No matter how we cross paths, the result is always the same. Nothing happens.

Who am I meeting? Business owners that – by outward appearance – seem to want to grow their business.  I find them all over.  Chamber meetings, conferences, classes, meetups, you name it.  They are there to learn about growing their business.

But they don’t take the steps to actually grow it.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying- There are three types of people: Those that watch things happen, those that make things happen and those that say “What happened?”.  I call them Wishers, Fishers and Dishers.

The Fishers

From time to time a meet a fisher – a small biz owner (usually a one-person biz) that would like their business to grow.  Usually they are timid, afraid, and only want their business to grow in very small increments, under the right circumstances, with only the right clients.

The fishers are after very specific fish.  They spend a lot of time fishing and not nearly enough time building.  Fishers may simply not have the energy to grow bigger, but I think it’s usually a lack of confidence in what they do.  Or a fear of growing.  Sometimes they hand out flyers, maybe spend a few bucks here and there on a random marketing campaign (an ad in a local paper, postcards or maybe sponsoring a small local event) but they never really take the steps to start the process of dominating their industry.  They have the fishing pole hooked, baited and ready to go but they never seem to cast the line and catch a big one.  Or any one.

The Wishers

Most often I meet wishers – people who wish their business would grow.  They attend chamber meetings, conferences and all that other stuff.   They take a lot of time to pull in small revenue and small clients, mostly by accident.  The Wishers spend a lot of time wondering why their competitors are doing well.  They see great ideas but never act on them.  They find niches just begging to be marketed to and they don’t do anything about it.

The Wishers are the worst.  There are wishers in your industry, just wishing their days away – and unfortunately they are your competition.  Even worse – if a customer meets them first, and gets a bad impression (which they most likely will), they’ve probably made your job a little harder.  They leave a bad stain on the industry, no matter what it is.

I’m not a fan of wishers, because they only have themselves in mind.  They’re there for themselves and that’s usually it.  They’re pretty easy to spot and I avoid them at all costs.

The Dishers

Meeting a business owner that is excited about what they’re doing is awesome.  They’re amped about what’s going on with their business, how they’re moving forward and how their revenue is growing.  It’s instantly recognizable.  They have a confidence about them – they don’t back off on their pricing, they don’t beg for your business, and they don’t spend a ton of time sweating the small stuff.  These people are fun to be around and are genuinely interested in listening to their customer feedback so they can grow and evolve their business with the times.

I like to call them Dishers because they are always dishing out, pushing forward, learning new things and testing the edges of their business savvy.

I rarely meet a disher, but when I do I lock on and learn.  Their energy is awesome and their passion always rubs off.

Dish it out, baby!

I’ll be honest with ya – if you’re a wisher or a fisher, maybe you’re in the wrong industry.  If you aren’t excited about what your business is doing and where it’s going, maybe you should quit.

Or maybe you should fire it up.  Quit going to meetings just because it’s the robotic thing to do.  Go to help others grow. Share your experiences, tips and give away free advice.  Be a Go-Giver.  Get off your duff and go make something happen today that’s actually going to change your bottom line, even if it’s six months from now.

Dish it out.

I was surprised to find so many businesses taking part in the Chamber meeting. Several people who had taken my classes were there, so it was nice to see some familiar faces from the get-go.

The meeting included a lunch served by the people at Ponderosa Restaurant and a drink (water for me).  There were a few announcements along with the opportunity to introduce the guests (me and many others).  I met some nice people and had a good time.

Apparently normally the Chamber has a guest speaker at most of their meetings, however this one backed out, so they decided to do a ‘topic’ instead, and this months topic was Marketing Your Business.  Right up my alley, or so I thought.

The first speaker was from DDI Media, a local billboard company.  She promoted her billboards and told of her pricing schedule.  No mention of  ‘marketing’ tips.

Second and third were salesmen from local newspapers.  They talked about their great subscription base and blurted out their inflated circulation numbers, all in an attempt to get more advertisers.  No mention of marketing tips.

Can you see where this is going?

Next up was supposed to be the ‘Welcome Wagon’, a company that puts (imagine this) ads in a little packet that they give out to all the people who apply for residency permits.  No mention of marketing tips.

Last was the good ‘ole Yellow Book.  This lady was even worse than the others.  She simply read from a flyer that she had handed out and told the business owners about all the great things that YB does.  She mentioned (incorrectly) Pay to Click, and Search Ads, although I guarantee I could talk circles around her about her own product.  It was funny to watch her read what she was selling when it was obvious that she didn’t know jack squat about it.

So, since there was no mention of actual marketing tips (the “topic” of the day), I’m going to simply pretend like I was asked to also speak.

“Thank you for this opportunity.  I’d like to share with you seven tips that you can go back to the office and do today that will help increase your business revenue.

1. Add your business to Google Maps.  Take the time to put in as much information as you can, including your products, services, hours and what kind of payments you take.  Add information on what you do, how well you do it, and verify your address through Google’s verification system.
2. Start asking customers to write reviews about your business on Yelp!, Mixx, and other local-based websites.  Don’t fake the reviews yourself, or ask your relatives to do it – those are too obvious.
3. Set up a blog on your website, and publish something each week (at a minimum).  Listen to your customers, and use their questions as fodder for your upcoming posts.  Blogging for business can lead to very nice ROI.
4. Get a Twitter account, and start posting daily messages about your business.  Don’t be boring, post things that people will find interesting. Link your account to your website, and set up an account through twitterfeed that automatically posts your new blogs.
5. Start tracking your website visitors.  Add Google’s analytics program to your site and learn where people are finding you.  Do you know how many people call you because of your website? …which brings me to number six…
6. Consider getting a call tracking service.  Call tracking lets you get separate phone numbers for each of your marketing campaigns.  You can then track that campaign and literally tell how well or poor it did.  Doing a direct-mail campaign? Get a phone number that only shows up on your mailer. When people call, you’ll know just how that campaign did.  And it’s not expensive.
7. And lastly, consider attending a seminar on Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  You’ll be blown away by the amount of things you can do online that can increase your bottom line beyond what you ever thought possible.  There are competitors of yours out there who haven’t heard about SEM yet, but when they do, you’ll be sorry you didn’t get to it first.

Ok sure, some of this may be self-serving in a roundabout way, but hey at least I’m giving real marketing tips.

I look forward to future Chamber meetings, and the topics they’ll cover in the future.  I could definitely use some education on things like accounting and such, so I’m sure it will benefit me in the long run.

I bargained with life for a penny
And life would pay no more
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store

For life is a just employer
He gives you what you ask
But once you have set the wages
Why, you must bear the task

I worked for a menial’s hire
Only to learn dismayed
That any wage I had asked of life
Life would have willing paid.

For those of you just getting started in SEO / SEM consulting, listen up.

Earlier this year I partnered up with a business colleague to do some revenue share for him.  Basically it was this: I do SEO for him and I get a percentage of the revenue that the website creates.  I actually do this for several local businesses, but I’m not sure that it’s the best option.

While small businesses love to ‘partner up’ with other business owners, I’m really having second thoughts about doing this in the future.

Here’s the deal.  You offer a great service, one that can propel a business (literally) into a new revenue stream. You have the know-how and understanding to create wealth.  And wise small business owners will see this and want it.  However, most small businesses lack one thing – money.  While this isn’t always the case, it has been my experience that a lot of small business owners want a lot, particularly things they can’t pay for.  Of course, who wouldn’t.

If I owned a coffee shop, and in came a guy with a laptop, having meetings, talking to business owners, I’d want to know what he offered.  I’d want him to market my business.  But I’m just a little coffee shop owner, I don’t have that kind of money to throw at marketing.

Just a word of advice – RUN!

My wife often tells me that I’ve got this soft spot for people in a pinch.  For some reason I feel bad when I see a business owner struggling, and I want to help.  I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes – perhaps they’re really bad at accounting.  Perhaps they are funding useless causes.  Perhaps they have no idea what’s going on at all in their business.  Whatever it is, all I see is the outward sadface, and I offer to help.

Most often she’s right (dammit!).  She sees me working for these people ‘in hopes of a future return’.  She sees the kids wanting new this and that, and she sees me working away, but the bank account doesn’t increase.  I can’t blame her for getting aggravated.

So if you’re good at SEO, and you know it, don’t fall for these things.  You offer a damn good product, quality advice and the power to increase sales.  Don’t let it go for cheap.

Disclaimer: There are plenty of reasons to help out a small business.  I am in no means telling you to avoid these altogether – rather I’m telling you to be wise.  If you have a friend that needs help, throw him some link juice. Do a small link building campaign. But don’t go overboard just to prove yourself.  If you want to do that, do it on your own website, not someone else’s.

• How understanding SEO basics can increase your readership numbers
• Why sploggers want to steal your content (and how it can affect your bottom line)
• Why businesses are hiring full-time bloggers
• What the long tail is (and how knowing what it is can increase your blogs revenue)
• Some of the latest changes Google has made and how they can affect your rankings

Oh, we’ve got lots more, including a nice list of resources that will help our audience get more traffic, more effectively promote their blog, or make more money from their website.  And we’ll be taking questions from the audience!

The panel will be just one of many Interactive sessions to attend this week in St. Louis at the Play:StL festival. Some of the other sessions (some of which sound pretty cool to me) include Cyberbullying, Business and Social Media, and even one on the dreaded CSS (yukk!)

Get a wristband for the festival at a host of local places, and half your money will go to LiveFeed.  If you come the SEO panel, please take a moment to introduce yourself, I’d love to meet you!

http://www.derekchew.com/

Not much time for checking things out.

But his mention of the conference brought up a few great ideas that I think can catapult his website to an entire different level, if only he had more time. So next year, I told him to invite me along, and let’s plan on spending a full two days or so there. Here’s what we’ll do:

1. Take along a video camera. We will shoot everything from walking in from the parking lot to our walk around the convention itself. That video will go on YouTube with the appropriate tags. Then we’ll post a link to it on the client’s website.
2. We’ll set up interviews (just short 5 minute ones) with various vendors. We’ll ask them about their new products, ask them why they think they are the best, etc. These interviews will each be posted separately and will have their own ‘content page’ on said clients site, complete with interviewee’s and manuf/vendors name. We’ll use it to rank for local terms and vendors names that we don’t even sell.
3. For vendors of products that the client currently sells, we’ll videotape someone ‘testing out’ the mattress or bed, and then we’ll ask them what they thought. The good responses will go on the website as additional fodder for that particular product.
4. We’ll hand out tons of business cards for my client. You’d be surprised how many people we’ll meet that will check out his website a few days later, and will be highly impressed at the work he’s doing. Some of them will call my client, and he’ll gladly refer them to me. Bonus.
5. There are bloggers at every convention.  Scope them out and get a quick interview if possible.  Tell them you’ll have a full write-up of the days events on your clients’ site.  Hand them a card. They’ll link to your stuff.  Yummy industry-related links!
6. Speaking of write-ups, we’ll do one for each major ‘event’ that takes place at the convention.  If there are special seminars on certain items, we’ll attend the ones we can and do a summary of what happened.  Naturally those things will become linkbait, or sorts, for other Internet-savvy people that were at (or wanted to attend but couldn’t) said convention.

The next time you talk to your SEO clients, ask them about industry-related conventions. Go to it with the thought of promoting their business as well as gaining tons of free content that is available. Since 85% (I’m guessing here) or more of the vendors at conventions aren’t focusing on SEO (they’re hoping to sell their widget), they’ll be more than happy to spew on and on about it. Get it on tape and let them spew.

There’s big money in those conventions. Even while you’re there promoting your client, people will ask you who you are. “I’m Will Hanke, an Internet marketer. I’m here with John Doe and am helping him promote his widget store”. You’ll be handing out cards too, I promise.