Category Archives: Marketing

Are You Getting Video Testimonials?

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Chad Barr

Client video testimonials are extremely powerful and effective ways to increase your credibility while letting your clients do the bragging for you. Here are some ideas of when you should consider doing them:

  • When given the opportunity and logistically possible, invite your clients to your videographer’s studio.
  • During speaking engagements offer a copy of your book for those willing to give you a video testimonial. If you brought a videographer with you, have them do it, otherwise an iphone or such device is just fine.
  • During meetings with clients ask for video testimonials and use an iPhone or such.
  • Use Skype to do this or have someone else do it for you.

And when this magic moment takes place, make sure it is short and the focus is on the impact you have provided their business and life.

© Chad Barr 2013. All rights reserved

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Are There Any Videos on Your Site?

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Chad Barr

If my memory and a quick search on Google serve me right, YouTube was funded seven years go, or back in 2005. I am still astonished at how many of the sites I  visit, neglect to incorporate videos on the site and of the few that do incorporate such videos, most are done poorly or in an amateur way. This also (or perhaps especially) apply to individuals who speak and fail to incorporate videos on theirs site and especially on their speaking page.

Consumers consume content in a variety of formats. Some like to read, others prefer to listen while some enjoy watching. I would actually like to suggest that one may prefer all three methods at different times.

So with platforms such as Google (many others exist) available for years now, while audio and video technologies becoming omnipresent and economical, there should be no excuse for you not to incorporate such on your site and as part of your Internet strategy.

And while you are at it, keep them succinct, valuable and get to your points quickly.

© Chad Barr 2012. All rights reserved

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What Are The Top 5 Goals of Your Site?

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Chad Barr

Your Site should help:

  1. Strengthen your credibility, image and reputation.
  2. Increase your revenues, profits and the number of clients you attract.
  3. Make it easier for your clients to conduct business with you.
  4. Enable you to leverage it as an effective tool to consistently push value to your clients.
  5. Engage in conversations with your clients.

If your site does that, congratulations! Make sure you sustain that success. If not, perhaps it’s time to kick it up a big notch.

© Chad Barr 2012. All rights reserved

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It’s Not a Sales Problem You Have But a Marketing Problem!

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Chad Barr

I often hear people share with me that their business is not doing well, revenues are down and the prospect of new clients or projects is quite limited or nonexistent. What commonly then surfaces is not that they have a sales problem but a serious marketing problem. Actually a lack of an effective marketing plan is more like it.

So next time you are worrying about revenues and cash flow, I’d suggest you look at your marketing plan and in the event you don’t have one, I recommend you create one immediately.

Question for you: What do you find to be an effective marketing plan? Leave your comment here. 

© Chad Barr 2012. All rights reserved

 

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Finding and Attracting Your Prospects

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Chad Barr

Here is a question I’ve recently received from one of my colleagues from the UK: “In order to provide value to a prospect, first you have to identify one. How do you do that Chad? Do you identify companies who you would like to work with, or do you use marketing to attract prospects?”

When I first started my career, 25 years ago, I used to engage in the following marketing activities to attract my prospective clients:

  • Referrals
  • Networking
  • Purchasing databases of my target clients
  • Cold calling and mailing
  • Alliances
  • Word of mouth

Over the years, as the success of my business grew and with it: my global brand, number of clients, credibility and thought leadership, I’ve found the following to be my most successful marketing activities:

  • Speaking
  • Publishing (Articles, Blog, Books, Content)
  • Referrals
  • Alliances
  • Internet strategies
  • Monetization of products and services
  • Building communities

So the answer is that although I do identify the profiles of the clients I want to work with, I then engage in marketing activities that get these prospects to contact me or get referred to me.

© Chad Barr 2012. All rights reserved

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Posted in General Business, Marketing | 2 Comments

Have You SMACKED Your Clients Lately?

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Chad Barr

What’s your reaction when you get smacked across your face? Probably a sense of shock and surprise, right? I find many of the podcasts I listen to create the opposite reaction. They are boring, scripted, valueless and put me to sleep which is not the typical reaction I’d suggest from an effective business podcast.

So I have just created the following acronym to help you develop your own killer podcasts that your listener will love. SMACKED means:

Smile while you talk, which will make the podcasts fun and demonstrate that you are enjoying it as well. If you are having fun, there is a good chance your audience will.

Mobilize your listener to take action after the podcast, which will increase the chances of their success, which will entice them to want to come back and use you.

Assist your listener by providing powerful tips, ideas and best practices from your proven track record of success.

Converse with the listener in a way that makes it come across as a conversation and not an academic speech or script reading.

Knowledgeably demonstrate your competence to position yourself as an expert and a thought leader.

Enthusiastically speak your words to engage the listener and keep them excited.

Decisively deliver your message to create short powerful messages that generate powerful and definite results.

So when creating your podcasts, simply ask yourself: “Have I SMACKED my listener in a good way?”

© Chad Barr 2012 All rights reserved.

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The Million Dollar Consulting® accelerant curve

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Chad Barr

You create intellectual property, which generates credibility, which creates prospect interaction, which gains trust, which produces new business, from which you can generate new intellectual property. This sequence is accelerated by a credible website that is visitor-friendly and buyer-oriented.

© Alan Weiss 2012

As you can see in the “accelerant curve” illustrated above, your offerings should range from low barrier to entry (free downloads, inexpensive books) at a “competitive” position, through distinct (teleconferences, workshops), and on to breakthrough (individual coaching, trademarked approaches), and finally your unique vault (retainers, licensed intellectual property).

“Bounce factors,” such as books or online forums, allow your buyers to accelerate their relationships with you. When you have a strong brand, “parachute business” may enter directly into the right side of your curve, where higher fees and lower labor intensity actually coincide!

This is an excerpt from my new book Million Dollar Web Presence - Leverage the web to build your brand and transform your business, which I coauthored with Dr. Alan Weiss and published by Entrepreneur Press.

Additional Resources:

© Chad Barr 2012. All rights reserved

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What’s Your Internet Strategic Profile?

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Chad Barr

Take a look at this process visual and then please follow my instruction below:

The columns at the top indicate competitive (only as good as most of the competition), distinct (contains distinguishing features), and breakthrough (leading edge and state-of-the-art). Now take a look at the marketing gravity categories I have included on the left hand side. There are three things I would like you to do now:

First, review each of the rows on the left and then indicate where you think you are today, by placing the letter “T” in that box. So for example, is your content or intellectual property competitive, distinct or breakthrough? Where would you rank the design and navigation of your site and then, where would you rank your web site, your blog and the rest of the categories on the left? When you are done, you will have a vertical line drawn, diagnosing and indicating where you are today.

Second, for each of the rows on the left, representing the various categories, place the letter “F” indicating where you think you need to be in the future, in other words, where you need to be in the next 2 years. There are a couple of points I need to clarify. Although most may want to become “breakthrough” in each category, it is completely unrealistic to do so and would require unimaginable amount of energy. And stagnation or not doing anything, creates the gravity which actually moves you to the left. Obviously, not the desired direction to move in. Once you have completed this step, you would then have one line representing where you are today and one where you need to be in the future. That is your call to action. Start focusing by moving each of the categories.

Third, how would you rank some of the top, most successful, thought leaders?

Finally, when I present this diagnostic tool to my clients or to the audience during my speaking presentations, it is not uncommon to see them diagnose themselves somewhere between competitive and distinct with the majority of categories falling in the competitive side. Yet, they rank most thought leaders somewhere between distinct and breakthrough, which is also where most want to be in the future.

So here is to your remarkable transformation.

© Chad Barr 2011. All rights reserved

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Marketing Allure and Attraction

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Chad Barr

There is a profound difference between beating on prospects’ doors, trying to convince them of how good you are, and prospects coming to you, saying they’ve heard of your value and are curious as to how they can work with you. In the latter case, there is zero cost of acquisition and fees are seldom an issue at all.

The secret to building a strong community of quality supporters on the web is to engage in as much of the market gravity as you can. Our advice is to begin with those “spokes” most within your comfort zone, and drill down. For example, if webinars are your passion and expertise, then find the right firms, create the right content, and market to the right audience.

Move on as you implement each tactic to those outside your comfort zone by gaining expertise and resources. You needn’t use all the spokes (though many do), but if none of them is attractive to you, then you need to get a real job, because this one isn’t for you!

There is a powerful dulaity present in market gravity—you attract new clients and customers but also educate existing customers about the varying ways to do business with you. This works for both wholesale clients (corporations where one buyer can write a check that provides for projects engaging many people) and retail clients, where the individual consumer/user pays for himself or herself.

The more diverse your marketing efforts, the wider (and “stickiest”) your web. Some people enter becuase they want to purchase attractive products; others because they learn best through downloading teleconferenmces; still others becuase they read interviews; more because they popoulate YouTube.

Note that you draw people to you via both web-based and non-web based options, because you never can be sure about which buyer is more influences by which kind of gravity.

This is an excerpt from my new book Million Dollar Web Presence - Leverage the web to build your brand and transform your business, which I coauthored with Dr. Alan Weiss and published by Entrepreneur Press.

Additional Resources:

© Chad Barr 2012. All rights reserved

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The Longer The Sales Letter, The Shorter The Credibility

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Chad Barr

I admit, I’ve never been a fan of the long sales letters. I am sure you know those pages I am referring to. The ones that scroll down the page forever, with lengthy text that would take you longer to complete reading than reading War and Peace. The choice of colors combination is sure to make any rainbow envy, and as you scroll down the page, you see a bunch of video testimonials that make you wonder who in the world those people are, and what manipulation techniques have been used to get them on those videos. You also often get to see fictitious photos of their castles and exotic cars.

“But wait, there is more!”

Of course, they all promise you the decoder ring, the key guarantee to your future success, and all of this for a discounted price, if ONLY you were to act today!

For quite some time, I was hoping that we’ve seen the last of TV infomercials. Not only have I been disappointed but I have come to the conclusion that these sales letters are some web life permutation of these infomercials and another life form of spam.

So who do you think buys these pathetic offerings and who has been successful selling them? The answer to the former is the poor desperate consumer that believes there is a quick silver bullet approach to success or the affiliate wanna-be that hopes for a quick buck and offers this on his or her site. The answer to the latter are the few charlatans preying on these poor souls.

And by the way, do you know what is worse that these sales letters? The ones that incorporate videos to manipulate your emotions, and share with you how they overcame their terrible misfortune and built their success from ruins.

© Chad Barr 2012 All rights reserved.

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Posted in General Business, Marketing | 2 Comments