The Vaughan Practice

Vince’s Links for July 23rd

Vince — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 05:47:34 +0000

Shared 5 links.

Get Rid of Your Phone Book

Vince — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:00:47 +0000

Get rid of your phone book.

When was the last time you used a phone book to find a business? I was having a discussion with Local SEO expert Travis Wright of Advangel the other day and we were talking about the state of the Internet today.

Here is what we found:

When we first meet our customers, many of them are still advertising in local yellow pages. They also rank low according to search engines. According to Entrepreneur.com a full page ad in the Manhattan Kansas Yellow Pages is around $12,000.00. In New York City, that same ad would cost around $92,000.00. When exactly was the last time you used a Yellow Pages to find a business? I asked this question of a local business owner last week and his reaction was that he used a Yellow Pages that very day! He was at a store and needed the number to a Sprint store.

Little did he know that even if he had a regular feature phone (not even an iPhone or an Android), he could text a keyword to 46654 and receive a list of businesses in his area.

Why have a five pound book in your home taking up space? What value does that book provide? We continued our discussion . . .

We centered our discussion around the average customer. What is one average customer worth to your business? Is it 1,000 dollars a year? 10,000 dollars a year? What if you averaged just one extra customer a month? What would that value be to your business? Today, is building a Web site that ranks highly (on the first page of Google) with organic search more valuable than buying a Yellow Pages ad?

What do you think?

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Vince’s Links for July 16th

Vince — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:34:36 +0000

Shared 7 links.

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Steve Jobs Parenting Lesson for Business

Vince — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:20:49 +0000

Today, Steve Jobs, took the stage to talk about the iPhone 4 Death Grip. Today there are a few people who hold the iPhone in such a way to impact the antenna’s ability to receive a signal. He remarked that the iPhone isn’t the first phone to experience a problem and that while it’s unusual to have so many report a single problem, the number of people reporting this problem is less than 2 percent. In fact, iPhone 4 is producing less complaints than did the rollout of the 3GS by as much 1 percent total.

Essentially, all iPhone 4 users can sign up to receive a bumper that surrounds the iPhone (which helps prevent the breakdown) and if they are still dis-satisfied, they can get their money back.

I saw that a colleague of mine with the Mobile Media Club said that Steve Jobs should be owning the problem more. I was confused by what “owning the problem more” meant. It’s not enough to own the problem but there is a degree to which it should be owned that it currently isn’t?

I think I understand a little bit better now though.

Here is how I see it:

Apple builds products that can’t be duplicated. They can be copied but, as with any copy, it becomes farther removed from what it was copied from. These copies commoditize the value of what the original produced. Apple has a background to produce products like the iPhone. Other companies have a background to produce ancillary satisfaction. Steve Jobs refers to his products like they are his children.

In the now famous email over the stolen iPhone, Steve queries a blogger, after having been berated for “kicking in the doors” of someone’s house to retrieve it and what would Steve’s son say 20 years from now if he could see what Steve is doing.

As for us, we’re just doing what we can to try and make (and preserve) the user experience we envision. You can disagree with us, but our motives are pure.
By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?

Steve looks at his role as a parent. And parents need to own up to responsibilities. Parents decide consequences, both positive and negative, for actions taken by the children. Sometimes, a parent lets a child take some hits and sometimes a parent needs to step in because the child can no longer defend himself.

To me, Steve stepped in today to tell people to get on with their lives. Don’t worry about the design of the iphone, leave that to Apple. We’re going to fix it but the situation isn’t really that dire. Steve isn’t going to do a “Mea Culpa” and leave his child out in the cold. He’s going to take care of it.

How do you take care of your small business in the middle of a crisis, whether real or perceived? How should Steve have reacted?

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Vince’s Links for July 15th

Vince — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:32:49 +0000

Shared 4 links.

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6 Reasons Your Web Site Must Be a Business Machine

Vince — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:18:05 +0000

For many of the clients I talk to, they view their web site as an online brochure. When their potential customers visit, they are able to find product, service and contact information. This is important information for people who want to know how to contact you. Unfortunately, they’ll NEVER contact you if they can’t find your web site. Your web site has to do more than just tell your customers about who you are or what you do.

Your site must be a business machine. It must be all of the following things:

1. Fast and Available – Your web site must be up and running to be found. Pick a secure, reliable and customer centric host that is available 24/7. It must perform well too. Your customers don’t want to wait for a page to load.

2. Interactive – Your customers must have a way to give you feedback on how your product or service impacts their lives. The reason may surprise you. It’s not just that it gives your customers an outlet to dialog with you but you must USE that feedback to improve your product or service. You must have a web site that is built for interaction.

3. Secure – If you are going to collect your customer’s information, your web site must be secure and your customer’s privacy protected. You must structure your web site in a way that places this concern above all others.

4. Intelligent – Your web site must gather information about your visitors and display this intelligence in a format you can use to take action with. For instance, what keywords are your customers using to find you? What are your customers searching for and not finding? How quickly do your pages load? This is valuable data that if left uncollected or unused, could either leave you scratching your head wondering what to do next or could spell disaster, needlessly, because you didn’t have the information you needed to prevent it.

5. Useable – Small business owners don’t need to have the flashiest designed web sites. They need a look and feel that is consistent and useable. It must match your online and offline marketing materials. No need to get fancy. Just make it clean, nice looking and easy to use.

6. Last but not least, Findable – Your customers must find you to do business with you! Your web site must be structured in such a way to rank on the first page of Google, be talked about on Twitter and Facebook, be found by customers using smartphones. How are your customers finding you now?

A brochure can’t do all these things. You must have a business machine that takes care of all these concerns. Do you have a machine that is working for your business, 24/7. If you don’t or don’t know, please contact me for a free consultation. You might need some help.

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Champion Graphics – The Latest Transformation

Vince — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:27:24 +0000

I want you to meet Sam Thompson of Champion Graphics Inc.. Sam works hard at his business and his customers LOVE him. They’re passionate about Sam and what he does for them as a printer. Sam understands that brand recognition extends to all facet of communication, brochures, letterhead, stationary, business cards, posters. Sam painstakingly ensures that all the colors match in all the forms of print they produce . . . for his customers. In the 18 years he has owned his business, he has had one Web site.

This:

Before

The site was hurting Sam and Champion Graphics. It didn’t speak to how much Sam cares about his customers. It also couldn’t be found by Google. When a customer did find it, they just went on by.

In all the years Sam has been in business, he has never received a customer from the Internet. His Web site didn’t produce the amount of trust necessary for a potential customer to call him.

Sam needed help and, to his credit, he let me help him.

After

The new site reflects the quality of care Sam provides his customers. The testimonials are all from real people who still use Champion Graphics for their printing needs. You don’t have to wonder how to get a hold of Sam. All the ways to do it are the front page. Do you need a free estimate? Fill out the form, attach your artwork and Sam will call you back . . . probably today.

The new Champion Graphics is a new start for Sam. Sam is in new practices now because he sees that we live in a different world than we did 20 years ago. It’s so much more efficient to use the Internet to market your business.

Congratulations Sam and Champion Graphics!

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Vince’s Links for July 1st

Vince — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:27:31 +0000

Shared 8 links.

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Love, Honor, and Cherish . . . Your Customers

Vince — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:36:09 +0000

As I sit here writing this, I will be married in three days to a woman that I asked to be my wife last November. This relationship is a true partnership. We act together. We trust one another. She and I, we do things everyday . . . every minute . . . that produces trust in the other person. We know how to take care of one another. We are sincere when we speak to one another. We are competent in our skill of taking care of one another. We are reliable to be there for one another at all times.

It’s consequential to love, honor and cherish someone. If you choose your partner wisely, your capacity to act and take of your concerns, whatever they may be, is increased exponentially. If you choose poorly, it can lead to unprecedented despair and breakdowns that affect your whole life.

I was talking to my teacher the other day and she told me that the same is true in business. You must love, honor, and cherish your customers as well.

Your customers don’t care about the breakdowns you face. They care about their own needs, their own concerns. They are trusting you to take care of them. In fact, they are paying you to do so.

We could write for days on the philosophy of money and what it means when a customer transacts with you. Suffice it to say that it is a unique and wonderful relationship because money allows us to take care of our own families.

As I begin to talk to small business people and how busy they are, they seem to have an attitude like they are entitled to the money BECAUSE they are working so hard instead of focusing, not on what the customer wants, but rather what is the customer concerned about that ONLY YOU can help them with because that’s the business you are in.

This applies to employees too. Your boss is your customer. They need to be loved, honored and cherished too.

What do you think? Can you love, honor and cherish your boss? Your customer? How you think customers should be feel after doing business with you?

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5 “tips” To Move From Ditch Digger to Architect

Vince — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:33:59 +0000

It’s Thursday and I am following up on my promise to you on how to move from ditch digger to architect. On Tuesday I mentioned that there are no tips, tricks, techniques to do so. I’ve thought about what you can do to begin to make a transition. Here are five “tips” to designed to set you apart in the minds of others.

1. Subscribe to a business magazine. BusinessWeek, Forbes, Inc., The Economist, Fortune are magazines that are available in electronic format as well as print. In it you’ll read about things and get more analysis than you’ll get from your local newspaper. Read it with the purpose that you want to stay head of all the other people in your field who AREN’T reading this magazine.

2. Lead a local group – There are lots of local groups that need help. In Kansas City, there is the Social Media Club, Adobe Users Group, and my group, The Mobile Media Club among others. Are you looking for something in particular and not finding it? See #4.

3. Accept discomfort – Sit in the front row of every seminar you attend. Get used to being seen. Accept the discomfort of being the guy in the front of the room who raises his hand and asks a question you think should be answered. When you walk down the street, give someone a compliment and don’t wait for a reaction. Just walk on. Put yourself on display.

4. Ask for help – You can’t do it alone. Acting alone is what made you a ditch digger in the first place. What do you need to do for your purpose? Ask people you trust to help you

5. Exercise – Get outside and exercise every single day if you don’t. If you do, keep it up!

What do you think? How does sitting in the front row of a a seminar translate into a purpose? How does subscribing to a business magazine make any sense? Why do you have to lead?

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