Archive for the ‘Online Marketing’ Category

Robert and I are always talking about passion — particularly when it comes to passion that entrepreneurs have for their businesses. Over the last few months, we’ve interviewed business entrepreneurs who truly exude passion in everything they do. In fact, they eat, sleep and breath their business.  In BusinessCast Podcast #88 – A Business Passion Play, we sat down with Paul Chato – President of Your Web Department and member of the hilarious Canadian comedy troup the Frantics – who is passionate about his business because he sees it as a tool to re-connect entrepreneurs with passion about their business! Paul provided some keen and entertaining insights as well as a handful of very unique ways for tapping into and extracting passion about business. This podcast will make you laugh and think! Enjoy!

After speaking with Paul, we asked ourselves, “How is that people lose passion for their business?” After all, why have a business unless it energizes and inspires you! So, we spoke to a number of BusinessCast Podcast listeners and fans and came up with a shortlist of reasons. Here are the top seven reasons why entrenpreneurs lose passion for their business:

• Frustration with the time, effort and expense required to have customers understand the benefits of products/services
• Keeping pace with rapid fluctuations in product/service development and marketing costs
• The inability to consistently anticipate costs and revenues accurately
• Losing touch with customers’ demands
• Experiencing turnover of key staff
• Spending considerable time and expense recruiting and hiring staff
• Feeling the burden of needing to control every aspect of work

But, hope is not lost if your passion is waning. We address many of these issues head on other episodes of the BusinessCast Podcast.

Finally, read 12 one-and-a-half page stories of how entrepreneurs with passion solved today’s most common business challenges .

BTW, if you want to see Paul in action, here are a couple of classic Frantics skits from YouTube -

• The Magician (that’s Paul); and
• A Piece of Pie.

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Robert and I are offering our BusinessCast podcast listeners (and blog readers) leading-edge business resources — for FREE!

Currently the BusinessCast Podcast ‘Great Book Give-Away‘ includes the following titles — mostly from the folks at McGraw Hill:

• The Four Pillars of Profit-Driven Marketing (2009) – Leslie Moeller and Edward Landry
• Turn Small Talk Into Big Deals (2009) – Don Gabor
  
• How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (2008) – Leil Lowndes (OUT OF STOCK)
• Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs (2009) – Karen Berman and Joe Knight(OUT OF STOCK)
  
• Sales Coaching: Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach (2009) – Linda Richardson
• The Inspiring Leader (2009) – John Zenger, Joseph Folkman and Scott Edinger
  
• Blogging for Fame and Fortune (2009) – Jason Rich (OUT OF STOCK)
• Business Lessons from the Edge (2009) – Jim McCormick and Maryann Karinch
  
• Smart Networking (2009) – Liz Lynch
• The Customer Rules: The 14 Indispensable, Irrefutable and Indisputable Qualities of the Greatest Service Companies in the World (2009) – C. Britt Beemer and Robert L. Shook
• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (2009) – Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (OUT OF STOCK)
  
• The Extraordinary Leader (2009) – Joseph Zenger & Joseph Folkman
  
• Get Content Get Customers (2009) – Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett
• Am I the Only Sane One Working Here (2009) – Albert Bernstein
  
• The Organizational Champion (2009) – Mike Thompson
• The Purpose Linked Organization (2009) – Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon
• Every Family’s Business (2009) – Thomas William Deans
• Performance Intelligence at Work (2009) – Julie Bell
• Databases: A Beginner’s Guide (2009) – Andy Oppel
• Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications (2009) – Paul Argenti
• Winning Sales Letters (2009) – Ralph Allora
• PowerPoint Presentations That Sell (2009) – Adam Cooper
• Mastering Communication at Work (2009)
• Fearless Leadership (2009) – Loretta Malandro
• Click: 10 Truths for Building Extraordinary Relationships (2009) – George Fraser
• Financial Statements Demystified (2009) – Bonita Kramer and Christine Johnson
• Upstarts: How Gen Y Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business (2009) – Donna Fenn
  
• Succession and the Family Business (2009) – John Geddes
  
• Loops: The Seven Keys to Small Business Success (2009) – Mike Chaet and Stephen Lundin
  

Some of these books or so new they aren’t even available in stores yet! So, why not get a jump on your competitors by sending an email to Robert (Robert@BusinessCast.ca) to get a FREE copy of one of these business tools.

*Note: These titles are among the BusinessCast Business Book Essentials List.

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Have you ever wondered how you were going to leverage the ‘next big thing‘?

Well, it’s here and it’s time! It’s mobile marketing!

Mobile marketing is quickly becoming one of those rare phenomenon in business where a number of technologies and markets converge so powerfully that thousands of new and exciting opportunities emerge for entrepreneurs– semingly overnight.

So, to get a handle on the current/upcoming opportunities, take two simple steps:

1) Review Mobile Marketing – Part 1 - a blog post that includes a handful of very focused resources to get you comfortable with mobile marketing fundamentals;

and

2) Listen to the BusinessCast Podcast (Episode #75 – Don’t Hang Up: Mobile Marketing for Entrepreneurs) which will be posted on the BusinessCast Archives on Sunday, September 21, 2008.

Our very special podcast guest is Michael Younder — one of the many ‘movers and shakers’ at Research In Motion (R.I.M.) — home of the ubiquitous Blackberry!

Michael shares entertaining stories, insights and trends about mobile marketing, product development and branding. At the same time, Michael — along with Robert and I — highlight those lessons relevant for every business entrepreneur.

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Entrepreneurs have often told Robert and me that they are constantly on a ‘recruitment drive to hire good people’ and get them productive as soon as possible. That’s why Robert and I devoted an episode of the BusinessCast podcast to what entrepeneurs should/can do in order to get new candidates and get them ‘up and running’.

But, in addition to attracting and retaining your next potential employee, your advertised job description — which is very often the only tool an entrepreneur invests in when recruiting — also sends very strong messages to your next customers!

So, make sure that whatever job description you develop also answers — either implicitly or explicitly — the following questions:

• What makes your organization unique?
• Why would someone choose to work with your organization over your competitors?
• What is the personality of your company?
• What is exciting about your company?

Other things to keep in-mind:

• The job description should be professionally written, designed and layed out.
• You should be comfortable with the reputation of the online/offline publication in which you place your job description.
• Your job description also reveals your potential growth plans for competitors.
• Your job description may be monitored (and copied) by competitors.
• Your job description should be memorable and positive.

Because of these marketing-related issues, think of any job description you have posted as just as important as any ad that talks about your brand, your products and your services. In fact, given the various audiences that will review the ad — existing customers, prospects, suppliers, potential employees and potential investors — your job postings are secret and very powerful marketing tools.

Make sure you check out the BusinessCast Podcast ‘Blog Review’ Episode where we outline how you can get some practical business – books for free!**

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Marketing Sherpa positions itself as one of the leading authorities on marketing — B2B and B2C. As a result, they are hosting the 2008 B-2-B Demand Generation Summit on October 5th to 7th. Keep in mind that if you don’t make it to the event, Marketing Sherpa does sell many related resources.

**Make sure you check out the BusinessCast Podcast ‘Blog Review’ Episode where we outline how you can get some practical business books for free!**

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes