Saturday, July 22, 2006
One Stop Web Support Newsletter #35 On Its Way
The latest issue of One Stop Web Support Newsletter is scheduled to arrive early Sunday morning, July 23. This newsletter contains:
Jeff
The latest issue of One Stop Web Support Newsletter is scheduled to arrive early Sunday morning, July 23. This newsletter contains:
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly or Article Titles
- Personal recommendations - "Worldwide Brands Wholesale Directories"
- Special guest corner: Discover the Profit Models That Can Dramatically Increase Your Income and Position Your Business for *Massive* Growth (part 1) By Derek Gehl
- Success quote by Friedrich Nietzsche
Jeff
Friday, July 21, 2006
Does Your Business Draw From Your Strengths?
Imagine you've just been challenged to an old-time duel. If you accept the challenge, your life will be on the line. This is nothing to take lightly!
As the one who was challenged, you have the choice of weapons. What weapon do you choose?
The outcome of the duel is dependent on how skillfully you can wield that weapon. Do you choose one that you are expert in? Or do you choose one that you've always been kinda interested in and think it would be cool to try?
You choose the weapon you're best with, of course! What kind of idiot would go into a crucial situation with something they knew nothing about?
Yet when it comes to starting a business, many new business owners go in with an "anything will do" attitude. Maybe the fact that starting a business is new to us leads us to believe that the subject of our business should be new to us, too.
The fact is, though, that you have the best choice of success when you choose something you already have some expertise in. Learning how to run a business will be challenging enough without adding to it the burden of learning an entire new field of interest, too.
Your ideal business is not what everybody else is doing. Your ideal business leverages your unique experiences and skills to create a business that no one else ever could.
I've written a couple times about Rich Schefren's insights into starting a business. He's started several with remarkable success. And he's always leveraged his strengths in every business he started.
He took over a failing clothing store when he was fresh out of college and turned it into a roaring success. How? He took his knowledge of what people his age liked and repositioned the store to appeal specifically to that niche.
His competitors? Those stores were run by stodgy middle-aged men who were merely guessing at what that age group wanted. Rich KNEW, and this strength gave his business a huge advantage.
He next took over a small hypnosis clinic and turned it into a big franchise operation with offices all over New York. How did he do this?
He entered a market where he saw that the existing business owners viewed running the business end of things as a distasteful necessity. He then brought the business know-how he had gained from his clothing store and used that to out-advertise, out-position, and out-maneuver them all.
He's done this again and again. He never starts a business without first finding a way in which he will have an advantage that lets him dominate the field.
So how do you do the same? First, avoid the thinking that plagues most new business owners. You don't need to copycat what "everybody else is doing." Don't automatically think that running a business involves having a web store that sells generic gifts or electronics or whatever.
Thousands of small-time gift or electronics shops sit abandoned on the Web, their owners having given up. They found they couldn't siphon off the customers from the sites that knew their field much better than they did.
Second, take a good look at your strengths. What do people tell you you're good at?
We often downplay our strengths because they come so naturally to us. But your strengths are what give you the best chance of succeeding.
Third, think creatively. Look for markets where nobody is currently leveraging those strengths that you have. Then use those strengths to offer customers something better than your competitors do.
What about if you already have an existing business? Look for ways that you can apply your strengths in ways that reposition that business to draw from them.
The last thing you want to do when entering a life-or-death duel is to choose a weapon you have no experience with. Similarly, the last thing you want to do when creating a business on which you place your financial security is to choose a business model where you have no strengths to distinguish you from your competitors.
Take a look at yourself and find your strengths. And be prepared for a pleasant surprise.
Jeff
Imagine you've just been challenged to an old-time duel. If you accept the challenge, your life will be on the line. This is nothing to take lightly!
As the one who was challenged, you have the choice of weapons. What weapon do you choose?
The outcome of the duel is dependent on how skillfully you can wield that weapon. Do you choose one that you are expert in? Or do you choose one that you've always been kinda interested in and think it would be cool to try?
You choose the weapon you're best with, of course! What kind of idiot would go into a crucial situation with something they knew nothing about?
Yet when it comes to starting a business, many new business owners go in with an "anything will do" attitude. Maybe the fact that starting a business is new to us leads us to believe that the subject of our business should be new to us, too.
The fact is, though, that you have the best choice of success when you choose something you already have some expertise in. Learning how to run a business will be challenging enough without adding to it the burden of learning an entire new field of interest, too.
Your ideal business is not what everybody else is doing. Your ideal business leverages your unique experiences and skills to create a business that no one else ever could.
I've written a couple times about Rich Schefren's insights into starting a business. He's started several with remarkable success. And he's always leveraged his strengths in every business he started.
He took over a failing clothing store when he was fresh out of college and turned it into a roaring success. How? He took his knowledge of what people his age liked and repositioned the store to appeal specifically to that niche.
His competitors? Those stores were run by stodgy middle-aged men who were merely guessing at what that age group wanted. Rich KNEW, and this strength gave his business a huge advantage.
He next took over a small hypnosis clinic and turned it into a big franchise operation with offices all over New York. How did he do this?
He entered a market where he saw that the existing business owners viewed running the business end of things as a distasteful necessity. He then brought the business know-how he had gained from his clothing store and used that to out-advertise, out-position, and out-maneuver them all.
He's done this again and again. He never starts a business without first finding a way in which he will have an advantage that lets him dominate the field.
So how do you do the same? First, avoid the thinking that plagues most new business owners. You don't need to copycat what "everybody else is doing." Don't automatically think that running a business involves having a web store that sells generic gifts or electronics or whatever.
Thousands of small-time gift or electronics shops sit abandoned on the Web, their owners having given up. They found they couldn't siphon off the customers from the sites that knew their field much better than they did.
Second, take a good look at your strengths. What do people tell you you're good at?
We often downplay our strengths because they come so naturally to us. But your strengths are what give you the best chance of succeeding.
Third, think creatively. Look for markets where nobody is currently leveraging those strengths that you have. Then use those strengths to offer customers something better than your competitors do.
What about if you already have an existing business? Look for ways that you can apply your strengths in ways that reposition that business to draw from them.
The last thing you want to do when entering a life-or-death duel is to choose a weapon you have no experience with. Similarly, the last thing you want to do when creating a business on which you place your financial security is to choose a business model where you have no strengths to distinguish you from your competitors.
Take a look at yourself and find your strengths. And be prepared for a pleasant surprise.
Jeff
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Writing a Picture That Leads Your Visitors to BUY
That's right. I said "writing a picture." It's a practice that doesn't come naturally to us, but a powerful one for improving your sales.
One of my favorite newsletters, GrokDotCom, recently did an excellent job of describing this underused technique for improving your sales conversions. Give it a look and let me know what you think.
Jeff
That's right. I said "writing a picture." It's a practice that doesn't come naturally to us, but a powerful one for improving your sales.
One of my favorite newsletters, GrokDotCom, recently did an excellent job of describing this underused technique for improving your sales conversions. Give it a look and let me know what you think.
Jeff
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
More Business Lessons From IKEA
Last week, I talked about my visit to the local IKEA home decor store and the lesson it taught. It taught the value of connecting with customers by simply letting your unique personality show through in your business. There was more to learn from IKEA than just that, though.
Exposing visitors to the complete product line
IKEA funnels visitors along a winding path through the store instead of arranging so visitors go directly wherever they choose. A customer unfriendly move? It would be if they didn't do such a good job of getting visitors to buy into this unexpected experience.
But they do an excellent job at the entrance of convincing you that traveling the path they set for you will be a pleasant adventure. The end result is that they expose visitors to their entire product line instead of just a fraction of it. This encourages impulse buying.
Can you accomplish the same thing? IKEA's fun and irreverent personality helps them defuse their visitors' eagerness to get in, get what they want and get out. By convincing visitors that it will be fun to walk around the whole store they essentially get visitors to put themselves in IKEA's hands and let IKEA take them where IKEA wants them to go.
This is not easy. Simply saying on your site, "Hey, it'll be fun to wander my site for hours," will not do the trick. You need to understand your visitors and what will grab their interest. You have to make sure you regularly provide them with surprises along the way that maintain their willingness to trust you.
But even if you don't feel confident of your ability to do this right now, you can still capture some of this feel with well-thought out navigation. Make sure you anticipate and plan each path they may take to their goal. Make sure that each page along their path clearly leads them to the next.
As long as they feel they are following the "scent" toward their eventual goal, they will keep moving forward—and see more of your product line along the way. Just make sure you give them a path that THEY will feel comfortable following. If you send them chasing around randomly, they'll lose confidence in you and go elsewhere.
Anticipate what customers will need and when they will need it
Unlike many stores, IKEA had no shopping carts at the entrance. Instead, they assured you that you'd be able to find bags and carts right where you needed them along your way.
Sure enough, these were scattered strategically and discretely throughout the store. There were never so many of them that you noticed them—unless you were specifically looking for them. They blended right in, but were clearly evident to anyone who wanted one.
How do you do the same? Again, think out your visitors' path toward a sale. Figure out what information they will need at what point and provide it for them. Work into your pages links that answer their anticipated questions. Those who have that question will click; those who don't can move past it without having to wade through extraneous info that they don't feel they need.
Provide ideas and package deals that can lead to substantial upsells
One of the reasons IKEA didn't have shopping carts in the entrance is because the first quarter of the path took you past sample rooms they had decorated. And I'm not talking about displays of a sofa, a couple of end tables and lamps. I'm talking about entire rooms.
These rooms were of different sizes and shapes and listed the square footage. They were designed to help you learn and get ideas for decorating whatever size and space you had. They were part of the payoff for putting yourself in IKEA's hands and following where IKEA led. You felt like you were learning how to decorate those problem spaces in your home.
But those rooms weren't just for learning and they weren't just for display, either. Each one had a price tag on them. If so inclined, you could simply go to an IKEA employee, tell them which room you wanted, and they would have a duplicate of the entire display ready to ship off to your home.
It was a great way to upsell more products.
You can do the same. Find things that go together. Show how well they go together in informative tutorials. Offer them as a package. The person who came looking for one item may well leave your site with a whole package.
Make your products highly visible
One last thing to learn from IKEA was the way they made their products visible. Once you got past the room displays, you walked through large spaces where all the products were highly visible. Standing in any one spot, you could instantly spot a wide range of products.
As a matter of fact, products were so well displayed that it was almost impossible NOT to have something draw you over to it.
Again, a good lesson for online marketers. Look at your site. How visible are your products to visitors? Is your site laid out to maximize browsing, or are your products obscured by poor layout and design? You want to catch visitors' eyes and draw them along. You get no points for having the most logical site in the world if it doesn't catch and entice.
All in all, I found my IKEA experience a good reminder of what makes a good sales process. While we can't necessarily duplicate everything that IKEA does online (a big reason they can convince people to put themselves into IKEA's hands is because of the good word-of-mouth they already enjoy), there's a lot that we can.
Jeff
Last week, I talked about my visit to the local IKEA home decor store and the lesson it taught. It taught the value of connecting with customers by simply letting your unique personality show through in your business. There was more to learn from IKEA than just that, though.
Exposing visitors to the complete product line
IKEA funnels visitors along a winding path through the store instead of arranging so visitors go directly wherever they choose. A customer unfriendly move? It would be if they didn't do such a good job of getting visitors to buy into this unexpected experience.
But they do an excellent job at the entrance of convincing you that traveling the path they set for you will be a pleasant adventure. The end result is that they expose visitors to their entire product line instead of just a fraction of it. This encourages impulse buying.
Can you accomplish the same thing? IKEA's fun and irreverent personality helps them defuse their visitors' eagerness to get in, get what they want and get out. By convincing visitors that it will be fun to walk around the whole store they essentially get visitors to put themselves in IKEA's hands and let IKEA take them where IKEA wants them to go.
This is not easy. Simply saying on your site, "Hey, it'll be fun to wander my site for hours," will not do the trick. You need to understand your visitors and what will grab their interest. You have to make sure you regularly provide them with surprises along the way that maintain their willingness to trust you.
But even if you don't feel confident of your ability to do this right now, you can still capture some of this feel with well-thought out navigation. Make sure you anticipate and plan each path they may take to their goal. Make sure that each page along their path clearly leads them to the next.
As long as they feel they are following the "scent" toward their eventual goal, they will keep moving forward—and see more of your product line along the way. Just make sure you give them a path that THEY will feel comfortable following. If you send them chasing around randomly, they'll lose confidence in you and go elsewhere.
Anticipate what customers will need and when they will need it
Unlike many stores, IKEA had no shopping carts at the entrance. Instead, they assured you that you'd be able to find bags and carts right where you needed them along your way.
Sure enough, these were scattered strategically and discretely throughout the store. There were never so many of them that you noticed them—unless you were specifically looking for them. They blended right in, but were clearly evident to anyone who wanted one.
How do you do the same? Again, think out your visitors' path toward a sale. Figure out what information they will need at what point and provide it for them. Work into your pages links that answer their anticipated questions. Those who have that question will click; those who don't can move past it without having to wade through extraneous info that they don't feel they need.
Provide ideas and package deals that can lead to substantial upsells
One of the reasons IKEA didn't have shopping carts in the entrance is because the first quarter of the path took you past sample rooms they had decorated. And I'm not talking about displays of a sofa, a couple of end tables and lamps. I'm talking about entire rooms.
These rooms were of different sizes and shapes and listed the square footage. They were designed to help you learn and get ideas for decorating whatever size and space you had. They were part of the payoff for putting yourself in IKEA's hands and following where IKEA led. You felt like you were learning how to decorate those problem spaces in your home.
But those rooms weren't just for learning and they weren't just for display, either. Each one had a price tag on them. If so inclined, you could simply go to an IKEA employee, tell them which room you wanted, and they would have a duplicate of the entire display ready to ship off to your home.
It was a great way to upsell more products.
You can do the same. Find things that go together. Show how well they go together in informative tutorials. Offer them as a package. The person who came looking for one item may well leave your site with a whole package.
Make your products highly visible
One last thing to learn from IKEA was the way they made their products visible. Once you got past the room displays, you walked through large spaces where all the products were highly visible. Standing in any one spot, you could instantly spot a wide range of products.
As a matter of fact, products were so well displayed that it was almost impossible NOT to have something draw you over to it.
Again, a good lesson for online marketers. Look at your site. How visible are your products to visitors? Is your site laid out to maximize browsing, or are your products obscured by poor layout and design? You want to catch visitors' eyes and draw them along. You get no points for having the most logical site in the world if it doesn't catch and entice.
All in all, I found my IKEA experience a good reminder of what makes a good sales process. While we can't necessarily duplicate everything that IKEA does online (a big reason they can convince people to put themselves into IKEA's hands is because of the good word-of-mouth they already enjoy), there's a lot that we can.
Jeff
© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Jeff Baas, One Stop Web Support
