By the end of trying this philosophy it
will make more sense to you.

But the nutshell of it is this:

It is about delivering REAL VALUE to an audience.

Building a long term relationship with that
audience. Your crowd.

It presumes the attitude that you look at
everybody who you want to do business with,
… and decide you’re not going to wait for
money to change hands before you start
contributing, guiding, counseling, advising
and protecting them.

(Reread that paragraph again. Let it sink in.)

Jay Abraham calls this the ‘Strategy of Preeminence’.

Since a while now I’ve based everything I do in business
to be inline with Jay’s philosophy.

It’s the cornerstone of EVERYTHING I do.

The end result is that I create a crowd of
followers that will buy my stuff over and over
again. (Because I have already earned their
trust.)

It creates long term customers.

And this, my friend, is where all the REAL MONEY is at.

1. Consider this an investment. Even if you have nothing to outsource, make something up. This is an investment in your education at the very least and the start of a whole new way of doing business at the best. Set aside a few hundred dollars with no expectation of a return. It’s your tuition. The return will be gained through your experience.

2. Do your due diligence. Thoroughly review an Odesker’s profile, portfolio, and feedback. A thorough profile should show previous jobs, examples of work and client ratings to see if they’ve performed jobs of the same size and scope that match your interest.

3. Test their communication skills. Clear communication is a must for any project. Before hiring, be sure to exchange a few messages through pre-bids to not only see how quickly they respond but also to see how much they know about the particular job and how well they can communicate with you.

Also, hop on a Skype call or utilize the Odesk Call feature if phone work will be involved.

4. Set office hours. This is especially important if you’re in very different time zones. Set a few hours each business day where
you both agree to be available if questions come up. They certainly will appreciate it as well and at times you’ll want live discussion instead of waiting overnight for an email response.

5. Start with a few candidates and give them a test project. Don’t pick one person right from the start – kick the tires on a few. There’s only one way to see if they do quality work. Give the same small project to 3-5 people or teams and see how they compare. I needed a logo for my investment business a couple years ago and I was able to get 5 teams to submit a rough draft based on my creative brief. I chose my favorite guy, who happened to be in Pakistan, and he created our entire corporate identity (which we still happily use).

6. Hire for specific tasks. Remember, there are so many super skilled people out there. That being said, keep in mind that it’s much better to have a few specialized people on your team rather than one really general one. I have my graphics guy in Pakistan, a few in India who do personal tasks, SEO and Wordpress, and someone down the street who does my web design. When you hire on a task by task hourly basis, you have the luxury of specializing.

7. Set clear deadlines and project descriptions. One of the best byproducts of outsourcing is it teaches you how to clearly define a project, a step that often gets missed when we do our own work. Without a clear project scope, outsourcing is futile. Also, properly defining a job at the beginning gives it a better chance of success. Then, when you put time parameters on it, it’s all the more efficient. Always give a deadline and maximum time you’d like them to spend on it. The closer the deadline and fewer projects assigned at once the better. Provide clear direction.

8. Be sure they understand before they begin. Ask for them to paraphrase the task and describe their approach before beginning. There is certainly more room for miscommunication when you don’t see someone and often don’t even talk to them. Clear and concrete tasks are the insurance against major miss queues.

9. Don’t simply shop by price. Rates range from $5/hr to $250+ an hour. Resist the urge to go with the lower cost option just for the novelty of the savings. It’s possible they will be your best option, but test that assumption by trying a few price ranges. If the cheaper option causes more frustration and time spent, then it may be time to increase your budget. Personally, I’ve had success and failure with price ranges from $5/hr up to $50/hr.

10. If it takes longer to write up the project than to do it yourself, don’t outsource it. When you get started, you’ll want to outsource everything and at first maybe you will, but as this becomes a regular part of your business and personal operations, be practical. If it’s not saving you time then do it yourself or don’t do it at all.

11.Outsourcing does not have to mean going international. Try a few countries, including your own. I’ve found great guys in India and great guys in my backyard of San Diego. It all depends on the scope of the project. Odesk even allows you to
search geographically if for instance you want someone who you can see face-to-face. Their tools are super easy to use and give you a great shot at finding just the right fit.

12. Expect snafus. Things will no doubt go wrong as you are learning the ropes. Do the above and you’ll likely make your
mistakes early on and with little time and capital investment at risk. Remember every mistake is a lesson. Only let it happen once.

When you clear your schedule of the mundane, your mind has time to tackle the ideas that will allow your business to reach its full potential. Here are just a few possible tasks you can outsource today
• web research
• customer service
• accounting
• web and blog design
• blog and copy writing
• blog comment moderation
• locate best courses in your area for various subjects
• voice transcription
• SEO, SEM and Social Media Marketing
• personal or administrative tasks
• travel plans
• having an out-of-production product or garment made
• locating the perfect gift on Valentine’s Day

The list is about as long as your imagination can wander. Go out and have fun with this. Once you start, it will be impossible not to. The leverage on your time, effort and dollars is such that none of us can afford to miss it. If you need more motivation, realize your competitors are likely already doing the above.

As a bonus, there’s something about knowing work is getting done while you sleep that is incredibly soothing and awesomely efficient. If you have questions, I’m happy to help. Block out an hour on your schedule and make an investment in your future productivity both personally and professionally. It will likely be one of your best returns to date.

Is it too much to ask marketers to prove they know what they’re doing? / July 29, 2010
- Abhinav Gulyani

Being an entrepreneur and meeting up, reading, talking to so many of my kinds , I’ve grown accustomed to a particular world view. Specifically, that all things in life can and should be measured. Now of course, I don’t really think *all* things can be measured. I’m not sure if I can measure how much grief I went through when England was knocked out of the World Cup by Germany (days gone without smiling?), but when it comes to selling yourself and your services, if you can’t put up a number to back up your story, I raise an eyebrow.

In particular, the marketing industry draws my ire. The inaccuracies and casino-nature of traditional form of marketing and advertising is well documented (”Half of your marketing budget is wasted – you just don’t know which half”), but online marketing campaigns are different. There’s a slew of companies whose job is to just measure your marketing initiatives. Analytics, analytics, analytics. So in the face of our current mindset of measure, measure and then measure some more, why is it that so few marketers display their effectiveness?

What I’m angling for is a marketer (or “Guru” as the douch-ier ones like to be called on Twitter) to proudly display on his or her website: “I started a Twitter contest campaign for brand X and increased the number of followers for that brand by 25%, Facebook fans by 10% and regional revenue by $1.5M” Is it really asking too much for people to be able to prove that they know what they’re talking about? I couldn’t imagine building a piece of software for a client and telling them, as I took their money, “You know, I’m not sure if this is even going to compile. Caveat emptor!”

Now I know those in the biz will counter and say “Yeah, but it’s hard to measure. How do we know that the increase in sales were as a result of the Twitter campaign and not the weather or some other externality? How do we accurately recognize and attach revenue to any given marketing activity? Give us marketers a break college boy!”

If I was a “social media marketing agency”, I would be damn sure to measure everything that I do for my clients. Why? Because when the next potential client comes along, I can increase my chances of landing business by proving my case with hard numbers. What currently passes for “proof” of competence is putting up the logo of a brand you have worked with. That’s garbage.

The only reason I can think of why marketers and their agency colleagues don’t show numbers is because there’s nothing to brag about. They know we’re all playing a game called the Emperor’s New Clothes and nobody has stood out yet and yelled, “You’re all naked!”

Well, you’re all naked.

1. Lack of motivation.

A talent is irrelevant if a person is not motivated to use it. Motivation may be external (for example, social approval) or internal (satisfaction from a job well-done, for instance). External sources tend to be transient, while internal sources tend to produce more consistent performance.

2. Lack of impulse control.

Habitual impulsiveness gets in the way of optimal performance. Some people do not bring their full intellectual resources to bear on a problem but go with the first solution that pops into their heads.

3. Lack of perserverance and perseveration.

Some people give up too easily, while others are unable to stop even when the quest will clearly be fruitless.

4. Using the wrong abilities.

People may not be using the right abilities for the tasks in which they are engaged.

5. Inability to translate thought into action.

Some people seem buried in thought. They have good ideas but rarely seem able to do anything about them.

6. Lack of product orientation.

Some people seem more concerned about the process than the result of activity.

7. Inability to complete tasks.

For some people nothing ever draws to a close. Perhaps it’s fear of what they would do next or fear of becoming hopelessly enmeshed in detail.

8. Failure to initiate.

Still others are unwilling or unable to initiate a project. It may be indecision or fear of commitment.

9. Fear of failure.

People may not reach peak performance because they avoid the really important challenges in life.

10. Procrastination.

Some people are unable to act without pressure. They may also look for little things to do in order to put off the big ones.

11. Misattribution of blame.

Some people always blame themselves for even the slightest mishap. Some always blame others.

12. Excessive self-pity.

Some people spend more time feeling sorry for themselves than expending the effort necessary to overcome the problem.

13. Excessive dependency.

Some people expect others to do for them what they ought to be doing themselves.

14. Wallowing in personal difficulties. Some people let their personal difficulties interfere grossly with their work.

During the course of life, one can expect some real joys and some real sorrows. Maintaining a proper perspective is often difficult.

15. Distractibility and lack of concentration.

Even some very intelligent people have very short attention spans.

16. Spreading oneself too think or too thick.

Undertaking too many activities may result in none being completed on time. Undertaking too few can also result in missed opportunities and reduced levels of accomplishment.

17. Inability to delay gratification.

Some people reward themselves and are rewarded by others for finishing small tasks, while avoiding bigger tasks that would earn them larger rewards.

18. Inability to see the forest for the trees.

Some people become obsessed with details and are either unwilling or unable to see or deal with the larger picture in the projects they undertake.

19. Lack of balance between critical, analytical thinking and creative, synthetic thinking.

It is important for people to learn what kind of thinking is expected of them in each situation.

20. Too little or too much self-confidence.

Lack of self-confidence can gnaw away at a person’s ability to get things done and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Conversely, individuals with too much self-confidence may not know when to admit they are wrong or in need of self-improvement.

Complete Series Starts Here – Continued Part 3

Tip Number Six: Local SEO Tips

Conversely, if you specialize in SEO (search engine optimization), you might want to target those businesses who already have a website but are having difficulty getting decent placement in Google.

After you’ve found businesses in your area with websites, you can look for ones that aren’t on the first page for their relevant terms.

This can be labor intensive so let me give you an easy way to speed this process up…

Use the Google Keyword Tool (found HERE), put their url into the box marked, “website” (leaving the “With words or phrases” box empty) and click the [Find keywords] button.

Google will then tell you what terms it believes the site is relevant for.

Now, at this point you can do things the “easy” way or the “hard” way. You could either… (a) Search for these keyword phrases on Google and make note of where their site is found or (b) Use a tool to do this for you automatically.

If using a tool (and that’s definitely what you should be doing) there are a variety of them… both “free” and paid.

I’m only going to mention two of them.

Free:

Rank Checker (a free Firefox addon developed by Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com)

Rank Checker works but I have found the data to be inaccurate. For example, I just did a search for a term I have gotten page one results for (for a client) and it said it didn’t find it on page one of Google.com

When I searched direct on Google.com, it magically appears.

It’s not always wrong but I learned it can’t be trusted 100%

Paid:

SEO Rank Finder (a desktop app developed by Warrior, Chris Ramsey)

As of this writing, the software will not tell you a specific position but will tell you what page the url is found on for a particular keyword phrase. The literature says that an upgrade is coming to include the specific position but even still, this is useful.

So, if you let the software search for the keyword phrases you just located, it will tell you which ones (if any) are found on the first page of Google. If very few (or none) are, you have found a target prospect.

Note: You can import the keywords returned to you by the Google Keyword Tool as a CSV file. To do this, you first download the list as a CSV file (from Google) and then upload the file into SEO Rank Finder.

Tip Number Seven: Some Niches to target

While most any local business can be a potential prospect, here are some tips…

Generally, you will want to avoid any franchise business or any of the larger “corporate” types. These types of businesses generally have their own marketing departments and also many restrictions placed on them as to what they can and cannot do.

Service-type businesses are usually more open to the type of offers you are likely to make so I would recommend that you start with them. It’s not that retail-type businesses won’t do business with you, it’s just that they are typically more resistive.

So with that said, here is a small list of service-types to consider…

• Dentists
• Independent Doctors
• Foot Doctors
• Chiropractors
• Spas
• Handyman
• Locksmith
• Electrician
• Plumber
• Air-conditioning/heating
• Home Improvement/construction
• Cabinetmaker
• Tile/Granite Store (or installers)
• Carpet Store (or installers)
• Real estate salespeople (not broker, but individual salesperson)
• Auto repair shops
• Restaurants
• Barbers
• Hair Salons
• Auto stereo installers
• Local computer repair shops
• Car tire shops
• Smog testing shops
• Tune-up/Oil change type shops
• Landscape companies
• Swimming Pool contractors
• Swimming Pool cleaners
• Mobile pet groomers
• House painters/texture coaters
• Tax preparers
• Accountants/bookkeepers
• Attorneys
• Used car dealers
• Print shops
• Welding shops

  And the list goes on!

You may want to start with the business types you know best and you might also consider becoming a specialist. By that I mean, you might focus on one type of business type before moving to the next.

Why? Well, once you do the necessary keyword/competitor analysis you will have a really good feel for what it will take to get strong listings for that type of business. If you can promote 3-5 of them, you won’t have to “reinvent the wheel” each time… you’ll already have a big head start.

Feel free to ask any questions. Comment below.

Continued From:
Complete Guide Series: How To Get Into Local Business Marketing

Tip Number Four: Sneaky tactic to swing the odds in your favor!

There are many ways to make first contact with a local business owner (including sending out a postcard, sending a letter, sending an email, calling them, etc) but I wanted to give you one technique that is often overlooked (and often the most effective).
Basically, you just do business with them FIRST. This does a couple of very beneficial things…
It puts the “reciprocity principal” into motion. If you’re not familiar with this, it just means that we feel somewhat obligated to repay those who have done something for us.

As you’ve already done business with them, they will be more open to doing business with you.

So, if you want to go after your local barber… go get a haircut.

If you want to go after a local restaurant owner… go have a meal.

You get the idea.

While you’re there, you can ask if the owner/manager are there. Once you get a hold of them, you can thank them for the service you’ve received and ask them what they are doing to market their business online.
Just remember, you don’t want to take a “salesy” approach or you’ll kill the mood! I can’t tell you exactly what to say as it will depend on the individual business type, your personality and the personality of the owner/manager.

However, here’s an example “exchange” to get you thinking…

Example one: Restaurant

After the owner or manager arrives…
YOU – I just wanted to thank you for a great meal and tell you that “Sandra/Bob” (insert server’s name) did a great job… I definitely plan to come again.
THEM – Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me that.
YOU – Absolutely! By the way, how’s business been lately? Has it been picking up?.. it seems pretty quiet in here.
THEM – Yeah, it’s been picking up a bit but it’s still much slower than it was a year ago. Hopefully, that will change soon but I’m not holding my breath.
YOU – Have you been doing much marketing online?
THEM – No, not really. Well, we have a website but I’m not sure how much business it’s really brining us.
YOU – I’d be happy to have a look at it for you, it’s what I do.
THEM – What do you mean it’s “what you do?”
YOU – I specialize in helping local businesses improve their marketing. I can help in a number of ways but most of what I do is to help businesses to improve their online marketing efforts… stuff like, (insert core services here).
THEM – Hey, that would be great… what do I need to do?
YOU – If you’ll give me your business card or at least your email address, I’ll review your site and give you a free evaluation. It will take me a day or two to get it back to you but once you’ve reviewed it, we can discuss it together.

PS – This can work great when paired with “Tip Number Five” below.

Tip Number Five: Barter your way to success!

This isn’t something widely discussed, but you don’t always have to ask for money in return for your services. In order to be successful, you need to be resourceful (and sometimes flexible) .
So, if you or your kids need some dental work, you might approach local dentists with an offer to trade services. The same can be said of most any business type.

Need your car repaired? Approach auto repair shops.

Like to eat out? Approach restaurants and be willing to trade for restaurant gift cards.

You get the picture.

This is a win-win situation as you will get a product/service you need either for free or at a greatly reduced rate and they won’t have to go completely out of pocket.

For example, let’s say you approach a dentist and offer to build them a Google “Local Business Center” for $495 (or whatever you are charging). Instead of them giving you the $495 outright, they could offer you the same amount of services.

If $495 worth of dental work only costs them $100 in materials, they essentially get the listing for $100 plus whatever time they will have to invest.

Few more to go in upcoming posts, stay connected by subscribing my blog or at my social places:

I have  recently been taking mentor-ship from industry experts in Online Marketing (2+ million dollar plus business revenue) and also mentoring few of my close friends who wants to get into what I do and how I do it. So, here are few super insightful tips for people who wish to learn Local Business Marketing and become an expert into it. I dont call myself an expert but I still have some insights I like to share as a person in the industry.

These tips are just that… tips. There are as many ways to get local businesses to do business with you as there are marketers! Hopefully, you will use these to come up with a plan that works for you and remember… you are free to mix-and-match these to create your own unique approach

Tip Number One: Start with what you know!

Target businesses based on your current area of expertise and what services you would like to offer them. For example… If you are skilled at building websites (or have outsourcers to do this task) you might first go after businesses that do not yet have a website.

If you go this route, here are some ideas:

Look through your local “yellow pages” type directory and make note of all of the businesses that do NOT list a website url. Before contacting them, do a “Google search” to see if you can find a listing for their business (either a website or a “Local Business Center” listing… the ones next to the big Google map)
If you can’t find either listing, you have found a targeted prospect!

You might start with by offering them a “Local Business Center” listing and then offer to build a website for them sometime in the future. This way, they can get into the game right away (even without a website) and will be more likely to contract with you for building their website as you have already proven your skills.

Tip Number Two: Start with the “easy ones” to build confidence/references!

If you’re new to this business and don’t have many references, you might look to friends/relatives/acquaintances that have businesses. Offering to do some amount of work for them (either for free or at a greatly reduced rate) will help you build confidence and get some testimonials you can use for your business.

Tip Number Three: Go where the money is!

Look for businesses that are already spending money to advertise their site. It’s not that you can’t convince a business owner to start marketing their business via paid methods but it is certainly a bigger challenge.
Here are some places to look: Yellow Page type directories (YellowPages.com – SuperPages.com – YellowBook.com) ValPak coupons sent to your home Other direct marketing pieces sent to your home (normally sales letters, postcards, coupons or magazine-type pieces)

If they are already buying ads through these types of outlets, they understand the value of advertising.

Most Important Bonus!!

I understand Local Business Marketing since past 5 years now. And I am ready to help people who wish to take help. Simply email at aby@bluo.in with your requirements with Email Title: “Local Business Marketing – Questions”, any other title will be blocked as spam and I dont take an guarantee to reply.

I hate to say it, but well. I havent yet started blogging here. Well, sure since its my personal domain name with my name on it still you can check my blog on another URL: http://abynav.com

See you all!