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Why Making Fast Decisions Quadrupled My Business This Year

“So are you ready to order now?”

It was the third time the waitress came around to our table. I could feel my cheeks turning red as I stammered, “Give me just five more minutes, I promise.”

True story, and we’ve all been there. But what about when it’s not a decision between rice or french fries, but rather a yes or no decision on something much more significant? Investing in something for your business. Investing in yourself?

Three years ago I had a tab open on my browser for weeks. It was for a membership program that cost $300/month and had all the necessary SEO training I needed to get my business started. I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for the damn thing. I believed in it, I had the money to pay for it, but something held me back. This was just when I moved away from home, and so out of desperation at 3 AM one night, I clicked purchase. If I didn’t make that decision three years ago, this blog and my business would not exist today, and I would be stuck in the same situation I was in then.

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14

3 Ways SEO Will Be Sold In The Future (And How To Not Get Left Behind)

As Gary Vaynerchuk puts it, marketers ruin everything. And I can tell you for certain that after speaking to hundreds of business owners over the years, some digital marketers have ruined the industry for one another.

Even though I often see businesses that have never let a marketer touch their website, the majority of sales calls I used to do included these objections:

I spent $20,000 on SEO with this other agency and we got no significant results. What are you doing differently?

Or

The last guy we worked with penalized our site. How do I know this isn’t going to happen again?

Or

Do you have any guarantees? I mean, I see your results and testimonials, but I have to pay you upfront for something I don’t even know is guaranteed to work…

My response: “Erm, well, we can’t guarantee something that is out of our control. Google changes everyday, but… we’ll try our hardest?”

*facepalm*

The truth is, they though of those objections for one of three reasons: Continue reading

5

How to Run Your Marketing Agency From A Smartphone (While Overseas)

I hope this post also explains my hiatus from the blog. I just got back from travelling Australia and New Zealand for 3 months (and California- does that count?), and this is what I have to report back… Enjoy and let me know your thoughts in the comments!

I like to travel. A lot. Sometimes my travelling puts me in a town, village, or a deserted farm without WiFi and where the locals don’t even know what an iPhone looks like.

The odd thing is that in most of these countries, they are advanced enough to have cell phone coverage and even 4G speeds. There are more cell phones than people on this planet. More Africans have access to cell service than piped water. The stats go on.

But it’s not always about the connectivity that will determine how successful you can be at this. It could be about the time, space, and location you’re in. For example, I spent 3 weeks travelling New Zealand on a bus and while I could technically pull out my laptop and tether from my phone, it would have been very uncomfortable and, frankly, pretty antisocial. There are also countries I would never pull out a sleek Macbook Air in because of safety reasons.

I spoke about running your business while travelling, but not quite like this. So if you ever find yourself in a similar predicament or if you’re just curious how to streamline your business to be able to run it from just your phone, here is a breakdown of my process including the exact tools and apps I used.

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7

When and How to Find Yourself a Business Coach (Sam Ovens Interview)

I had the pleasure of spending time with and interviewing Sam Ovens, who was actually my first real business coach and still is. We’re in the same industry, he is where I want to be, and he achieved all his success in under 5 years.

Enjoy the interview and make sure to leave your thoughts and questions for Sam in the comments below!

Sam’s Tip That Helped My Sales Process

The best way to get a verbal agreement and close the sale in the live strategy session is to offer an incentive. In the first call, the prospect stated that my prices were affordable, he saw the value, and needed SEO, yet there was no incentive for him to sign up right then and there. Even with a closing statement, it can open up objections as to why they can’t commit right then and there. They often will say “leave it with me and we’ll be in touch.”

What Sam suggested to me was to frame the call from the beginning as a sales call by letting the prospect know that they will have the opportunity at the end of the call to make a decision on whether they want to move forward with my services or not. Then, when it comes time to mention your prices and packages to the prospect, you list it out with your usual setup fees (do it anyways even if you don’t have one). Then offer the incentive by saying the following: “We found that our best clients were fast decision makers. We get them the best results and have the most fun together. Therefore as an incentive to you, the $1000 setup fee is waived if you make a decision on this call.”

I used that on my next call that day and landed one of my biggest clients in 20 minutes flat. It’s simple, to the point, and the people that say they don’t care about the setup fee are people that probably weren’t going to buy anyways. It takes time and money to followup with those people, and you can mention that to them if you want.

That’s about it! Go out and use that framing and incentive in your own strategy sessions!

5

Why My SEO Proposals Are So Different Than Yours

4

How to Find Any Business Owner’s Name (and Email) In Seconds

[Update 8/15/2016: This quickly became my top-performing post getting hundreds of visits a day. Because of it’s popularity, I was inspired to actually create a software that automates all of the processes listed below. Checkout ScopeLeads here!]

In my business we send a lot of physical mail and email to cold prospects in order to gain their business. It is a lot better than cold calling because you can stand out more (with physical mail), and you can scale better (with email).

The process usually starts with preparing a prospecting list. A list of potential leads that fits your “sweet spot” market criteria. The sweet spot could be a different post for a different time, but once you have the list is when you start to send out your marketing material.

However most of the time you’ll find a prospect online whose website or marketing sucks, and you know you can really help them, but the owner’s name isn’t listed on the site and his email is not there either. You need his name to make the mailer/email more personalized, and you need their email to actually send it to them as opposed to it getting lost with the sales reps!  Continue reading