Archive for the ‘sales’ Category

When You Have To Do A Presentation

Posted: May 12th, 2010 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, commentary, sales | 1 Comment »

Let me state this right up front.

I hate Power Point presentations. I hate doing them – I hate viewing them.

Unfortunately, every now and then I have to do one. More often I have to view them – which is why God gave us iPods and laptops with WiFi access.

While I can’t always stick to it – I like Guy Kawasaki’s 10 – 20 – 30 rule – 10 Slides; 20 minutes; 30 point font. The rule was designed for presentations to venture capitalist. These poor souls must sit through hundreds — maybe even thousands of presentations that, for the main, say the same thing, “Our product will change the world and all you have to do is give us truck loads full of money.”

You may not be asking for “truck loads of money”, but some times you have to give a presentation. Besides keeping in mind Guy’s rule, here are five things to do before you make the presentation:

Choose a quite, well ventilated room that will comfortably hold more than the number of people you expect. To often good presentations are destroyed by noise or an over crowded room. A room full of people generate a lot of heat. Nothing is worse than having to ‘open a door’ just to get enough air to keep everyone from falling asleep.
Respect your audience. Assume that they all can read as well as you. The slides are there to give the audience something to remember – not to be read verbatim. Make every slide concise. This is Power Point presentation NOT Power Paragraph presentation.
Get there early. How many presentations have you been to where everyone was waiting for the projector or screen to be setup?Things go wrong. By getting there early you can at least try to get them fixed before your audience arrives.
Face the audience. In his blog post Really Bad Powerpoint, Seth Godin’s first point to a good Power Point presentation is:
«. . . make yourself cue cards. Don’t put them on the screen. Put them in your hand. Now, you can use the cue cards you made to make sure you’re saying what you came to say.»
Practise – Practise – Practise.If you aren’t interested enough in your topic to prepared – no one else will be interested either.

Next Workshop on Website ROI

Posted: February 10th, 2010 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, marketing, sales | No Comments »

Michael Regan – TIMR Web Services

Event: Web Marketing Workshop
Presentors:Carolyn Touey and Michael Regan
Time: 10:00am to 12:00am
Date: Feb. 26th, 2010
Place:6409 Old Island Highway, Union Bay

Please contact Carolyn Touey at (250) 335-2342 to register.

Last December I held a workshop with Carolyn Touey of SmartBiz on “What Every Business Owner Should Know To Maximize Investment In A Website”. It was such a success that we will be doing it again on February 26th.

While the title remains the same, some of the content, especially on website ROI, will be different.

Carolyn Touhey – Smart Biz

I will be focusing more on getting actionable measurements, rather than a lot of data, from your analytics tools. As before the focus will be on Google Analytics, however, the ideas can be applied to any analytic tool.

In addition, I will be showing some of the new features of Google Analytics and some of the new tools Google has been developing to help the small business owner.

There will also be more information on Social Media Marketing.

Facebook. Twitter and other social network sites all have their own written and unwritten rules. Getting noticed takes more than starting your own account or even buying a few ads. Social Media takes a lot of time – is the ROI worth the time you will invest.

How to Get There

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A Summer Recap

Posted: September 19th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, commentary, marketing, sales | No Comments »

So, this is officially the last weekend of the summer and I have no reason not to be adding to my blog. Well actually, I can always make up a reasonable excuse to be doing something else – but enjoying the summer is now no longer one of them.

To get this season of blogging started I thought I would post some of the more interesting items to that have come across my screen.

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Friendly Fraud

Posted: May 30th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, sales, security | No Comments »

There is a new buzz word making the rounds – Friendly Fraud. It is the online term for the old practise of returning goods after you have used them. For the online merchant, this type of fraud now includes the customer saying they never received an item, stopping the credit card payment, and even returning empty boxes.

While the practice is probably as old as merchandising – it seems to be on the increase, due, in large part, to the declining economy. Some business blogs are reporting a 50% increase in this type of fraud.

This fraud not only causes losses of a sale but also the cost of bank chargebacks and handling costs. In many cases the items are, if they are returned, are too badly damaged to be resold even as used material.

While nothing you can do will eliminate this practise, there are somethings you can do to discourge the less aggressive fraudster.

Have a clear return policy. Have it online and as part of you packaging.
Limit the time period when returns will be accepted
Require a RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) for all returns
Use a shipping method that requires the customer sign for the product.

These methods won’t deter the most aggressive fraudster. They will help deter those that may be looking quick way to get out of paying. And, in most cases, seeing a well defined returns policy will be appreciated by legitimate customers

To Die By Sudden Weath

Posted: April 10th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, marketing, sales | No Comments »

In his poem "The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill", Robert Service lists "sudden wealth" as one of the many ways a man can die. For businesses as well, suddenly having your business "take off", can cause many problems. In some cases, it has cause businesses to fail.

As your business struggles to stay alive, it is a good time to consider the future.

By now you should have a good idea if you are going to weather this economic storm. If you are – consider the business landscape once the crisis has passed. Some of your competitors will have disappeared – will you be able to handle the increase in orders?. Some of your supplier to may have also scummed – do you have alternate sources? Will you need more space? More staff? How will you finance your growth?

These are only a few of the questions that will need to be addressed. Each business is unique. Only you know what problems are likely to face your business and your area. By all accounts – you have a lot of time to get ready. But, the sooner you start thinking about these problems, the less likely you are to die by "sudden wealth"

Tracking In Store Sales

Posted: April 7th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, marketing, sales | No Comments »

At a presentation I did recently, I was asked how you track how much your website is contributing to in store sales. This is a very important point – so instead of a quick post I wrote an article Tracking Website Generated Sales. The article contains ideas for making the connection between visits to the website and in store sales.

Are You a Commodity

Posted: March 17th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in marketing, sales | No Comments »

Wiki defines commodity as “something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.”

We were hired to do some SEO on an existing real estate website. In researching the term I found that most realtors in the area offered essentially the same service. They all had listings from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). And, they all had some feature properties, usually ones where they were the agent for the seller. A few were trying to differentiate by price. But, most were affiliated with a larger organization which set standard fees.

In short those real estate agents are now commodities.

Don’t let this happen to you!

In any market, but especially in poor economic times, a commodity sells by luck and price. Luck, in that the consumer is likely to choose the first one available. And, price for those looking for a bargin with little concern for service or extra value.

To stop becoming a commodity, highlight the difference between you and others in that market place. And, focus on a niche within the market. In our local real estate market two niches are doing fairly well. High end properties, and low end properties. One has low volume and high profits while the other has higher volumes but lower profits.

By focusing on your niche market you can stand out from the crowd.

Know Your Customer

Posted: March 4th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, marketing, sales, web design | 1 Comment »

Top Rank had an article on the Marketing blog A Strategic Approach to Internet Marketing with Content & SEO where they interviewed a number of marketing professionals on the importance of content in marketing online. While the comments were insightful, they seemed to me to lack one basic premise, knowledge of you audience. (I left a comment to that effect.)

Too many small businesses treat their website like a shotgun. If you have a wide enough pattern you are going to hit something. Put enough information on your site and someone will buy.

This is the wrong approach.

Think of your website as a laser pointer. Narrow your focus and put targeted information on the website. If you have more than one target audience – segment your website. Keep each area focused. Give your prospective customer the information they want. Don’t make them hunt through a lot of information they don’t want to find the relevant information.

Websites can be segmented in a wide variety of ways. Product segmentation is the most common. But, if you have a product that appeals to a wide variety of people you may want to segment by age, singles and married, families with kids, families without kids. The possiblities are endless. But you have to know your customers.

You Can Get Anything You Want

Posted: March 3rd, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in business, commentary, sales | No Comments »

You may not remember Arlo Guthrie’s song about “Alice’s Restaurant.“. It was an anti war protest song. It had little to do with Alice or her restaurant. Not too many people remember the all words. The title of the post is actually part of the refrain.

Getting what you want is getting harder and harder. Manufacturers are cutting back on their product line and retailers are stocking less. But these are not the only reasons you may not be able to get what you want. In a recent post, “Looking For Yes“, Seth Godin talks about how attitude often prevents getting a sale.

I found that out yesterday when I was in my local Staples store looking for a netbook computer. (I know nor a big ticket item.) When I told the sales person that I wanted the Acer Aspire One running Linux, I was not so politely told that it only came with Windows XP and was then ignored.

On to the competion – another ‘Big Box Store’ — Future Shop.

Same question – same answer. But, the sales person pointed out a Hewlett Packard netbook running Linux. I didn’t know anything about it – so I took the information and checked it out. Turns out it is a pretty good unit. So tomorrow, I will buying one.

Staples had the same unit at the same price. In fact, it was on display right next to the Acer. The salesperson could have pointed that out to me – but he didn’t. Guess where I will be going to buy the netbook?

Seek Professional Help

Posted: February 26th, 2009 Author: Michael Regan Posted in branding, marketing, sales, web design | No Comments »

I got an email the other day from a fellow Vancouver Islander. He pointed out two errors in the wording on our home page. These were the type of errors you can look for all day and not see – yet someone else spots right away. They were also the type of thing that can cause people to doubt your professionalism – and I really appreciated the feedback.

I checked out his website – Oceanside Communications expecting a literary or copy writing site. Instead, I found the site was for video production.

Video production, like copy editing and photography is one of the areas where you have to decide whether to ‘wing it’ or get professional help. In many cases the decision is going to be based on what works for your brand.

There are any number of sites where grainy ‘web cam’ videos are part of image they want to portray. They are designed to develop a warm, ‘I am just like you’ feeling. However, the more professional or ‘up scale’ your product or service – the more you need the skills of a professional. Whether it is video production, photography, or copy writing – a skilled professional can add value to your website.

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