Vision Of Success

With an afternoon email yesterday, we were ready to make Maureen McGuire Interiors site live and ready to go. We were waiting for word on an award status - which she found out she won late Thursday afternoon! Way to go Maureen!

When we first started working with Maureen, she wanted a simple site that she could use to showcase her work for current and prospective local clients. Her business is mainly referral, and she was looking for something to use as a portfolio, and to help her reach out to people that search online for a designer in the Denver area.

We created a dynamic showcase for her that allowed her to take her photographs, and turn it into a gallery. It adds action to her home page, and engages people to want to stay and look through her portfolio. We also incorporated before and after photos, allowing clients and prospects to really see what she can accomplish.

We also designed a Flash presentation for her design page to show people how she moves from concept to completion. Again, our goal was keeping pages simple, yet incorporating sophisticated design elements to make her site  reach out and grab attention.

Thanks for being a part of our Vision Family Maureen!

We’re excited to be releasing the newest site, The Gift Of Questions, in a series of sites for entrepreneur Barbe Ratcliffe.

In one of our monthly strategy sessions, we began talking about Barbe’s upcoming book release entitled, “The Gift Of Questions”. As she’s finishing up her book, she was also looking for some input from other people, including clients and friends.

“What if we put up a site that allows people to give you their answers?” And her newest website was born.

The site is a simple, one page site with a built-in database that allows people to answer two questions, and fill in their contact information to receive two free chapters of her book.

We also worked to fill in back end pieces, such as autoresponders and thank you pages, to make sure the entire submission process runs smooth.

And when the book is complete and ready for sale, we’ll convert the whole thing over to her book site, ready to sell.

Way to go Barbe - we’re excited to have you on board and a part of our Vision family. 

Over the past few months I’ve spoken with dozens of business owners about designing a website, a blog, or both.  Some get it. And some don’t.

In many cases a small business owner simply wants a small brochure type site to exist online - something they can direct current and prospective clients to see their work. In theory this sounds great. And I always encourage a small business owner who currently has nothing, to at least start with this type of a site.

But what most small business owners are lacking is the understanding of the long term effects of having a website. Your website isn’t just a brochure. It isn’t just a one time form of marketing that will help you gain a current client.

It is your best long term strategy for building your business.

Imagine creating a brochure for your company. You spend hours gathering the photographs, creating the copy, working with a designer, and sending it to the printer. The final brochure looks great, and you’re excited to start handing it out.

If you print 1000 brochures, you have 1000 chances to connect with potential clients. In some cases some people will share the brochure with others. But once the 1000 brochures are gone - you have to start over.

Now let’s take a look at a website.

Let’s say you go out and design a site filled with information. You start up a blog, and you start sharing information on a regular basis. You create a great article that specifically targets one section of your niche.

The potential of this article is lifelong. As long as your business is in existence, and as long as your website is up and running, this article can work for you. Months from now. Years from now.

[I wrote an article in 2005 that is still on my site, and pulls a huge amount of traffic every month. I would never delete or change it.]

If you create a brochure, the goal is to have it generate leads.

If you create a website, it too can have a goal of generating leads. But it can also do a whole lot more.

• You can capture email addresses for future, free promotion.
• You can promote your services.
• You can have a shopping cart for products and services.
• You can use it to expand your business model.

Many people go into a website with a closed mind. They create it as a way to advertise their business to their local marketplace.

But once they get online, they open up their minds, and find many ways to connect and sell to people. It is possible to grow any type of business - product or service - to an international level.

And if someone has the capability of making a decision and acting out it immediately, you’ll see a definite rise in your sales.

[Ready to market your business with your website? Check out our monthly marketing services, and let us join your marketing team.]

We don’t watch much tv in our house. In fact other than a few movies, it hasn’t been on at all the past three months.

But Friday night we turned it on to watch the Olympics, and we’ve watched each night over the weekend. There’s just something about watching people that put all they have into a four year training period (since the last Olympics, even though I know training is much longer than that) just to enter a race - and have the chance to win gold.

Watching Michael Phelps was truly breathtaking. We were all cheering and literally holding our breath as he won his first two gold medals. Not only is he relying on his own skill to capture gold, but also relying on those of his team mates in last night’s relay.

Ultimately it comes down to action. They’ve practiced, trained, raced and practiced some more.  They’ve devoted their lives to being the best they can be. But if they don’t take action in the end, they will lose the race and never make the history books.

The Olympics show us truly what is possible. Setting goals is mandatory: world record times, capturing 8 gold medals, etc. They see their goal, and imagine the goal is within reach. And for some it is.

And they stop at nothing to achieve it.

It’s much the same for us as entrepreneurs. We’ve made the break from a traditional “job” lifestyle. We’ve plunged in to taking our lifestyle and businesses to a place where most people will never go. Even most entrepreneurs never reach beyond a “job” - they never achieve what they truly could because they don’t reach beyond their comfort zone.

Push a little harder. Make a bigger goal. Step out of your comfort zone, and reach for the stars.

You may be truly amazed at what you achieve.

photo by IndianSumm

I’ve been talking to a lot of people about LinkedIn the past couple of days. Does it work to network online? Can you really build your business using tools like LinkedIn?

Or should you limit the number of friends you have on social sites, and make sure you only use great people you actually know well?

Take a look at this blog post on LinkedIn which will give you insight as to how people are using social sites as marketing for their business.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on LinkedIn connecting up with other business owners. I answer questions regularly, and have started asking a variety of my own questions.

So as I logged in today to start surfing through the site, I was surprised to see today’s featured question - by John McCain.

Think of how a presidential candidate could operate in the future. If there’s a topic brewing  among the masses, he or she simply logs into their social site, asks a question, and begins analyzing the responses from average American citizens.

Talk about the power of the people.

In less than 2 hours, 81 people have posted answers to his question. Imagine the response in 7 days. And imagine the answers he can get by asking a question every day.

It doesn’t have to be just for presidential candidates. It can be for small business owners too.

What if you could ask a question to a group of people and get answers from people around the globe? How do they feel about something? What opinion do they have about something in the news? Could it impact the way you build a new service?

I’ve been asking questions just to get an overview of how people feel about social media and blogging. While none of the answers surprised me, it did confirm things I already had a feeling about.

What can you ask to help you build your business?

In the past few weeks I’ve written about the doom and gloom that appears daily in the news, and about people hiding their true fee in order to post as low a price as possible.

Well it’s in the news again.

JetBlue just announced that they will now be charging $7 for pillows if you so choose. When will other airlines follow suit (in hours I’m sure)?

Airlines are hurting. If you’ve seen any type of news in any type of format, that’s common knowledge. But once again they are hiding the actual cost of flying in “hidden” fees.

JetBlue originally grew because of their service skills. They were customer friendly, and supplied you with all the extras that somehow vanished from the other airlines. Yet now they are following in the footsteps of their rivals.

If I choose to fly, I must pay a fee for my ticket, a processing fee, a booking fee, a baggage fee, food charges, tv/movie charges, and now pillow/blanket charges. What’s next, a charge for the seat?

So my “cheap” $200 ticket can soar by $100 or more by the time all the fees are added up. Why can’t they just charge me the $300 in the first place? I’ll pay that if I choose to fly; why not give it to me all up front and let me decide?

The name of the game right now is to bring in a customer at the lowest possible price. Then once you have them, tack on every charge you can think of. This isn’t just in the airlines - I’m assuming it’s the rationalization for surviving the recession. Bring a client on board for a low price - then start adding up the extras.

Use this to your advantage. Charge one fee, and stick with it. And advertise it that way.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s sick of bringing out my wallet ever step of the way. 

What if you had a ton of expertise in online search engine tactics, and wanted to change the way search is currently being performed online? You’d start a new search engine of course.

Enter Cuil.

Cuil, an old Irish word for knowledge, has just entered cyberspace, and is ready to compete with the big sites. With a ton of experience between the founding members, and $30 million in start up funding, it’ll be interesting to see how big they truly get.

So of course I had to play. Yes, I’m number one under Lori Osterberg, and most of my other big sites are there too. But I did have to do some submitting for some of my smaller sites, and if you’re a current client, you’ve been submitted as well. 

So is it better than Google and Yahoo? Well considering it’s just days old, it’s still hard to say. Cover your bases, and stay tuned.

Even with many years of experience behind you, starting your own venture can be a little challenging.

Yet working with Howie with Quality 1st Plumbing Repair was easy - and a lot of fun. He knew what he wanted in a site, and coordinated it all with other forms of marketing already in production (like van wraps, etc).

Our goal was to develop a dynamic site that was clean, fun, and offers the team a variety of ways to market their business. We worked with colors, graphics and images to make the text stand out. And provided them with an easy way to convert customers from searchers on the web with a special coupon page prominently located within their navigation.

It’s not all about putting up a brochure - it’s about making your site workable for you and your clients.

Thanks Howie - we appreciate you - here’s to your success!

Looking for an interesting graphic to make your blog posts a little less white? Why not make a word cloud from Wordle.

Simply type in words that you want included. Or submit your URL from your blog or website. Wordle will take over and make an interesting word cloud for you.

From there you can turn your words horizontal, vertical, or mix it all up. Change the colors, and you’re ready to go.