More than a Few Words

#680 Blogging Takes Time

January 30, 2022 11:29 - 1 minute - 1.55 MB

Even for the most accomplished writer, creating an effective blog post takes time. This is especially true as the word count requirements have grown. Even if it is only an hour or two, over the course of the year, that adds up. As you are working on your plan, make a list of all the things which need to be done to make that successful. So how long does it really take to write a blog post? Research (1 hour) – Maybe you are writing from your own experience, but in many cases, you will nee...

#679 Every Entrepreneur Needs a Strategy

January 27, 2022 10:21 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MB

Small business owners never have enough time. There is always more to do than than a day a day it fits in a day's work. Guest, Alex Brueckmann believes a good strategy becomes your system to prioritize rigorously where you invest your time and also your money. Your strategy starts with an outline of what you want your business to be. A great business won't happen by accident. Writing down your vision makes it clear to you, your employees and your customers what your business is really abo...

#678 Don’t Feed the Trolls

January 25, 2022 11:01 - 15 minutes - 14.3 MB

It often feels as if the world is just a little nastier than it used to be with online attacks to individuals and businesses. Well it turns out that's not new. The internet has made it a little bit more visible, but history is filled with examples of public attacks on professionals, politicians and businesses. Jason Viovich thinks we can learn so much from how others have handled criticism and negative feedback throughout history. As you put yourself out there, you need to be prepared for ...

#677 Taste the Difference

January 23, 2022 11:49 - 1 minute - 2 MB

My husband loves scotch and it was on his bucket list to see where it was made. So several years ago, I found myself wandering through distillery after distillery hearing about malting, mash and wort, the importance of good water, roasting temperatures for barley and what yeast does to the mixture. At first I thought all the tours were the same. Then, I began to really listen to the tour guides, watching as each one puffed up with pride as they explained their point of difference, the one t...

#676 Happy Buying Brain

January 19, 2022 21:12 - 11 minutes - 11.1 MB

We like to think of ourselves as evolved creatures, but according to Felix Cao the primal brain is actually the place where the subconscious mind lives and that actually, influences up to 95% of our everyday decisions. The study of neuromarketing looks at how the brain is structured and how information physically enters the brain and use the biology to improve your marketing. Felix Cao is a neuromarketing expert and business growth strategist with over 15 years of sales and marketing expe...

#675 Take the Keys

January 16, 2022 11:50 - 1 minute - 2.16 MB

If I asked you where the keys to your house were, might take you a minute, if you're a little bit like me and put him down somewhere in the house, but within a minute or two, you'd know where your keys were. Why? Because it's important that you protect your home by locking your doors and having a set of keys with you. The same is true for your website, you need to know where the keys are to your website. And the keys are your domain name and your hosting passwords. And all too often I talk...

#674 Social Selling

January 12, 2022 11:08 - 11 minutes - 10.7 MB

As a business owner you are active on social media to do more than just make friends. You are there because you ultimately hope it will lead to sales. if you want to that to happen you need to do more than just hope. You need to take an active role, using the tools in an effective social sales process. This week, guest Patty Farmer describes social selling as a process to cultivate relationships that will lead to sales. To be effective you need to approach social media with the custo...

#673 Start with Your Castle

January 09, 2022 11:00 - 2 minutes - 2.94 MB

I am a fan of Walt Disney, not just his movies, but his vision and creativity as an entrepreneur. He understood the importance of a clear company vision expressed passionately through stories and ideas, not cold facts and numbers. When Disney started construction on Disneyland he worked closely with the construction crews mapping out every detail of the park. He envisioned a magical place and wanted everyone who came to the park to feel the magic from their very first step so he insisted t...

#672 Create Engagement on LinkedIn

January 04, 2022 11:00 - 11 minutes - 9.14 MB

LinkedIn can be an incredibly valuable resource for your business, but it won't work if all you do is post content telling l people how awesome you are with a link to your blog or website. If you want to actually drive results, you will need to focus on engagement. Our guest, Sam Moss shared some tips on how to do just that. Make sure this is where your customers and potential partners are hanging out. Create educational content for your prospective customers Assume the audience won'...

#671 Write Yourself a Letter

January 02, 2022 11:25 - 2 minutes - 2.27 MB

Write Your Goals Down As the new year begins, take a few minutes to think about your goals and what you want to accomplish in 2018. Dream big both personally and professionally. Maybe you want to lose weight, expand your team, launch new products, or close more sales. Be specific; do you want 5, 50, or 500 new projects. Write your goals down. There is lots of research which indicates even the simple act of writing your goals will help you stay on track to accomplish them. Visualize Success...

#670 -Three Questions to Define Your Ideal Client

December 30, 2021 11:00 - 10 minutes - 9.09 MB

Everyone talks about finding your ideal client. But how do you do that? Today my guest Tim Fitzpatrick of Rialto Marketing explains it can be as easy as answering three questions. Who do you enjoy working with, because why would you want to be in business and work with people who make us bang our head against a wall? Who are your most profitable clients? Surprisingly, this may not be the people who spend the most money. Your largest clients usually are not your most profitable because t...

#669 Define, Develop and Display

December 28, 2021 11:19 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MB

Your brand doesn't happen by accident. Our guests Tonya Eberhart & Michael Carr, partners behind BrandFace have created The 3 D Process for building your brand. Define - In the define stage, start with a look at who are your ideal customers, because you can't do business with everybody. If you try to help everybody, you'll just help yourself right out of business. Develop - In the development phase you need to start working on messaging and imagery to support the definition phase. It ...

#668 Conversion Optimization

December 26, 2021 10:52 - 1 minute - 2.1 MB

Why should you care about conversion optimization? When I ask business owners about their website performance, most can easily tell me how much traffic they get in a given week or month. Even if they don’t have the number top of mind, they can hop into Google Analytics, and in just a moment see exactly how many visitors viewed their website. They feel good if the number is increasing every month. While that is a nice thing to see it is not the best metric of how well your website is perform...

#667 Take Three Deep Breaths

December 23, 2021 11:15 - 11 minutes - 9.64 MB

If you own a business, you have stress. It seems to come with the job, but our guest Debra Sunderland suggests that your stress often comes from lack of clarity. She says the reason we have stress is because the small part of our brain called the amygdala, often referred to as the ego, wants to have all the answers in order to keep you safe. When it doesn't it sets off alarms inside of our body The first step is understanding at we don't have to let the ego or amygdala run us. Fearful and ...

#666 Blogging in 2022

December 19, 2021 10:30 - 2 minutes - 2.84 MB

I have been blogging since 2007. Back then blogging was popular among writers and geeks. I am not sure which I was, but I enjoyed the opportunity to flex my creative muscle on a site called More than a Few Words. Yes, before it was a podcast, it was a blog. The posts were short snippets of what I was thinking about at the time. Some of the content was funny, some of it was serious. There were thoughts about art, politics and occasionally marketing. Business blogging was in its infancy an...

#665 Escape the Hustle

December 16, 2021 11:01 - 11 minutes - 8.09 MB

If you are a small business owner, there is a good chance you feel a little bit like a gerbil on a treadmill. You're running and chasing the food, but you never quite catch it. Our guest, author Matthew Turner doesn't think it needs to be that way. In his new book Beyond the Pale, he explains that many of us think we own a business, but somehow it starts to own us. When you make a decision to work less, if forces you to think about who do you want to work with? If you have to choose a type...

#664 Bad Blog Posts

December 12, 2021 11:09 - 1 minute - 1.63 MB

We routinely tell business owners that great blog posts are an important part of their sales, marketing and SEO strategy. With so much riding on each and every post, it's tempting to push the sales element really hard. But that is exactly the opposite of what you should do. The hard sell is one sure way to turn off prospective customers. Think about the late night television commercials that scream at you at 3 am. Instead of making me want to learn more about their incredible claims to lose...

#663 Marketing Automation

December 09, 2021 11:00 - 12 minutes - 11.2 MB

Business owners who believe in rapport and relationship-building often think of automation as a bad word. This perception comes from the not really understanding how good automation words. Automation can be as simple as acknowledging a form fill, or as complex as a multi step campaign after an in person interaction. My guest, Richard Wall says a good automation campaign starts with a clear, but not too narrow, customer persona. The next step is to let the campaign evolve over time as ...

#662 The perfect time to send an email.

December 05, 2021 10:09 - 1 minute - 1.62 MB

Does it matter when you send out an email newsletter? People are going to read it whenever it lands in their inbox, right? Well, maybe not. There's a lot of research that suggests there actually is a best time of day and a best day of the week. According to studies by a number of different organizations, the middle of the week is actually the best time to send your email. The middle of the week is actually the best time to send emails with Tuesday, number one, Thursday, number two, and Wedn...

#661 - More than One Reason to Buy

December 02, 2021 09:03 - 11 minutes - 8.97 MB

You have probably heard multiple times you need to start your sales process by defining your niche because when you do, you can create more relevant content. But our guest Leon Streete, says just defining the "who" is not enough. The demographics only gives you half of the picture. The second part, which is usually the most important part, is to think about what is going on psychologically with your audience. Why is this important? When people make a buying decision, they make it first...

#660 Segment, Segment, Segment

November 28, 2021 11:49 - 1 minute - 1.76 MB

Everyone is not your customer. And while some people might become customers sometime in the future, there are some people who never will. Make the best use of your marketing efforts by narrowing down to a niche. Then, even after you have narrowed your market and created a well defined target audience, your customers are not all the same. Some are casual buyers and others are rabid fans. There are some only care about your sales and promotions, while others will be frequent buyers, regardles...

#659 Start in the Middle

November 25, 2021 11:59 - 17 minutes - 10.8 MB

Many "would be writers" think they should start with a title and let the story unfold. Our guest, Tina Bakehouse suggests starting in the middle. Begin by fleshing out the content in the middle. Once you are clear on the body of what you're writing it will inspire the title and the flow from beginning to end. While a good title will grab the reader's attention, the best part of any story is the conflict or twist in the middle portion, which carries the reader along on the ride with with ...

#658 Go Negative with Your Blog Titles

November 21, 2021 11:00 - 1 minute - 1.9 MB

If your blog titles don't grab reader's attention, they're not going to read your blog posts. While it might seem that people want to see something positive in these challenging times, surprisingly negative titles work better. Look at the newsfeed on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn. Posts with negative titles stand out and are more likely to be read, create engagement and be shared. So, I want you to commit to not boring readers with weak language in your subject line. If you start your b...

#657 Social Media is Personal

November 18, 2021 11:01 - 9 minutes - 9.35 MB

Ultimately, social media is a human platform. If we can read a story and we can relate to it, we're more likely to engage with that, we're more likely to comment on it, like it and share it. Our guest, Victoria Lee suggests in every single post you create, you want to relate that back to your own experience. She believes those personal posts are the top type of posts when it comes to creating content that gets the best levels of engagement. Even larger firms can be personal. The trick is t...

#656 Kiss Your Email

November 14, 2021 09:00 - 1 minute - 1.41 MB

As you plan your next email marketing campaign don't overwhelm customers with multiple offers. They won't spend the time reading all that text. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of research which proves the more choices you give someone, the less likely they are to make any decision at all. So if you want to create an effective email, make one compelling offer. Why? Think about kids on Christmas morning. When they see all the presents under the tree they freak out and don't know where t...

#655 Let Your Goals Flow

November 11, 2021 11:00 - 10 minutes - 9.81 MB

Goals are an important part of a successful business, but we often don't achieve them as quickly as we would like. Coach Cailen Ascher suggests business owners take a few lessons from yoga. They have these wonderful teachings around non grasping, and detachment, which often get misinterpreted, as being blasé about life. That is not the point. Think if it as goals with an open hand rather than a clenched fist. When we are running our businesses entirely from the ego from our humaneness, w...

#654 Don‘t be afraid of Negative Reviews

November 07, 2021 11:37 - 1 minute - 1.96 MB

You may not believe this, but negative reviews are a gift. They give you a chance to improve to change your customer perception, and maybe even be a hero. When someone writes a negative review, they're annoyed at your company, not you, so don't let it get personal. Instead, put yourself in the customer shoes and get ready to engage. Be sure to respond quickly to take control of your brand and the narrative. As you respond, be sure your answers are well written with good grammar and spellin...

#653 Why No One Reads Your Content

November 04, 2021 08:31 - 11 minutes - 10 MB

You spend hours creating content so you may be disappointed to discover that nobody's reading it. But it doesn't have to be that way. Our guest, Jonny Cooper shared three simple reasons content fails to deliver results. You forgot the ABC- Audience Before Content. Essentially, you need a clear picture of who you are writing for, before you start writing. Too often we start writing for a general audience. The result, the content doesn't hit home with anyone. You aren't tapping into their...

#652 Company Culutre

October 31, 2021 10:29 - 1 minute - 1.84 MB

Ask most small business owners what makes their company unique. And they'll tell you it boils down to the people and the culture. That great culture attracts more potential employees and clients. Now it's easy to maintain your culture when you have longtime employees. But it's much harder when you have turnover and rapid growth. How do you hold on your culture as your organization grows? It starts with clear well defined values. And this is more than just a mission statement you put in som...

#651 Overworking and Under-earning

October 28, 2021 10:00 - 10 minutes - 9.74 MB

There is a cycle business owners get trapped in as they start to spiral toward burnout. Coach Linsi Brownson says the first thing you need to do is recognize, you're not doing anything wrong. This is just a phase in your business. This is actually a really great moment to step back and realign the business, by going back to the drawing board and looking at three things: yourself, your business position and your operations.

#650 Humanize Your Facebook Page

October 24, 2021 10:09 - 1 minute - 1.79 MB

Are you frustrated by the lack of engagement and results from your Facebook pages? Maybe it is because you are treating Facebook like any other advertising platform, and not a social network. People come to Facebook to check in with friends, share a joke, trade a recipe or get a daily dose of inspiration. Contractors who invade the news feed with ads promoting coupons for clean and checks or air filters seem out of place in their news feed. So how do you get people to pay attention to you?...

#649 The Networking Quest

October 21, 2021 10:38 - 11 minutes - 9.67 MB

What would you learn in one hundred networking conversations? And how would those conversations change your business? That is what our guest, Chella Diaz set out to discover when she set a goal to have conversations with 100 smart, interesting women. About Chella Chella is passionate about empowering women to master their money skills. She helps women identify and release their money baggage, so that they are able to set and achieve their financial goals.

#648 Add a Caption to Instagram

October 17, 2021 10:15 - 1 minute - 1.42 MB

If you think Instagram is just about pretty pictures, you're really missing out on opportunities. Sure, a pretty picture is going to stop your audience in their tracks, but it's not necessarily going to be enough to start a conversation. Instagram allows you to use up to 2200 characters for your caption. So take advantage of the opportunity to engage your audience through words that complement the photo. Use your captions to tell people the story behind the photo, invite them to comment o...

#647 Find a Peer Group

October 14, 2021 10:01 - 10 minutes - 9.31 MB

When you collaborate with people you would, on the surface level think of as your competitors, it is amazing what happens You will discover your business is healthier, your mental status healthier and the tips and tricks and strategies that you uncover can completely change how you operate your business. What about the fear of competitors stealing your secrets? Our guest, Jon Tsourakis believes every business is like a fingerprint. Each business has their own unique way about going abou...

#646 Dumb it Down

October 10, 2021 10:36 - 1 minute - 1.56 MB

The other day, I got the nicest note from a prospect, who by the way is now a client. He said "The information you shared was valuable and easy to understand. Most of the folks we talked to try to wow us with technical crap and it becomes so confusing. You guys didn't , thanks!! " As a former school teacher, I was trained to break complex concepts into smaller, easy to understand elements. It seems that skill is an asset in my marketing consulting sessions as well. Too often subject matte...

#645 Energy Management

October 07, 2021 09:27 - 11 minutes - 11.3 MB

According to our guest, Ellen Goodwin, you can have all the plans in the world, manage your time, block out time for specific activities, but if you have no energy, you're going to be dead in the water. Without energy, nothing moves forward so today we explore how managing your energy is the actual the key to time management. Managing your energy relies on the four "P"s: Prepare, protection, proceed and prolong. Download a Guide to Phone and Cellphone Blockers. The guide is designed ...

#644 Cash Management

October 03, 2021 10:29 - 1 minute - 1.63 MB

I always say there are three days in the life of a project give me an emotional left. When I make the sale When I send the invoice When I get the check. The foundation of cash management starts with an understanding of how much money you have in the bank, knowing when the checks will arrive and how much you are anticipating in the next 30, 60 or 90 days? Those sales boost your numbers but what will your expenses be to deliver on those sales? One way to look at your cash management is ...

#643 Your Voice is Your Instrument

September 30, 2021 10:23 - 10 minutes - 10.6 MB

There, there's about seven different qualities that are highly associated with someone's credibility, trustworthiness and perception of leadership when it comes to vocal qualities. The research around this astounding. For example, Duke University did a study of almost 1000 CEOs. They found on the topic of pitch alone, CEOs who had a lower pitch to their voice, had more tenure, commanded larger companies had more perception of credibility and leadership. They also made more money, on aver...

#642 Who is Your Blog For?

September 26, 2021 10:00 - 1 minute - 1.59 MB

I want to ask you a very specific question. Who were you writing for? Now, if you have a personal blog and you're documenting the days of your life, you're writing for yourself. But if you have a business blog then you are writing with business objectives in mind. Those objectives are directed towards a specific audience and you need to write for them. So, are are you writing for your customers or are you writing for your referral partners who will pass the information on to your customer...

#641 Ecommerce Email

September 23, 2021 20:28 - 10 minutes - 10.6 MB

There are many elements in a successful ecommerce program, but email is at the top of the list. From simple promotional campaigns to event specific "flows" the trick is to send the right message at the right time. This week, our guest Ivana Radojevic talks about the four types of email you should include in your ecommerce marketing program 1) The Welcome Flow - a series of emails sent to new site visitors. Emails in a welcome flow generate a 86% greater click rate than one-time sends. ...

#640 You Focused Copy

September 19, 2021 09:04 - 1 minute - 1.69 MB

Long before I ever worked on my first website, I was developing brochures and direct mail campaigns for business owners. Many of the rules of good copywriting I learned back then, are transferable to a digital environment especially, great content is engaging and interesting to a reader when it's focused on them. So the trick as you're writing your web copy is to make sure you're focused on the client. One of the best ways to figure out if your focus is correct is to print out your web copy...

#639 The Marketing Path

September 17, 2021 01:52 - 11 minutes - 11.3 MB

As you drive down the road, you have to be ready to make small adjustments. The same is true for your marketing. This week's guests, Sharyn and Hank Yuloff, think you need to stop thinking about your marketing as if the plan was carved in stone. Instead, you should view it as a path that will need to be adjusted along the way. You need to keep your hand on the wheel, so you can make the small changes to your program as conditions change.

#638 A Crazy Idea

September 12, 2021 09:48 - 1 minute - 1.69 MB

When I started my career, I was full of crazy, innovative ideas which were routinely shut down by senior managers. I grew to hate hearing "That isn't how we do things" or "We tried that and it didn't work". When I left corporate, I assumed I was leaving the negative energy behind. Unfortunately, resistance to change is human nature. I haven't changed. I still throw out lots of crazy, sometimes half baked ideas. But the difference is when I hear one of those soul killing phrases, I have a d...

#637 Start Your Business

September 09, 2021 09:43 - 11 minutes - 11 MB

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation for business owners. MTFW is hosted by Lorraine Ball and features interviews with marketing professionals from around the world. In today's conversation, Mal MacCallion, discusses the common mistakes and challenges of starting a business. He says: 1) If it was easy, everyone would do it. 2) You need to start with a clear definition of why your business exists. Who you serve and what problem will you solve. 3) You need to set yo...

#636 What is the objective of your blog?

September 05, 2021 09:34 - 1 minute - 1.49 MB

You have a blog for your business, that is an important first step. But if you want to transform a good blog into a great one, there are several things you can do to improve your company blog, First you need to do is think about why you’re blogging. You need to identify very specific objectives for your blog. That will allow you to then measure the results of your activity to decide if this whole blogging thing is even worthwhile. Some potential goals could be increasing awareness of your...

#635 Omnipresent Marketing

September 02, 2021 10:18 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MB

According to our guest Sheri Kay Hoff, the trick with good marketing is to be everywhere, but show up slightly different so your message is relevant to your audience. Customers can smell a sales pitch a mile away, so you need to start a conversation with the goal of listening and helping, and earning the right to sell. It will take more time than jumping right to the sales pitch, but it will pay off.

#634 Meaning at a Glance

August 29, 2021 09:16 - 1 minute - 2.08 MB

The marketing minute is a shorter version of the popular More than a Few Words podcast. Instead of a conversation with a marketing professional Lorraine Ball shares a quick tip to start your week, My husband and I took a trip through Central Europe. In the span of two weeks we were in three different countries with three different currencies and three different languages. Neither my husband or I speak Czech, German or Hungarian. But we managed to navigate bus, train and boat transportation ...

#633The Reason for Being

August 26, 2021 09:20 - 11 minutes - 11 MB

More than a Few Words is a Marketing Conversation for Business Owners. Why does your business exist? If you answered to make money, you are missing the point. That may be why your own a business, but the business exists to create value for your customers. As you define your reason to exist consider, the value you create, who you create it for, and what the customer will ultimately do with your product or service. Mike Wittenstein says those three elements comprise your "reason for b...

632 Productivity Hacks

August 24, 2021 09:37 - 10 minutes - 10.8 MB

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation hosted by Lorraine Ball featuring brief interviews with entrepreneurs and marketing professionals from around the world. This week, chats with Tracy Brinkman about productivity hacks you can use to take control of the chaos in your day. Time Blocking: If you have a task, that is high priority make a date with yourself. Block out time as if is an important meeting, maybe an hour or so, and don' let anyone cut into that time. Stop trying...

#631 - Your Website is Your Best Salesperson

August 22, 2021 10:54 - 1 minute - 1.67 MB

Did you know that 57% of all purchase decisions are actually made before a customer ever talks to a supplier. Think about that! More than half of the people who pick up the telephone to talk to you have already made up their mind to do business with you. That's good news, but the question is, how do you get more people to call you? And how do these people make up their mind before they ever talk to you? The answer is your website. They go to your website and to the websites of your comp...

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