Articles

Reaching customers outside of your target audience

By Keith on April 17, 2019

Here’s a question from a reader: “Could you create an article about reaching customers outside of your typical bucket?” The reader is wondering: how do you reach prospects outside of your typical target audience? My take on this is: Why would you want to? What’s the reason why you’d like to get a different type […]

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Always use a branded email address

By Keith on April 10, 2019

If you’re not careful you can get scammed on Craigslist – but I bet I don’t have to tell you that. One common scam deals with buying used cars from a private seller. A buyer will find a car on Craigslist, go out to see the car and when they look closer find that there’s […]

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Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Give Away a Free Sample of Your Services

By Keith on April 08, 2019

It seems counter-intuitive: you give a potential customer a free sample in order to get them to spend money. Why would you want to spend time on a free offering when you could be working on business for paying clients? Yet the notion of giving a “freebie” is actually a powerful sales tool, regardless of […]

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Where’s the best place to hide a dead body?

By Keith on April 05, 2019

On the second page of Google. I love that joke. It’s funny because there’s some truth behind it – 75% of people will never scroll past the first page on a Google Maps search. This means that it’s much less likely somebody will find your site if it isn’t listed on the first page. You […]

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The 8 Words Texaco Used to Increase Sales

By Keith on April 03, 2019

In the 1930’s, back when gas stations still had attendants, Texaco experimented with different methods to increase their oil sales to car owners. Attendants were instructed to ask the following sales question to each customer: “Did you check your oil today?” Using this sales line, Texaco was able to sell some oil, but most people […]

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What George Clooney Can Teach Us About Marketing

By Keith on April 01, 2019

George Clooney is one of the most well-known and successful actors on the planet. But he didn’t start out that way. His first years in Hollywood were brutal, he got rejected over and over at every audition he went to. Each audition he’d go into he’d nervously think to himself: “God, I hope these guys […]

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How often should you redesign your website?

By Keith on March 29, 2019

At some point you’re going to wonder when it’s time to redesign your website. No matter how much maintenance you put into your site, eventually it’s going to be an antique from the past. Ah, the joys of website ownership – a website is just like owning a house, the “work” is never done. But how […]

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Logical thinking can hurt your website

By Keith on March 27, 2019

As humans, we love to boast about our intelligent, super-evolved brains. It doesn’t feel like we’re primal animals anymore. Even after millions of years of evolution, we humans still rely heavily on urges, impulses and emotions when making decisions. That’s right, all of that smart research and planning you did before you bought your last […]

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Find out what people need from your website and make it easy to find

By Keith on March 25, 2019

I think can predict the future I’m going to pull out my crystal ball and make a prediction. The next time you visit a restaurant’s website, you’re going to be looking for one of three things… It’s going to be some combination of: 1 – Location 2 – Menu 3 – Hours That’s my prediction, […]

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Fail Fast: One advantage small businesses have over larger competitors

By Keith on March 22, 2019

List reader Brian had a thought in response to Wednesday’s letter about failure in business (shared with permission): “A very popular keyword in startup culture is ‘fail fast’. It can be applied in almost all situations and it works at any business level, high or low.” “Failing fast” is something that I try to incorporate […]

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Repurpose your unused business materials

By Keith on March 18, 2019

As I was driving from my parents’ house over the weekend, I went by a house with a handmade sign in the yard that said: “Topsoil for sale” Makes sense, the homeowners dug up the ground for some project, they don’t need the dirt, so they’re selling it. It reminded me of a business concept […]

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“You” statements vs. “I” statements on your website

By Keith on March 15, 2019

Every networking event I’ve ever been to feels the same – a room full of people looking to sell themselves. The worst type of person at a networking event is the person that introduces themselves and then immediately goes right into their sales pitch… “Hi I’m John, I’m a web designer. I’m great at making […]

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