Negotiation expert Herb Cohen says when you enter a negotiation, you want to show the other party you care – but not too much. You want to show you care, because you want the other party to feel valued. But you don’t want to show you care too much, because then you seem needy and desperate. [...]
David Ogilvy, the man known as the Father of Advertising, has a timeless piece of wisdom. “You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.” Take a close look at your ads, blogs, videos and social media posts and ask yourself: are they interesting or boring? Sad to say, [...]
People often feel vulnerable after they’ve made a purchase, especially if it’s an expensive purchase. They often question whether they bought the product from the right business, and even if they should’ve bought the product at all. That’s why it’s important to continue your marketing after the purchase, whether through written communications, verbal communications or both. [...]
Next time you read a piece of business writing you like, ask yourself why. Next time you read a piece of business writing you dislike, ask yourself why. My guess is you’ll identify three points of difference: The pieces you like are easy to read; the pieces you dislike are hard to read The pieces you [...]
When you do marketing, your small business has to earn the right to ask for a sale. How? By providing your customer with helpful, relevant, interesting information. If you do that, customers will gladly accept a sales pitch at the end of your marketing message. But if you go straight into selling mode and provide no [...]
When businesses do marketing, they should act like they're having a one-on-one conversation with a friend, rather than delivering a formal speech to a roomful of strangers. When you do friendly, conversational marketing, you make the customer feel comfortable and understood. But when you do formal, speechlike marketing, you make the customer feel uncomfortable and even [...]
If you want to publish regular content marketing, you have to make sure you’re always on the lookout for new ideas. Something I do is keep a neverending list of ideas. Anytime I think of a new idea, I add it to the list. Sometimes, ideas magically pop into my mind. Often, though, I get ideas [...]
Do you see social media as a luxury or a necessity? If your small business wants to make sales, you need to see social media as a necessity. Your customers are on social media – that means you need to be on social media, so you can market to them and build relationships with them every [...]
I do these daily videos to promote my content marketing agency, Hunter & Scribe. Recently, someone left a comment saying the reason he likes the videos is because instead of talking about my business and asking for a sale, I provide interesting, helpful information that he wants to consume. Most people go out of their way [...]
Think about all the interactions you’ve had with businesses over the years. If there’s one thing that turns you off more than anything else, it’s the feeling the business doesn’t care about you. So when you’re communicating with customers – before, during and after a sale – you need to make it clear you care about [...]
