My good friend Michael Todd threw down this challenge (Above) on facebook yesterday. The point Michael (Who is an exceptional Twitter Coach) was trying to make is that most people get on Twitter with nothing but self promotion in mind. So they jump in boots and all, and start blasting out their message like so many so called experts tell them they should and then wonder why they aren’t inundated with inquiries about their products and services.

I will let Michael explain his train of thought further…

“Cool Adam. Supporting your competitors in public adds credibilty and brings goodwill to your industry. Bad mothing each other has the opposite effect
How many people who started Twitter and then gave up actually gave it 2 hours a week for say 3 months??
And even if they did how much of that time did they spend promoting others rather than simply promoting themselves??”

What unfortunately happens next is that they end up in the scrap heap of twitter user’s  that fail and quickly dismiss twitter as a complete waste of time and effort.

But what if they took another approach?

The approach above that Michael suggested!! Instead of  using the the self promotion model like a bull at a gate, they started out (on twitter) actually giving something first. Expecting nothing in return!! Do you think that this might have a greater impact impact on their success with twitter??

When I first talk to business owners about any social media medium, I always explain to them that these platforms like twitter are a  far more powerful tool when it is someone else using them to promote your business instead of you using it for self promotion.

Now I am a big believer (Largely due to advice from my Father) that I can’t just tell you to go out and do this with your business unless I am prepared to do it myself. Before I moved into supervision/management positions Dad gave me this one piece of advice that has worked over and over again and I have built my whole people manangemnet skills around. Are you ready for it? It’s highly complex! Those of you that know me know I don’t do complex, as I believe KISS is far more effective. Dad said to me…

“Never ask someone to do something that you wouldn’t be prepared to do yourself”

That’s it, nice and simple! But guess what? It works!!!!

So that is exactly what I am going to do today thanks to my Dad’s advice and Michael’s challenge. Below are the people that I interact with on Twitter and Facebook, people that have been a huge support to me and that I can always rely on for advice and encouragement.

Social Media cross promotion particularly for small location based business is already vitally important, and is going to continue to be so well into the future IMHO. I have been exceptionally lucky to have found or been introduced to some truly very generous individuals both through Twitter and Facebook  and I can’t keep them a secret from you any longer! Please just let me make one more point  that really stands out with all of these guys….

They all have a very clear core message, so that when you check them out you know exactly what they do and how your business is going to benefit from using their products and services. Anyway enough with the text the best way for me to introduce them to you is to review all of their sites on the video’s below. I will also post links to their websites and twitter profiles below.

Remember these guys are the best of the best and I have no hesitation in recommending any of them to you!!!

Cheers Beanie

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HaGMoFxe70

Find Michael on these links

@mqtodd

Facebook

Find Kiki on these links

@kikirobinson

Facebook

The Web Mob

Find Annie Infinite on these links

@AnnieInfinite

Saucy Social Media

This post is live and in the process of being finished…….

Next up three great Real businesses (Not Social Media or Internet based!! LOL)

Will add their links tomorrow I need to go to bed!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC-ygonZkpQ

Find Trailer Campers on these links…

Trailer Campers

Facebook

Twitter

Find Guurrbi Tour on these links

Guurrbi Tours Cooktown

Facebook

Twitter

Find Culgoa Point Beach Resort on these links…

Culgoa Point Beach Resort

Facebook

Twitter

So how exactly do you do that Beanie?

Put the Social in my Social Media Marketing?

After all if it is social media marketing, doesn’t the social already exist?

The short answer is NO!!

Let me explain further, because I believe that this one misinformed assumption (that any social media marketing already has a social element) leads to the biggest  mistake I see most business owners make when they start out on social media sites like facebook, twitter and youtube.

Think about this scenario for a minute. Imagine at the end of a hard week you head around for a bbq at a  friends home, to kick back, unwind and socialize.

As soon as you start mingling some clown comes up and start’s telling you all about his business and the wonder full deals he currently has running. To make matters even worse he just won’t give up, and keeps going on and on at you about his products and services.

If you are at all like me you would be more than just a little pissed off and politely (or not so politely) tell him exactly what he can do with his products and services! I can hear you laughing to yourself, as you have probable already encountered this guy at a bbq at some time or another!

These sort of people are really annoying aren’t they? I mean how rude can someone be carrying on like that when you are trying to have a quiet night out with some friends?

Yet this is exact approach  I see businesses on facebook take time after time.

Look at me, buy this now as I won’t have any left tomorrow!

I mean do they really think that sort of approach is going to work? Or are they just trying to short cut their way to success, and they think social media is the answer to all of their problems. The good news is though, that they soon give up and move on to something else. Because they just can’t understand why people aren’t flocking to their business to buy from them.

After all they blasted their message out to hundred’s of people through social media, so why isn’t it working?

These places are called social sites because just like you wanted to do at the bbq, people are there to socialize. If you interrupt that socializing time in the same fashion that our new best mate at the bbq did, then guess what? You are going to get the same reaction that you gave him!

So to successfully promote your business through social sites you are going to have to be a whole lot smarter with your marketing, (big hint interacting) to ensure that you are building relationships with your customers and gaining their trust and respect.

So when you are ready to put some Social in your Social Media Marketing, give me a call!!

Because that is what I do best!!

Cheers Beanie

Skype: beanie247

Mobile: 0414502809

Anyway the video explains it all. So sit back relax and let me run through exactly how all of this works.

If you would like a video exactly like the one above promoting your business online 24 hours a day seven days a week, just fill out the contact form below or give me a call.

My Mobile          0414502809

Cheers Beanie

Call Beanie today on 0414502809 to find out more about the special deal currently on offer!!

Don’t forget the special Deal Code SCWMAD

Not sure what a Google Places Ad is?? You can check out Beanies Web Design and Marketing here

As promised here are the link referred to in the above video…

• Project Grow
• Project Grow Trainer Profiles
• Small Business Marketing Ideas
• The Challenge
• Beanies Marketing Tips on Facebook

Profit and Enjoy

Cheers Beanie

Queensland have done it again. We are the holder’s of the State of Origin trophy!!!!!!

For those of you that have been living under a rock, or if you are from NSW and still in denial!!! (LOL)  Five years straight is an exceptional achievement, and I see in an article the other day the blues have hired some expert to look into why they can’t win.

There is no need for NSW to spend a lot of time and money trying to figure it all out. It isn’t rocket science as to why Queensland are dominating, in fact Mal Meninga (The Queensland Coach) summed it up in two simple words Man Management .

That’s it!!  Mal considers himself not a coach but a Man Manager. That is all well and good Adam I hear you say but how does this benefit my business? Well the exact same principles that Mal uses to get the best out of the Queensland team apply to you getting the best out of your employees.

You see their is no magical pool of super employees somewhere that many small business owner seem to think their may be. Every employee you currently have is good at something. What your job as a business owner and people manager entails is finding out what that something is for each individual you employ, and use it to both of your advantages.

I know what you are thinking now. Who am I to tell you how to manage your employees, and how can I tell you with such confidence that ideas I am about to share with you will actually work?

The reason I am so confident these principles will work, is because I have used them on numerous occasions  to build projects on time and under budget without “the best” gear or so called “best people” working for me. Although I have been lucky to have some exceptional individuals work for me. These projects are built under some exceptionally trying condions such as…

• The projects only usually last 3 to 12 months (So there isn’t much time to build a team)
• These guys are working away from their families (Numerous personal issues come up)
• Schedule priorities change daily (People like consistency)

Now there are a number of ways I work around these issues. Number one is I don’t focus on building the job, my team does that! My job is to build the team, keep them happy, motivated and productive.

Just think about it for a minute. How much time do you spend actually finding about your staff what they do and what their interests are??
You may say to me Adam I  don’t have time do that.  Well I say you don’t have time not to!!  Are you too busy because you are spending too much time trying to build the job instead of building your team??

If you want people to think for themselves and work as a team, then you have to give them the opportunity to do so. And I am not talking about trying it just once, and saying it doesn’t work the very first time something goes wrong!!

People  are going to make mistakes and do thing that you wouldn’t do, but it is all part of the learning and team building process. If you really want your employees to treat your business as if it was their own, then you are going to have to hand over some control of your business to them. Try it I guarantee you will be amazed what lenghts people will go to too make an idea work, when it is their own idea!!!!

Enjoy and Profit

Cheers Beanie

Can you believe it??

The end of financial year arrives this week!! So we all know what that means, Christmas won’t be far behind it. There is one great advantage that comes with the middle of the year arriving so quickly though. That is…

It’s Thirty Day Challenge time, (Renamed The Challenge this year) if you have ever talked with me one on one about marketing your business online. You will already know that I am a huge advocate of the Thirty Day Challenge. And before you ask…

No I don’t get paid one cent to promote it, no one does .

There are however some very good reasons I promote the The Challenge being…

• It is completely FREE

• Not only is it completely FREE but it is the best online training education you will get IMHO!!!

Ed Dale and his crew are right at the cutting edge of what is happening in the online marketing world, and  there is no holding back with the quality of the training they provide just because it is free. You will learn everything you need to know to promote your business online!

This blog and any other site that you see my mug plastered all over, is based on the excellent marketing principles taught on The Challenge. Just how do I know that theses guys are on the cutting edge of online marketing?? I know because of a little thing that you may of heard of  called Twitter. You see two years ago (the first year I participated in the challenge) Ed had us join twitter. This was well before Demi or Ashton and the rest of their celebrity friends even knew what Twitter was!!

Don’t believe me? Check the date I  joined Twitter below on my  profile for proof. It will show you that I started my twitter account over two years ago you guessed it. When I participated in the thirty day challenge for the first time!!

Here is where we are going to take the Challenge to a whole new level, and create even more benefit for you. As with anything in business if you have a team to work with, it’s a whole lot easier than flying solo. This year I am going to run a group from my facebook fan page, so that we can work together share the load and our experiences.I will also run some extra training sessions where we will leverage a few extras tool, like ustreamtv webinars and teleseminars.

All you have to do to join in is come and join us at  facebook.com/beaniesmarketingtips post a comment something like…

Hey Beanie I am here and keen to  join the Beanies Challenge Team.

That’s it you are set to go, and we will get to work learning some new strategies to promote your business online.

Project Grow

Being based in Central Queensland this year has meant that I have had the opportunity to get involved in an excellent program up here called Project Grow.

The GAPDL is running a series of information sessions and workshops to help small business owners  equip themselves with the tools necessary to get online, and take advantage of the social media revolution that is currently changing the way small businesses are marketing their products and services.

In my first talk  “Where do you buy a fridge @ 9PM on a Saturday Night” I touched on how my wife purchased a fridge online last Xmas and the spread the word through facebook .

I also talked briefly on blogtalkradio and ustream tv, which are both free online tools that none of the attendees had heard of before.

I will be running this presentation as a webinar in the next week, keep an eye out here or on facebook  for the details.

Hope you have a great week, and I am looking forward to working with you on The Challenge.

Profit and Enjoy

Cheers Beanie

.

Would you like more visitor’s to your web site?

The answer to that question of course should be a resounding YES!!! Well what is it on your site that is going to attract these visitor’s?? With the ultimate goal of  converting them into customers that are raving fans and  regular visitor’s  to your site?

Customer’s come to your site with one main thing in common. They are looking for a solution to their problems. So if we offer that solution, then quickly and effectively communicate to them that you can solve their problem. Your chances of capturing this visitor attention and converting them into a paying customer increase dramatically.

That is the first part your problem fixed, now the second part is how do you get them to keep coming back to your site? A static web site with the same old content that is never updated, just isn’t going to cut it!! I mean would you keep revisiting a site like that?

There is no way you would, so why is it that so many business owners persist with a web site that fits this description? And then wonder why they don’t get any traffic or sales?

Your business blog linked up with some social sites that incorporates audio and video is a great way of not only attracting new client’s/customers, it will also have another far more powerful benefit.

Your blog is also a great way to keep in constant contact with existing customers. Now there is a very good reason we want repeat custom, it is very simple and you probable already know the answer. But it is surprising how often simple idea’s are dismissed or overlooked in the quest to find a more complex solution. Being an avid reader I devour many great marketing books, recently I have been reading a book by Mal Emery which had a very interesting statistic. Below is the exact exert from Mal’s book.

“And when you consider that it is six to eight times more expensive to get a new client than it is to sell more to an existing client, this oversight seems almost obscene” Mal Emery

The obscene oversight that Mal is referring to is the fact that time after time he see’s business owners spend countless hours and advertising dollars chasing new customers. All the while ignoring the customers that have already proven that they are willing to spend money with them.

So that brings me back to the title of this post “Do you really need a Business Blog”?

Before we decide yes or no to this question, lets do a quick recap of the advantages of a blog…

• A blog can be regularly updated with content in the form of articles, audio and video.
• You can add an auto-responder to capture contact details.
• You can have have feeder sites that will deliver more traffic back to your blog.
• You can contribute to our local community, by adding their events etc to your blog which again will increase your traffic.

All right enough talk if I haven’t convinced you of the benefits of a blog by now I probable never will, so there is no need for you to read any further. If however alarm bells are ringing for you, and already you can see the huge advantages that I am talking about. You will probable want to keep reading to see exactly how this can be applied to a real bricks and mortar business just like yours. Without taking up any more than a minimal amount of your precious time. In fact when done the right way, the leverage you will gain from your business blog will decrease your marketing workload and advertising costs.

The example I am going to use seeing how we are on the Sunshine Coast is a bait and tackle shop. Let’s call it Davo’s tackle shop, just to be really original!!!!

Now Davo is in the situation that many small business owner are in…

• Davo has a business that has excellent products and services.
• Davo has a wealth of knowledge about fishing, that isn’t being fully utilized.
• Davo currently has a static web site that he has never had updated.
• No one ever visits his website, and it has been nothing but a money pit for Davo.

Fortunately for Davo he is good mates with Beanie over at adamthebean.com, and Beanie is going to  build him an online marketing system, that will generate leads and sales.

So keep a close eye out for the next post in this five part series, where we are going to work with Davo building his online marketing system. A system that will be working for Dave generating leads and sales twenty four hours a day seven days a week.

Profit and Enjoy.

Cheers Adam Bean

Recently as part of my ongoing quest to learn and implement the best marketing strategies available, I have been studying Mal Emery’s book…

Zero to a Millionaire in Three Years or Less in Your Own Business and Still Enjoy the journey Along the Way.

When I started reading page 56 alarm bells started ringing inside my head!! I mean  how could I have missed this for so long? The Chapter is titled

“How to clearly and Concisely Communicate Your Core Message”

It’s a fairly short chapter but it is particularly relevant to web design. As always Mal cuts right through all of the hype and bullshit that you come across, and breaks this process down into six simple questions that you need to address. Which are…

• Who are you?
• What you do?
• Who is it you cater to?
• The problem you solve
• What is your UCBA (Unique Customer Buying Advantage)
• Call to Action & Action Step.

So lets put this all together for my site here, so that you know exactly what it is that I can offer you.

Here goes…

My name is Adam Bean, I am the owner of sunshinecoastwebmarketing.com and adamthebean.com. You can also find me on Twitter if you google @beanie72.

I specialize in creating customized online marketing systems, that utilize blogs, twitter and other social media marketing strategies. Particularly for small to medium sized business owners, that are sick and tired of wasting time and money on ineffective marketing that isn’t providing them with leads and sales.

All of my packages include six months of ongoing support. During this time I will update and tweak your system, until it is producing the results you deserve. If at the end of the six months you are unhappy with the results we are achieving, I will happily refund the money you have invested in my systems.

For further information on how I can help you please call me on my personal mobile (0414502809) and leave a detailed message that includes…

• Your name
• Your Business Name
• The most convenient time for me to contact you.
• Your web site address (If you would like me to have a look at it for you before I call you back)

So how did I go? Does that you a better idea of what  I offer and how you can benefit? Please leave any questions or suggestions in the comments section below.

Profit and Enjoy

Cheers Adam Bean

Before we even start today I have to give credit to Jodie Thompson as this post was inspired by a post on her blog, and a recent webinar Jodie ran that I attended. The blog post was titled…

“The Recommendation age is here”

I would highly recommend that you read Jodie’s post before you read any further. Then I will introduce you to foodspotting.

Ok glad to see you are back. When you watch the video below  I will walk you through foodspotting, and how this powerful  form of social media  recommendation application could be leveraged by food based businesses.

Even if you aren’t a restaurant/cafe owner the principles will work the same for your business, we just need to find a social media recommendation tool that is applicable to your business. This is the probable the first time you will have seen foodspotting on a Sunshine Coast Web Site, and there is a very good reason for that. I am currently the only person on the Sunshine Coast using foodspotting, but as you will see on this video, I won’t be the only one for very long!!!

Remember to fill in the email form below with any questions for the blog talk radio show on Sunday. I am also offering three businesses the chance to be featured on this Sunday’s show. All you have to do is head over to the Sunshine Coast Web Marketing fan page and comment on the wall under the blog talk radio post. It’s first come first served.

Profit and enjoy

Cheers Adam Bean