I recorded this audio for the benefit of my 30 Days to Profit group (a free beginner’s business builders course available at the top of our home page ). After sharing it with them, I decided it might be something that could benefit many of our readers. If you want to know more about Facebook Marketing and a few of the reverse engineering techniques I use, give it a listen.
In the quest to seek beneficial advice and meaningful input, you may find yourself vulnerable to bad advice. As a career-oriented individual, you know the value of seeking the input of others more experienced than yourself, but you must be able to effectively filter out what is actually good advice and what could have a negative impact. If you own your own business or are preparing for a jump into entrepreneurship, you may not have a team of people to bounce ideas off of and work through difficult situations. When the need for advice arises, don’t hesitate to get the support you need — just be sure that you are going to the right source.
Friends and family love and support you, but they may not be the best source of financial or business-related advice. While these people may offer input and provide you with a compassionate, concerned sounding board, be very careful about following the advice of people with no experience or a limited business background. While no advice can be frustrating, bad advice can be detrimental.
Advice from other entrepreneurs or successful business people can be a great resource, but be wary of the person who is overconfident. Simply because one scenario played out successfully does not mean that yours will have the same result. When a person is adamant that you follow exactly what he or she did, chances are, you are not receiving advice, you are receiving a list of instructions that may not actually be relevant to your situation.
Be wary of advice from individuals who may have conflicting interests, who have no financial or business acumen, or who have no practical experience in what you are dealing with. Most advice is offered with good intentions, but always use common sense and your instincts when receiving input or advice. If you are in need of guidance, be very specific about what you need. General advice sounds nice, but you need pointed, specific solutions and suggestions in order to resolve your situation effectively. Go to the right source, be smart and use common sense, and you will be able to sift through the not-so-great advice to find the real nuggets of wisdom.
By Meagan Kerlin for Vertu Marketing
It seems like everywhere I turn, there’s another ad for funnel this and funnel that. And I have to be honest, I’m getting a little bit tired of the massive level of complication that has been put into teaching a subject that really shouldn’t be all that complicated.
Every successful sales funnel has three things in common and as long as your sales funnel incorporates these three things, it won’t matter what your landing page looks like, it won’t matter what opt-in form you use, and truthfully it won’t matter what industry you’re in, you will see results.
Do some landing pages work better than others? Yes. Absolutely. But by and large, any example of a successful landing page you see online can be readily replicated (I should clarify, a successful landing page you see online could be used as inspiration for building your own unique landing page. Do not plagiarize another persons work). And, let’s just face facts, it wouldn’t be an online example if it weren’t a successful landing page. You do not need to make it an integral part of some complicated process through which you develop 80,000 steps for funnel building that you will finally be able to launch in the year 2027. It really doesn’t need to be that bad.
For beginners especially, I suggest a simple funnel to start with — 3 to 4 steps maximum is a good rule of thumb when you’re new to the funnel building process.If you want to use some point-and-click funnel builder, then that’s fine. But do keep in mind that it is not necessary.
The take away for today is that funnels do work, they need not be painful or stress provoking, and the most important thing is that you take action. Taking action on a simple funnel today will offer more rewards than struggling through some complicated funnel building process and waiting months before ever taking something live.
Leadership is not a skill only reserved for those in a position to make an impact in the classroom, on the football field or the nation’s capital. Business owners, managers and entrepreneurs are leaders in their own right, but the need to develop this essential skill is often pushed to the side, long forgotten in favor of management skills, improving profits or navigating the nuances of Facebook marketing. There is not only a need for strong leadership in the business world, as it is one of the key components of successful individuals and companies.
If you are a boss, a shift manager, supervisor, entrepreneur, small business owner or fit into any role in which you find yourself with a measure of influence over your coworkers, you are a leader. In the right situation, leaders can boost morale or destroy motivation, encourage people to work toward a common goal or incite division, encourage or tear down, secure success or cause failure. It is no small thing to be a leader, and in the business world, it is a skill that should be encouraged, cultivated and revered. Strong leaders build strong businesses, and strong businesses are successful businesses. If you want to practice incorporating stronger, more consistent leadership practices in your day-to-day tasks, try implementing a few of the following:
Encourage others to use their strengthsLeaders are not perfect people. Leaders are people who make themselves better and positively influence people around them. They innovate, set daring goals, lead the charge and, in business, they bear the responsibility to move a company in a positive direction.
If you are a leader, be a good one, no matter the capacity in which you find yourself leading. Work hard to improve your skills and strengthen your influence. Don’t settle for the status quo or “just okay” — leaders look ahead, meet challenges head-on and add value to their sphere of influence.
I get the same questions from many aspiring business people every.single.day. and THIS program offers answers to all of them. And it’s free. FREE I tell you! Thus, we invite you to take a short educational journey into “The Land of Awesome” with a clip from the program. This “Sneak Peak” has been brought to you by 30 Days to Profit! Get access to the full course by filling in the form on our home page here: vertu-marketing.com
“Loving the modules so far, thank you, never been so clear about what my business does and who it serves. It has made me realize I have been marketing the business wrong.”
And, “I love the way you explained target audiences with day 2, it has always been something I have struggled with…”
This program is designed for no other purpose than to SERVE YOU. No strings, no pitches, no bull. It took me multiple screw-ups to learn what works and what doesn’t — wouldn’t it be easier to avoid many of those mistakes to begin with?
P.S. It’s free.
P.P.S Did I mention it’s free?
Customer loyalty is much more than customer service, and it is not about enticing people to patronize your business multiple times. Loyalty is built through connection, a sense of comfort and community. And, in the same way that people are loyal to friends who they love and trust, people are drawn to companies that are honest and focused on the needs of customers.
The loyal patronage of customers is a critical component of longevity in the business world, especially for businesses with a daunting amount of competition. Effective marketing is important, but loyalty has very little to do with how well your commercials or Facebook ads connected with a potential customer — it has a lot to do with how you make people feel. Simply put, if you can make people feel good about the outcome they are receiving from your business, there is a greater chance of return business. Care about what people want, and help them get it.
In a world full of entitled individuals and social media whining, the thought of simply “giving people what they want” may make you bristle. It’s okay. This is not to say that you must bow to the whim of every client demand, but you must have a strong focus on achieving positive results for clients. In today’s world, many people want relationships and results more than they want tangible goods and products — worry less about the sale and more about the person to whom you are selling. This is the most effective way to build customer loyalty in a saturated market.
Be an expert in finding workable solutions. Study the art of finding positive solutions for every customer. Care about the value that the client will receive from the transaction. Dominate a competitive market and build customer loyalty by following this simple rule: put people first.
I had a fabulous conversation about leadership yesterday, and it got me to thinking that, although the subject of ‘leadership’ is part of my day-to-day conversation, I rarely write a training article on it. So today, I want to tell you what I’ve learned about leadership over the last few years. Most of you will have heard these things before, but hearing and doing are two very different things.
They’re in everything; every church, every company, every school, every home and even every prison yard.
But here’s the thing, there’s a fine line between good leadership and well, Hitler (eek). That’s why it’s important to know the difference between what makes a good leader good — and why bad leaders are bad.
I figured out, truly via trial by fire, that even though I have a natural drive toward leadership, I am NOT skilled in handling all the aspects of leadership in a business environment.
It took me a few years, but I finally learned that, to be really good at leadership, I needed to admit that there were things I simply didn’t do very well. One of those is managing the day-to-day needs of my staff. I 100% care about my people, above anything else, but because of my visionary mindset and the necessity that I focus on the “big picture” in order to grow my business, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t give people the individual attention they deserved.
Once I admitted that I was sucking at it, it was easy to see the solution.
A manager.
I hired arguably the best manager ever – he’s absolutely perfect for his role and he is WONDERFUL at doing the thing I was doing so very not wonderfully.
Whether you’ve been thrust into a leadership role, or you’ve come into one organically, you CAN be good at — it may take some mental renewal, but you CAN. And good leaders inspire epic change and epic change is the stuff beautiful tomorrows are made from.
Meetings, in all their various forms, are one the main components to doing business. Whether it’s a conference call, lunch meeting or staff gathering, it’s important to use valuable face-to-face time effectively in order to establish connections and pass along pertinent information. If you don’t do meetings well, it could likely impact how well you do in other areas.
Fortunately, it’s possible to improve communication skills in order to make the most out your opportunities for personal interaction from others. Whether you are outlining new strategies with your staff, trying to make a sale over lunch or hosting a teleconference, be intentional and be smart with your time and theirs — better meetings lead to better business. Implement the following when trying to improve this area:
It takes discipline to change your approach and mentality when it comes to meetings, but it is always beneficial to improve communication skills whenever possible. Improved sales and better time management and more are just a few of the beneficial byproducts of better meetings. There is no room in your business plan and entrepreneurial goals for disorganized, last minute or poorly run meetings. Improve the way you do this one thing, and you will find that improvement is added in multiple other areas, including your bottom line.