G’s Daily Dose

Occasionally the best way to find an answer to complete a project is to sleep on it.  Take a serious look at the project, what’s needed, what have you tried, and what could you try again tomorrow just before going to bed.

Then like magic, the moment you approach the project the solution you were looking for comes to you. No matter how much you thought about it yesterday, the answer wouldn’t surface, but today here it is.  So easy, so simple, how can this be?

The answer comes from deep in our mind, it was there all the time but filed away so well it was not easy to access in our current state of mind.

Sleep on it!

A few years ago I met Roy Spence.  An assistant of his handed us a book he had recently authored, and he autographed it for me.  It’s one of my favorite books, the title, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For.  Below the title is this statement, Why Every Extraordinary Business Is Driven By Purpose.

Roy is one of the founding principals at GSD&M an advertising firm in Austin.  Their success has been incredible, and the client list is one that we all know the names well.  GSD&M became outstanding in helping businesses, colleges, presidential candidates and states like Texas that had a passion for achieving a cause.  You may have heard the slogan, Don’t Mess with Texas.   This slogan alone impacted Texas dramatically cutting the cost of roadside clean up.  It’s still in use today, nearly 40 years later.

What do you sell?  What service or product does your company sell that makes a difference.  To have a product or service that you are passionate about makes all the difference when you set down to plan your marketing.  It’s why your product and services will be better than your competitions.  It’s also what will give you a real competitive edge.

It’s incredible though; I find most companies we compete with work very hard to stay mediocre.  They put enormous effort into doing so based on competitive cost.  Sadly, their focus is on competitive price, not on a better product or ways to deliver a better product at a better value.  It’s a vicious endeavor.

A dramatic turnover of sales staff then follows this the habit.  Why?  Because selling the average at a reasonable profit is difficult.

If you want a great business, an extraordinary company, make it a business of principals.

Stand for Something!

What is your “Small Business Advantage”?  To reach your target goals with your small business, you must have something to sell, an offer the big guys miss or do not provide.  It can be as simple as an artistic touch to your product or a level of excellence in your service beyond mass production capability.

Once you have that something, focus on marketing to the specific audience who appreciates your service or product’s advantage.  This something is your niche and your “Small Business Advantage.”

Take advantage by showing it off, talking about it and by creating captivating content, sharing it with colorful pictures, this will separate your business from the crowd, large companies included and it will be content they cannot duplicate.

Here’s the real edge, you get to charge more, often a lot more because you have a product or service that’s unique, outstanding or incredible.  Then when your product is beyond the imagination of others, it gets talked about in small circles of influence.  Once this happens, you’ve leveraged your marketing and multiplied your “Small Business Advantage.”

Here’s the sad truth, most of us as business owners, large or small believe building a website, creating content and then optimizing to be found by Google or any search engine is beyond our common sense ability.

In reality, most business owners and their key people have far more ability to build a great website, develop content that attracts the right customers and manage their SEO than website design and SEO teams could ever have.  Why, because the owners and key people in your business have specific knowledge and can focus on “Your Business.”

Not all, but most website design and content is a creation by the least expensive person perceived to be capable of handling the task.  These people produce content in such a generic way that you probably cannot tell if it’s your company or some other company they had in mind.  This type of generic content and unconcerned search engine optimization probably doesn’t help your company stand out.

As far as SEO is concerned, the company in charge of mine for years never took the time to explain the relevance of online reviews for Google searches.  I thought a five-star rating was as good as it gets.  The businesses with five-star ratings and fifty reviews far outrank businesses with five-star ratings and only six reviews.  Can it be any simpler than this?

Finding this out after years of paying these professionals to get results, paying them month after month, year after year, not even knowing the power of this simple search engine optimization strategy kind-a Stings!

There is no such thing as failure.  When we attempt and fail, it’s merely a result of a single attempt.  It may well be the result of a weak or half-hearted effort.

How many chances would you give a baby to walk or talk?  We wouldn’t after three attempts say, that’s enough, you might as well give up.  How many chances do we give ourselves when trying something new?

A weakness of mine was learning computers; how they work, the software seemed confusing, everything computer related was overwhelming to me.  I decided that needed to change.

From the perspective of I can fix most anything mechanical, I can solve most engineering issues within my former work, why not become able to resolve computer issues and learn most any software I choose?

That made all the difference.  Now, I enjoy computers and learning new software.  I enjoy finding ways to improve my computer skills and the speed I grasp things continues to grow.   It’s a mindset; the struggle was the lack of concentrated effort backed by a belief, the belief that I can.

If I fail at an attempt, I know it’s just a single result, I try again because it’s impossible to fail if I continue moving towards a better result.  A better result is a successful result, and with every small improvement, we get closer to our objectives.

It is Impossible to Fail!

To continue failing is easy, we know the path well.  Traveling a new road, creating new habits, not so easy, it’s not our habit.

When we start something new, and it requires effort on our part, it’s easy to turn back, not move forward, procrastinate and often abort the new idea altogether.  It’s not a part of us yet.  We do not own it.

Whether it’s an exercise program, developing a new way of eating or making a change in the way we do things at work, it can be a challenge.

To turn this new idea that requires effort into a habit, list the benefits and the objections, so you’ll know how they add up.  If it’s a good thing, something that could advance your well being, your business or career, commit and use the list daily as motivation.

Set a specific time, whether once a day or once a week, set a time that you do the task and create a ritual.

Continue to Fail No More.

What would it do for your business, your website or blog, if your content was too good to ignore?

Inspired by Steve Martin’s comment, “Be so good they can’t ignore you,” I found myself baffled why I allowed my business to have such pathetic online content for so long.  Then with a little reflection, the answer became clear.  I was unwilling to get personally involved, and as a small business owner, I could not afford the best commercial content writers.  The content sucked!  It was like the people who built my website and posted blogs didn’t know what we did, at least, not at the core lever where it counts.

My business online-presence was as generic as could be.  It was easy for people to ignore.  Optimization trickery got them there; they would click, look and move on!

That’s crazy!  Websites should be a clear reflection of our businesses.  Knowing this, I took the lead to build a better site.  I gathered photos of various projects, all the parts, and pieces then started figuring out how to create written content to match our work.

The website I built spoke volumes about what we’ve done and what we were capable of doing.  The “professionally built” ones, those I had paid for were not even in the same league.  In this case, the old saying is probably true, you get what you pay for, or is it?

The ongoing cost of a lesser quality website is difficult to calculate.  It’s not just the money you spend to keep it going; it’s the image you project of your company or business.  A poorly presented website could cost much more than you ever imagined.  It’s your image, it’s who you are online, and that’s the world’s view of who we are.

Here’s the real gold mine, with content so good they can’t ignore it, it’s out there, it’s in place, and it continues to bring top quality clients and projects to us forever.

Drive your business to be the business of your dreams with your website.  Could it be a simple as that?  Let’s explore the possibility.

First, you must picture perfectly in our mind, the business we want, picture it in every detail.  Now take a look at your current website.  How well does that vision of your business match what people see on your website?

For many small businesses, your website is to customers all they know about your business.  How does your business look to outsiders when they visit your website?  What products or services are highlighted on your website?  Does the content you display demand the dollars you’d like to be receiving?  Do the viewers want more from the way you present those products and services, more pictures, more information, more of what you sell?

Websites allow people to go shopping or find products or services that serve a need or want.  There are well over a billion websites and it’s the first place most people search for new ideas, product lines, services, and information.

The decision to request a quote, to request more information or just reach out and contact your business should be a natural progression from what they learn of your products or services and ideas from your website.

How well does your website help the world see the business you want?

Your business – your way!