If you can answer these 5 questions in your copy, you’ll immediately begin to write compelling copy that makes people take action.

Here’s the 5 questions…

1. Who are you speaking to? - The target audience you speak to children different to adults, the same in an advert.

2. What are their problems? - No problem to solve, no sale…

3. What is your solution? - What do you offer?

4. How do they know it will work? - Testimonials of some kind by people who have used your product or service, or even research of some kind might do it.

5. How do they get it? - Online, in a shop, by phone…

Using this as a guide you should be able to write your own adverts(at least basically) and evaluate other adverts. One business operator I know has a folder stuffed full of his competitors adverts and another one with his ideas written out. Each is in a section for different themes (seasons, special events, sales etc) so he can quickly find an advert to reuse, or ideas for a new one.

Once you have the five questions answered make sure you headline catches attention, any images do the same and it’s clear how people can contact you.

Finally remember the advert is just to get them interested, NOT to sell the person, marketing at best causes people to want to find out more and take action by contacting your business.

Steve Gray.

Writer - Speaker on business issues - Leadership - Innovation - Communication.

www.stevegray.biz - www.stevegray.com.au

I call it Marketing overlap, there is probably a fancy name for it in market speak but for now that covers it.

Many businesses rely on just a few forms of marketing and can measure the results of those, however what most fail to do is overlap the marketing so that as one method of marketing runs out of stem the next one kicks in.

An example of this is when you have a range of great products, and this month you have a special on one of them, the next month another special with a  different item and so on. By focusing on one product special then another people can get excited about coming to check out what you have on offer, often to get the special, but guess what they do, they often buy more than just the special.

If your business is expanding and offering new products you can launch them as the “special” then as you move to the next special the first one has nearly run its course, and so the overlap effect occurs.

This method generally ups your average dollar sale, keeps people interested in what you have to offer and if you can couple it with a range of marketing devices you will probably see great results.

So on, get out your marketing plan and cram a few extra marketing devices into the mix and overlap each campaign to keep the punters interested, if you don’t, your competition just might and take your customers out from under you. Chances are you may not notice until it’s too late.

In my more recent travels I have noticed bitter, grumpy and annoyed people operating businesses. It’s one thing to have grumpy staff, but quite another to see the operator of the business in this “state”. Seriously if you want to be in business and be a grouch stay out of site of the customers…

I guess it’s in part due to the Global Financial Crisis or at least compounded by it, to the point where people are wondering about where the next customer and cash is going to come from. Okay so you may not be able to do much about that, (especially if you have spent all your marketing budget already!) So you have to sit and wait… BUT if that can’t change, what about you?

To alter being a “grump” you may have to take a stance and force yourself to be happy. try a few of these.

• Write a sign for yourself “Be Happy!” and put it where it can be seen by you and not the customer, make a bunch of them, put them up and act on them.
• Make a list of things that make you happy and each day “do” something on that list somehow… and DON”T give me the line of “Oh I don’t have time…”
• Get or make a CD of a bunch of funny things, jokes etc by comedians you really like and laugh at even though you have heard them a zillion times, play it on the way to the office, and LAUGH heartily!
• Look up, yes it’s that simple, look up and try to not feel good, hard to do eh? Note how glum people tend to look down a lot, makes sense right…
• Tell  your staff to tell you to smarten up… Go on I dare you to.
• Make a list of the things getting you down, now write a bunch of ways to fix them, then act on it… go on do that now! Keep adding to the solutions list.
• Take a five minute stroll, go out of the office or store, walk briskly and get the blood pumping.
• De stress, mediate or do whatever thing helps you to de stress (without hurting others or things…)
• Get an unreasonable friend, one who can hold you to your promises, and chat to them about ways to work around your challenges, share a few jokes etc.
• Kick a footy, It won’t de stress everyone, but It might work for you, heck even going to a sports shop and buying one might break your routine enough, no cash? Borrow one off a kid in your street… hey imagine going door to do and asking “Does your kid have a footy I can borrow for an hour?” Heck that kid has probably been looking for a kick to kick friend for ages.
• Go to an Art Gallery or five for a few minutes, I used to do this when driving around in a van all over the city, I would drop in to see contemporary art, (no cost!) and I knew where heaps of them where so I could get to one fast for a break in routine. Oh and turn your mobile off for the few minutes you are there. Seeing other people’s “views” on and about the “human condition” can be useful.
• Put a picture of yourself up on the fridge at home and yell at yourself… Like that? Now think about the last time you yelled at someone else, was that good (I hope not!)

He starts off talking about games and what makes them addictive… Then he goes on to show the comparison to social media (”aint” that the buzz at the moment) then I figure if you know what makes social media addictive, you could create a business that is addictive for your customers.

Imagine that people addicted to what you have, and they keep coming back to buy more… Yep the old loyal customer routine. Only now (thanks to Ross and others…) we can start to build an understanding of how that happens, so lets do it for business. Oh I mentioned educators as well, in a stale classroom, sit down, shut up, take down these notes… a fresh perspective on what engages people has got to be useful!

I’m going to cut to the chase here… The five central elements of Game Mechanics are: 

• Collecting things.
• Earning Points.
• Getting/giving feedback.
• Exchanges/Gifting.
• User Customization.

Imagine you employ a bright eyed graduate or fresh faced school leaver brimming with interest and potential, then after a few weeks you see them with less of a smile, less of a pep in their step. For most people watching this person they might say, yep the realities of being in a job have kicked in, he he!

That can be the case, but what if they have found their supervisor or a co-worker has given then some grief, a few terse words, a few statements which have impacted on their esteem. This might seem like petty stuff but the impact of this sort of situation can get out of hand very quickly, the worker may feel powerless, in a bind, awkward, berated, useless and so on.

Your business has a duty of care,  you have a duty of care and this needs to be stated up front that everyone in the organisation also has a duty of care. Therefore that being the case guidelines need to be in place to clearly out line what actions are taken in situations like this and to spell out some basics as to what might constitute bullying, harassment and other situations which might impact a persons esteem.

Okay so now a bunch of  you are saying “Hey the hell do I have to care about a persons esteem? Heck I pay them to do a job, they should do it and put up with the situation, they should harden up, the world is a tough place…”

My view on that is how can you not care about a person you employ… If you are not into caring, avoid being in business. If you don’t care, your customers won’t either and then your staff will soon disappear. Yes it’s that basic, and you need to ensure you have the situation covered or you could be caught out VERY QUICKLY.

So do the right thing and have one ready to implement now, I suggest at the very least you do a search on google and see what comes up, grab one that suits and use it. for a rock solid start try the public service in your country and see what they have you can edit to make it your own. one I looked at recently had a 44 page doc you could download easily enough and it had various examples as well. http://www.apsc.gov.au/ethics/respect.pdf

To finish, imagine this, you are interviewing people for a job, on telling them about the organisation you are able to show them a copy of your bullying policy. It shows you care, it shows you will not tolerate people who don’t care, it shows you want to have happy people enjoying being part of the team, together everyone feels safe and in a organisation which values people, enough said…

Here’s a quote from the show “In Guangdong province alone, 60,000 factories have now closed down and millions of migrant workers are searching for work.”

My first thought was what were they making? well it’s interesting the businesses included a printing plant, toy factories, and jewelry manufacturing… My second thought was do they make for the local market or export, export… third question, is the product a need or a want, mainly want.

So it comes down to the basics if the majority of what is produced is not for needs when a downturn comes the wants are dropped first. When an external order from overseas is pulled then the whole thing can collapse quickly. as the local economy is hanging on wants, the failure of one is felt across all.

Learn from this huge scale disaster and make sure you have a balance of income from needs based sources as well as wants based sources. If you have shares in a grocery company Co for example it seems logical that they supply the needs of people, then take your own business think about how you can supply to the needs based customers. Think carefully about this as a form of insurance to ensure you can balance your wants and needs to ensure sustainability.

I figure it as the point where the marketing being done has reached a level where a balance has been reached between the income level in the business covers the costs and leaves a profit. It’s the sort of point of satisfaction, knowing your business is getting enough of what it deserves.

To reach this critical mass can be tricky though, at first it’s devices which will probably be around for a long while, like signage on a store, then through to consumables like adverts and business cards. So perhaps you have to look at marketing non consumables (or low consumables) as start up costs, then measure marketing from the consumable start up point.

For the business which has been going a while a swap in marketing people can spell a huge challenge, especially if they are wanting to try new things… what may have been a sensible campaign going along well can be scrapped by the newbie out to impress, oops! For the new business operator sometimes just having enough cash to get to critical mass is a challenge.

Examples, you may have 5000 business cards and y have paid for them, however they are not doing much stuck in your desk drawer, even when you get them out in circulation it does not mean instant cash for your business. The same with adverts, unless there is something to cause the reader to act, then the result can take a while to kick in, in fact many advertisers find it takes 6 or more repeats of an advert to have an effect.

Another factor to marketing effectiveness is a simple one, know that when you advertise a specific product (like car tyres for instance) it requires someone to take note of the advert and then take action, when they require that product, or can see it may be useful to have at some later stage. Therefore if you want people to buy what you have, your advertising needs to be there when they want what you have. In the tyre example people may see an advert for tyres from five different organisations, but none registers until they need or want them.

When your business has it’s marketing sorted out to create a critical mass, you can then “tweak” things to make it perform better. Effective measurement of what’s working is then vital to ensure you know what’s marketing you might want to alter.

Clearly marketing is critical to your businesses success, how you go about getting it to a suitable level should now be easier and not get into a mess.

In the most part a business is about creating a device to provide a product or service and make a profit from it, however it goes a bit further than that. I feel it’s important to make a few distinctions.

• Job - not a Biz - Turn up - do work - go home - repeat.
• Low level Biz Operator - as above - not much scope to get ahead - Some franchises can feel like this.
• Low level Biz Owner - Some growth as the biz operator gets some leverage by having staff do the work, with input from the owner.
• Mid level Biz Owner - Better growth limited input to the biz as the staff do it all with a manager in place or similar - perhaps develops other businesses or franchises of one business.
• Upper level Biz Owner - As previous but developing assets to utilise the growth’s potential.
• Top level Biz Owner - Utilises others to do the work, from developing more assets to creating more businesses.

It’s a no brainer really, however there are many people looking to change jobs, move on, move up, move out! Why generally because they are unhappy. As an employer it’s part of your unwritten “duty of care” to provide an environment where staff are happy.

A small family business might seem like a great thing and how you treat family can be quite different from general staff. You might be happy to work at an old desk loaded with irrelevant papers and bits and pieces, but an employee probably will be put off by that.

I guess the moral of this is think about it. Take time to evaluate, if a new employee is due to start next week, make it a major priority to make their starting off in your business fantastic.

Here’s a few reasons why:

• Change can be difficult for people, new surrounds new names, new everything! It can take a while to get used to.
• Moving jobs means altering routines, wake up times, transport changes, family routines alter.
• A new job with different systems can take quite a while to adapt to.
• A new role may mean there are changes to who is leading who, this can cause challenges.

A Home starts out as a thought… an Idea.

A job starts out as…

EVERYTHING starts out as an idea. It’s what we do with the idea which brings it to life.

Note that right at the point of starting, there is no money, no income, no product, no service, just the idea, a what if, an “aha”, a possibility.

Therefore all business is bootstrapping (starting with zero $$). Sure some will find ready access to cash (a rich benefactor, an easy loan.) and for those without the cash or a benefactor the idea can languish and fade or it can cause a mighty desire to grow and develop.

From idea to reality, the results are kindled by desire, passion a clear plan and goals.

Therefore from where I stand the view of all businesses starting out is equal, some just seem to get a head start, the proof however is in the results, the profit, the sustainability the good leadership and goodwill created.

How do you know if it works?

Yes it can be a pain.. personally I love it. I love seeing where my website visitors come from, what page they came in on, what they clicked on, and where they went around my site. I love watching my contact forms come back with the box ‘Where did you hear about us” filled out and realising that my marketing is reaching further than I thought!!

So if you don’t track your marketing efforts, at least start with your website. Write this down - - Google Analytics.

Now go and visit their website - http://www.google.com/analytics/ . Go on. I’ll wait.

Ok, now that you have had a look  - go and sign up!!! This site is amazing with tools that let you track the sales process and see where your potential customers are falling off the process. Do you get visitors but no-one is buying? Find out what page they leave and fix it!!

You can also test different pages. So if you have a product and want to try different content, you can do a split test of these pages and see which ones convert the highest.

This tool is essential for any business owner with a website, serious about succeeding.

The best thing?

It’s FREE!! Go and start tracking your site now so you can improve the bits that aren’t working! 

Don’t get me wrong here, a part time biz is part time, but a fully blown full time business is just that full time. (and then some.) So if you want to go full time it requires a VERY solid commitment.

It takes research, planning, finance, an organised approach, resources etc. etc…

So in setting up in business make sure you have really explored all the options, far too often people have got started with such a small amount of info and advice tis laughable.

NOTE:

• A business is not a job, it’s more of a lifestyle (take it or leave it…)
• Business has potential to earn, but also the bigger potential to BURN.
• Being in business takes organisation and planning, no plan should equal no action.
• Know what it will take, do  your research and get advice from people who are up there and making things happen (successful business people).
• Know that many people have gone bust in business, and some have thought long and hard before getting in and getting real results.
• Just because you have a 15 yr old who can make a website does not make them a webpreneur, far from it. Any website for your business needs to do certain things to get certain results get great advice on this.

So is the answer to make all business a device owned by the community? Well probably not. but the bigger issue is how businesses are perceived. xyz Co put off x No of staff oh woe is the state of things, they are bad guys etc…

Here is what I see are the real issues here, outsourcing, and diversification.

If a Co outsourced all but it’s core activities, things would not fall far in one organisation. and if they diversified they would not be relying on one income stream. Lets explore that.

Co a sells widgets and makes a profit, the profit goes into an investment fund and they buy property to rent out. They get another income stream. In producing the widgets for one market they recognise a different target market needs a similar widget, and they can do it with a few tweaks, therefore they develop another income stream. So with the profits being (hopefully) greater, they can put more into other investments e.g. term deposits with a bank.

That’s the basics folks, make some, add some, make some more and so forth. The aim being if one goes down, the biz is still intact to some degree. it’s simple but it should work. If it was a cooperative then it might just work better with the right foundation and philosophy supporting it.