knows I didn’t manufacture the pen, but if I give the customer a poor quality pen and it’s supposed to be an advertising piece for me, who knows what the customer might think about me or my company.  Maybe the customer will think that if I don’t care enough to buy quality pens to make a good impression that I don’t care enough to do a quality job either.

Okay I’m through with the pens.  In closing, the point I hope I have driven home  is that you will always be judged by your first impression.  If it’s a sample — give your best and you will always be the best.

“You only have one chance to make a first impression — so don’t blow it”. 

To living your dreams,
 

Chuck Yockey 

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter Blasts yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

Sign up today!

I read a lot of blogs and other stuff that is related to marketing on the Internet and offline marketing.  There is so much out there, that I sometimes suffer from information overload.  But through the fog there are a couple of things that define whether you will have any success in Internet Marketing or marketing your business on the Internet.

The first one is that you must have a list of people to market your products or services.  These people can be better described as exisitng customers or potential customers.  There is really nothing in between.  They are your customers or you are planning on turning them into customers, hence “potential customers”.

This list of people has been tagged The Holy Grail of Internet Marketing.  It does make sense right?  No list – means no one to buy your products or services.  However there is one big step before you can have a list to market to.  You must have traffic to create a list of opt-ins.

One of the most effective ways businesses and IMs (Internet Marketers) are driving traffic today is through article writing.  Maybe you found this blog through an article I posted on one of the ezines out there.  What about SEO you say?  Well SEO is another big part of traffic but for many businesses and IMs, the knowledge at a level where you can compete for prime keywords is lacking and to buy that knowlegde is too expensive.  This leaves article writing.

Because there is so much information on how to write an article, how to post it, etc, I am going to deal with the big why you need to write the articles.  This is obviously very basic if you know anything about article writing and driving traffic with it.  However, I am going to address another factor, that many have not considered, of why article marketing will open the door not only to traffic but a big basket of revenues.  Here are 3 reasons why you should write articles other than the obvious reason, to drive traffic:

(1) You become an expert in your field.  Many of your competitors probably have never penned an article.  While they may even be the most knowledgeable person in your field, no one is going to find out.  Customers like to do business with an expert.  It makes them feel comfortable that the person they are buying from is competent.

(2) You become a trusted source.   Relationships in business are built like all realtionships and that is on trust.  If you are published, even online, and today online is as important as offline publishing, you become not only an expert but a trusted source where people can turn to find out information.  Customers buy from people and businesses they trust.

(3) Your status will rise among people in your industry.  Whenever someone “googles” you, they will see all the articles and other references about you that will show up in the search results.  If they “google” your competition, who has done absolutely nothing as far as publishing online goes, they will find absolutely nothing.  Every one, your customers included, like to hang with a winner.  Your status will definitely make you a winner in the eyes of your customers.

When it come to building a strong respectable presence with your customers and colleagues, you need to make sure you are publishing yourself through article writing. 

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey 

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for my FREE !
Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter Blasts yet, you
are really missing out on some awesome marketing tips.

Sign up today!