— Innovation & Thinking For Business Development

An Important Reminder to "Make The Call!" AKA: Are you selling hard enough?

by David Bullock

The "Call to Action" is, unfortunately, often the bane of existence for most marketers, especially most content creators.

You create good content. You take the time, you know who your market is. You ask great questions. But you fall a little bit shy on closing the deal, for lack of a better term–getting the close. Your content shouldn't end with "Thanks for reading/watching/listening". It needs to instead always end with "Hey, I really want you to not just consume my information. I want you to love it. I want you to come back over and over again. In fact, I want you to pay me for it, so that I make revenue for this thing I love to do!"

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Is Your Best Business Tool…Your Phone? The Art of the Cold Call in a Web-Obsessed World

by David Bullock

This may sounds strange coming from an online marketing expert like myself, but sometimes…you really should forgo the online stuff and just pick up the phone.

Why? Because everyone else is using social media and blogs and trying to capture e-mail addresses and putting white papers out there. And very few are actually picking up the phone and communicating with another human, especially a high-level decision maker.

Now, THAT? Is a competitive advantage.
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Online profits are NOT all about Traffic & Conversion! What many business owners overlook…

October 5, 2011

For years, we have all heard the formula that states:

Traffic + Conversions = Income

But without first having a profitable and valuable offer, a business owner doesn't have anything to drive traffic towards. What's more, if you first focus on creating a valuable offer you will automatically know who the offer is valuable to…and who will actually want to listen to the offer. Only then will be able to best determine where and how to market.
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What Trends Up, Must Come Down

September 1, 2011

If you are in the consumer market, you may find yourself looking to satisfy a current fad, desire or trend.

And we all know how fads go: in one day and out the next. Fortunes are made and lost on following and investing in trends.

Trends affect companies large and small. Look at the SUV market in the United States. There was actually once a time where you had to wait for months to get your hands on an SUV! Now with fuel prices rising and the “green movement” becoming mainstream, hybrid cars have become the new hot thing and the auto industry is trying to adapt to the marketplace shift. If your business is built around the SUV, you should be thinking about diversifying your product and service line. (Heck, you should already have done so!)

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The B-2-Who Market? Which is really the easier sell?

August 30, 2011

At first glance, one would think that selling a $17.95 eBook would be far easier to pull off then selling, say, a $17,950 piece of machinery.

Or is it? Think about it.

No really, I mean think about it. You have to.

As a fledgling business owner, thinking about who you want to sell to (and why are they buying) needs always to be part of your research and planning as you enter the market. Even if you have already entered a business model or market, you need to look long and hard at who your best customer could be. Is it the end consumer…or might it be the middleman?
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Why I Don't Settle for less than 100% ROI Or – Never settle, ever.

July 23, 2011

Good enough isn't good enough. Not where I come from. Many business consultants and Internet marketers are born and bred into sales. Or into marketing.

Not me. I'm an engineer. I worked at a little company you may have heard of, called DuPont, as a product engineer. Then I went to Mobile Oil and finally onto a robotics company. Why am I telling you all of this? Because that background has programmed me to think a certain way. It's changed how I think, and most of all – how I TEST – as an Internet Marketer.

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Who Cares What You Think? – It's Always About The Buyer

July 21, 2011

I'd say it's like spying. But it's even more clever. Not devious…just clever.

Continuously testing your results, particularly from an ad response, isn't just spying on what your customer is going to do, it's actually getting inside their head and tapping into what their particular criteria is. What their specific "safe combination" is.

Once you know that? Once you know that magic phrase that triggers them to stop clicking around, and start reaching into their wallet? Well then it's on. It's time to make some real money.

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Pages & Pieces – Thinking Holistic…Doesn't Work In Testing

July 19, 2011

When I tell people that I can help them get exceptional conversion bumps – like 100% to 120% more – by testing, they often don't believe me.

They tell me that it's impossible and that there is no way they can possibly change their whole site enough to improve conversions that much. They figure I'm talking about changing their site into something completely, utterly different and that scares them.

But that's not what I mean. I don't mean that, in order to radically improve your conversion, you need to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater.' You only need to improve a piece here, an image here.

Let me explain what I mean

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It's Lonely (And Pricey) At The Top – Why I aspire to be #3.

July 16, 2011

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows me to be a guy who doesn't have a lot of patience. I will let a test run just long enough to verify if it's working or not, but not one moment later.

I yank things that aren't working. I don't let them linger and cost me. If something's not putting loot in my wallet, I quickly pull up stakes and try another test.
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When You Do It Right, A Website Not A Website.

July 14, 2011

Survey 100 business owners and ask them "What is a Website?"

Most will answer something along the lines of "It's my online presence." Others (usually old school brick and mortar guys) will call it "my digital business card." Tech heads might call it "A bunch of pixels."

But the really smart ones? The ones who are making money hand over fist and killing their competition? They consider their website to not be a thing that they have to pay for. It's not a necessary evil of the 21st Century. It's one of the most valuable things a business owner can have: it’s a conversation between him or her and their customer.