How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing [Updated May 1, 2018]

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Updated May 1, 2018

An important first step in any local SEO strategy is to claim and verify your local business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing. Getting on Google My Business can increase your chances of showing up in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and organic rankings in general. Qualifying local businesses can claim this free listing on Google and include information about their company, like their address, phone number, business hours, and types of payments accepted.

Additionally, over the past several months, Google has added some great features to Google My Business that companies should take advantage of that enhances your Google My Business listing and helps to grab viewers’ attention — and can increase how you rank in local search results.

If you haven’t claimed and verified your Google My Business Listing yet, that’s the first step. To get started, visit https://www.google.com/business.

Many local businesses just claim their GMB listing and forget about it. What most businesses don’t realize is that there are a variety of other features Google gives you that you can use to optimize your Google My Business listing and several reasons why you should frequently check your business listing to ensure that its accuracy stays intact. Want to know more?

Complete all the information Google asks for

There are a variety of questions Google wants you to fill out to complete your Google My Business profile. When done, your listing will have valuable basic data that will make it easier for potential customers to find more information about your company. And if you don’t fill out that information, someone else could. Many business owners don’t realize that anyone can suggest a change (or "edit") to your business listing — and that includes your competitors.

When a searcher clicks on your GMB listing they see a "Suggest an edit" option:

When someone clicks on that option they can literally edit your Google My Business listing (and make some pretty dramatic changes, too):

And these aren’t just “suggested” edits — these user-generated changes can actually be made live on your listing without you even being notified. This is just one reason why it’s very important that you log in to your Google My Business dashboard regularly to ensure that no one has made any unwanted changes to your listing.

Here’s how:

If you log in to Google My Business, you can switch back to the “Classic” dashboard here:

In the classic dashboard, you might see “Google Updates” notifications.

If you see updates, these are changes that Google made to your business listing because either their algorithm found new information about your business (perhaps from another directory/citation site or a change they found on your Google Map) or a Google user submitted an edit that was published. (Yes, when people make “suggested edits,” they are not really “suggestions” -– the changes are often made live without you ever getting a notification or the opportunity to dispute the change!)

When you click on “Google Updates,” you'll see a box that allows you to “Review Updates.” It’s here where you're given the opportunity to remove incorrect information that may have been made by a troublesome Google user.

Now, Google supposedly sends out emails to the owner and others managing your Google My Business account when changes are made, but oftentimes those people never receive notifications about changes to their listing. So beware: you may (or may not) be notified by Google if changes are made to your listing. (For example, your business category could be changed from “criminal attorney” to the generic “lawyer” category, which could negatively impact your search rankings.) That’s why it’s extra important for you to log in and check your listing frequently (especially when, quite literally, some businesses have had their address and website URLs changed in their GMB listing by nefarious users.)

If you see a change that is incorrect and you have difficulty changing it (like a bogus review, for instance), create a new post explaining the situation in detail in the Google My Business forum and reach out to one of the Google Top Contributor volunteers for help.

Also, it’s important to realize that Google encourages people who are familiar with your business to answer questions, so that Google can learn more information about your company. To do this they simply click on the “Know this place? Answer quick questions” link.

They’ll then be prompted to answer some questions about your business:

If the person knows the answer to the question, they can answer and then they’ll typically be asked another question. If not, they can decline.

Now, some business owners have cried foul, saying that competitors or others with malicious intent can wreak havoc on their Google My Business listings with these features. However, Google’s philosophy is that this type of user-generated content helps to build a community, more fully completes a business’ profile, and allows Google to experiment with different search strategies.

Just remember, after you get your Google My Business listing verified, continue to check your listing regularly to be on the safe side.

Once you have your GMB listing verified, now is the time to optimize your listing. (This is where you have a greater chance to outdo your competition!)

Google My Business Posts

Google Posts are almost like “mini-ads” or “social media posts” that show up in Google search in your Google My Business listing (in the Knowledge Panel and on Google Maps).

To get started with Posts, log in to your GMB dashboard and you’ll see the Posts option on the left-hand side:

You can have fun with your Google My Business Posts by adding an image, a call-to-action (CTA), and even including a link to another page or website. If you’re using Yext, you can create GMB Posts directly from your Yext dashboard.

Not sure what type of Post you should make? Here are just a few Post ideas:

• If you’re having an event (like a webinar or a seminar about your chiropractic practice) you can set up an event Post with a date and time, then add a link to the registration page.


• Do you have a sale going on during a specific time? Create a “sale” event Post.


• Does your latest blog post rock? Add a short description and link to the post on your blog.


• New product you want to feature? Show a picture of this cool gadget and link to where people can make the purchase.


• Want to spread holiday joy? Give potential customers a holiday message Post.

The possibilities with Posts are endless! Posts show up prominently in your business’ Knowledge Panel, so don’t miss this opportunity to stand out.

TIP: To grab a searcher’s attention, you want to include an image in your Post, but on Google Maps the Post image can get cut off. You might have to test a few Post image sizes to make sure it’s sized appropriately for Maps and the Knowledge Panel on desktop and mobile devices.

Want to have even MORE fun and potentially help your local SEO? Try adding relevant emojis to your Post. Google is beginning to index emoji-relevant search results. (In fact, you can now search Google by “tweeting” an emoji at it!) Additionally, people — especially younger people — are beginning to search (typically on their mobile devices) with emojis! So if a person is searching for “[pizza emoji] + nearby” and you own a local pizza restaurant and use the [pizza emoji] somewhere on your Google My Business listing — like in a Post with a special offer on a pizza order — you might have an SEO edge over the other pizzeria competitors in your city.

Not sure how to add emojis? If you’re using a Windows computer, you can add emojis by pressing the Windows key + the “.” OR “;” key at the same time on your keyboard. The emoji list of characters will appear and you can select the emoji you’d like to include (but don’t get carried away — one emoji is enough):

When people search using Chrome on their smartphones with an "emoji + near me," you might be surprised by what they find:

You got it! Google knew that I was looking for a great burger joint around my home! (Pretty cool, huh?)

Disclaimer: This strategy is still new and we’re not certain how adding emojis to your GMB listings impact these “emoji search results,” but if you have a related emoji that is pertinent to your business, you should definitely test it! (But don’t overdo the emojis — it gets obnoxious and doesn’t look professional if you go overboard.)

Posts stay live for seven days or “go dark” after the date of the event. (However, the old Posts still appear in your GMB listing — they’re just pushed down by the new Posts.)

If you’re forgetful, Google is great about sending you reminders when it’s time to create a new Post.

And remember, Posts show up prominently in mobile searches, so make your website stand out among search results by keeping your Posts “topped off.”

It’s important to note that at this time, hotels and B&Bs are not allowed to make Posts. That may change sometime in the future, so stay tuned!

Booking button feature

Google’s Booking button feature can really help your business stand out from the crowd. If you have any type of business that relies on customers making appointments and you’re using integrated scheduling software, people can now book an appointment with your business directly from your Google My Business listing. This can make it even easier to get new customers — they don’t have to leave Google to book an appointment with you!

If you have an account with one of Google’s supported scheduling providers, the booking button is automatically added to your Google My Business listing. Take advantage of this integrated Google My Business feature if you use the booking providers, it’ll make it super simple to get new clients or customers.

Messaging

Did you know that you customers — and potential customers — can send you text messages? This is a great way to connect directly with people interested in what you have to offer, and a great way to engage with people looking at your GMB listing (and you know that Google is always watching engagement.)

To get started with Messaging, log in to your GMB dashboard and click on “Messaging”:

You can then set up the message people will receive after they send you a message and your mobile phone number.

If you don’t want text messages sent to your personal phone number, you can download Google’s Allo app. When you set up your Allo account, use the same phone number connected to your Google My Business account. Now when someone messages you, the message will be sent to the Allo app instead of appearing alongside your personal text messages.

The Allo app is a great way to keep your personal and business text messages separate:

This feature is still in its infancy, though. Right now, messaging is only available to mobile web users and is not available to mobile app or desktop users. People also won’t see the Messaging option in the Knowledge Panel or on Google Maps.

The ONLY way someone can message your business is if they perform a mobile web search on Chrome. (I expect that Google will expand the Messaging feature once they work the kinks out.)

Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers is a great feature for Google local search. It’s very cool! Just like it sounds, Q&A allows people to ask questions about your business and you can answer those questions.

The Google My Business Questions & Answers feature is the perfect opportunity to hear directly from “the people” and you can respond to them. Win-win. However, according to a study done by Get Five Stars, 25 percent of locations on Google Maps have questions (and many of those questions are probably STILL unanswered).

Here are a few things to keep in mind about Questions & Answers:

• On mobile devices, you can see, ask and answer questions on Google Maps on Android devices and when you search for your business on mobile browsers on both iPhone and Android devices. To use Google Maps on your Android device, download the Google Maps app and sign in with the email address you use for your GMB listing.

Ironically, you can’t see Questions and Answers on the Google My Business app.

• No notifications of new questions show up in your GMB dashboard. To find out if you have new questions that need answering, you need to install Google Maps on your phone, log in, and check for questions/notifications. You can also go on a mobile browser, search for your business, and see if you have new questions that need to be answered.


• Google has recently started sending out email notifications letting you know that a new question has been asked, but it’s possible that not everyone associated with your account receives these emails:

This email notification is a BIG improvement over the lack of notification we’ve experienced so far with Q&As.

One thing you should do is be proactive and create a Frequently Asked Questions list to preempt people’s GMB Q&As. Check with your sales reps and your customer service staff to identify the questions people most often ask, then put those Q&A questions on your GMB listing.

TIP: Google has said that upvoting questions can make them more visible. If someone has a particularly important question, go ahead and upvote it.

WARNING: It’s important to note that just like “Suggest an Edit” on GMB, anyone can answer questions asked of your business. Therefore, you want to keep an eye out and make sure you answer questions quickly and ensure that if someone else answers a question, that the answer is accurate. If you find that someone is abusing your GMB listing’s Q&A feature, reach out to the Google My Business support forums.

Still have questions about Google Questions & Answers? You can read Google’s Q&A guidelines.

Google My Business online reviews

Unlike Yelp, which vehemently discourages business owners to ask their customers for reviews, Google encourages business owners to ethically ask their customers or clients for online reviews. (Yelp takes it to the extreme, in my opinion.) Online reviews appear next to your listing in Google Maps and your business’ Knowledge Panel in search results. Online reviews can help your business stand out among a sea of search results.

Additionally, online reviews are known to impact search result rankings, consumer trust, and click-through rates. According to BrightLocal’s 2017 Consumer Review Survey:

• 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017, with 12% looking for a local business online every day


• 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations


• Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local business more


• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business


• Responding to reviews is more important than ever, with 30% naming this as key when judging local businesses


• 68% of consumers left a local business review when asked — with 74% having been asked for their feedback


• 79% of consumers have read a fake review in the last year

If you follow Google’s guidelines for Google My Business reviews, you can ask your customers for reviews. (However, if you violate any of these policies, your reviews could be removed.)

Recently Google made some changes to their review guidelines. They have now changed it so that current and/or former employees can’t leave reviews. For business owners this is great news because it means that disgruntled and ex-employees with a grudge can no longer post bad reviews. Here is the new section that deals with Conflict of Interest:

Additionally, Google made some changes with regard to reputation marketing software. Reputation marketing software can help filter out people who were planning on leaving negative reviews so that they aren’t given the opportunity to leave that bad review online. (This is sometimes referred to as “review gating.”) Google wants to prevent that practice, so on April 12, 2018, Google updated their review policy to include information on this. In general, you don’t want to “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.”

Also, whatever you do, do not offer a bribe in exchange for a review. Not only does it go against Google’s terms, it goes against the laws of reviews in general: do you really want to bribe someone to leave you a good review — or do you want to earn it?

When customers leave reviews for you — good or bad — make sure you respond to them. Not only does it show that customer that you appreciate their feedback, it also shows potential customers that you care.

So what happens if you get a negative review? First, don’t freak out. Everybody has a bad day and most people recognize that. Also, if you have a troll that gave you a one-star review and left a nasty comment, most people with common sense recognize that review for what it is. It’s generally not worth stressing over.

TIP: Asking someone to leave a review on Google is very cumbersome. To give your customers a direct link to your Google My Business listing so they can leave a review online for you, read and follow the directions in this post on How to Create a Direct Review Link to Your Google My Business Listing.

To learn more about strategically getting more online reviews, check out this article from Moz.

Photos and videos

The Internet used to be all about text and information, but more and more the visual appeal of the Internet is what grabs people’s attention — and that means photos and videos. Videos are so hot that you don’t even need sound. Studies show that as much as 85% of Facebook videos are viewed with the sound off.

However, many business owners are still under the misperception that to get into videos (or even photography) you have to hire a professional video production company or studio. Not true. Some of the best photos and videos are done on the fly — and with a smartphone!

Adding photos of your business is a great way to humanize your brand and let your customers get a “behind-the-scenes” look at what your company is all about… AND your customers can post photos on your Google My Business listing, too! (Surprise!)

AGENCY TIP: If you’re optimizing Google My Business listings for your clients, you know how difficult it is to get pictures from them so you can add them to their GMB listing. (Your clients are busy and often hard to track down.) There’s a new tool called localPics that solves that problem. This tool makes it super simple to send your clients text message reminders that it’s time to upload pictures. The owner (or whoever the designated “photographer” is) simply takes pictures or goes into their phone’s photo gallery, selects the pictures they want to upload, and the pictures are automatically uploaded to their Google My Business listing! What could be easier?

The ability to add photos to your Google My Business listing has been around for a while, but adding videos is a relatively new feature that Google introduced. Instead of being afraid, get excited! You can now add a 30-second video about your company that will grab people’s attention on the most popular place people go to search and find information: Google!

To get started, log in to your Google My Business dashboard. You will either see the “Add Videos” image on the Overview tab:

Or you can also click on the blue + sign to add a video:

When you click on the “Add Video” button, you can either drag the video you want to upload or select the video from your computer.

It’s super simple!

Google states that it can take up to 24 hours for the video to display, but most videos show up after just a few minutes. The videos should be 30 seconds long, but we’ve uploaded longer videos just fine. (Keep in mind that people have short attention spans, so don’t overdo it with videos that are too long — 30 seconds is just about right!)

Now, for you marketers out there that are salivating thinking of the great marketing and promotional videos you can upload, hold on for just a moment. Make sure your videos are taken at the place of business and are of people that work at your business or directly pertain to your business. (Google My Business is not the place for stock photos and marketing or promotional videos.) Google can remove the videos if the primary subject of the content is not related to the business location.

Owners who upload videos will be shown in the “By Owner” tab. When customers or clients upload videos, those videos will appear in the “Customer” tab. ALL of the videos will be displayed in the “Video” tab.

Google has given us some general Google My Business Video Guidelines to follow:

• Duration: Up to 30 seconds long


• File Size: Up to 100 MB


• Resolution: 720p or higher

As a bonus, once you have two or more videos on your GMB listing, you’ll get a Videos subtab that shows up on mobile devices!

Business descriptions

Good news! Google now allows business owners to include a business description on your Google My Business listing. (And it’s about time!) Google recently made this announcement via Twitter and business owners were thrilled.

As usual, Google has provided us with some guidelines to follow: Google Business Description Guidelines. It’s important you adhere to these rules because Google does review your business Description.

You’re allowed 750 characters in your business description, but only 250 characters show up before they get cut off in the Knowledge Panel. So you want to make sure that you carefully create your business description and put the most important information and keywords — including your city — towards the front of the description.

Google really does review your business description to make sure people aren’t being deceptive or are spamming, so be sure to follow these guidelines:

You only have 750 characters (and only 250 of those show up in the company’s Knowledge Panel), so you want to make sure that every character counts.

On a desktop computer, the business description appears in the Knowledge Panel towards the bottom, below your reviews. (It’d be great if Google would bump the business description up towards the top of the Knowledge Panel where it should be… Let’s hope they move it there soon!)

On a mobile device, you can only see a business’ description if you click on the About tab:

Services/Menus

If you sell services, like a spa, nail salon, hair salon, copying company, or even a holistic center, and have a “menu” of services, the new Services list in Google My Business is a great new addition. This feature is only available for food and drink, health, beauty, and other services businesses that don’t have a third-party “menu” link.

The Services list allows you to categorize and list out all your services (or food items) and prices so that potential customers can easily see what you have to offer.

This list itemizes out each service (or food item) you offer. To get started, log in to your Google My Business listing and click on Info:

Then scroll down and you will see the “Services” section where you can Add or edit your items:

This is where you can create categories, add items, and you can also add a description of each item (if you want to):

If you own a service business with set prices, I’d highly recommend you include your list of services and make sure you update these services and prices if things change.

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Get more out of your GMB listing

Google is always looking at the engagement searchers and you, as the owner, are having with your Google My Business listing. The more interaction, the better your chances of ranking higher in the local three-pack and organic rankings in general. That means you need to keep optimizing your Google My Business listing.

As new features come out, plan on using them to keep your GMB listing fully optimized.

TECHIE TIP: If you’re managing multiple listings or franchises, you can use Google’s API v4.1 to more easily add Google My Business descriptions and Offer Posts. And if you’re really techie, you can even add “customer media endpoints” that allow users to retrieve photos and videos uploaded by customers at their business (normally GMB users aren’t notified of photo and video uploads).

Google has even introduced a new notification that alerts users who have opted in to receive alerts about newly posted media on their Google My Business Locations. Wow! (If you have someone on your team that can code, you’re at an advantage!)

Hopefully these features have given you a new reason to login to your Google My Business account and get busy! If you have any other questions about optimizing your GMB listing, let me know in the comments.

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GDPR Rules, Fines and Compliance

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As most business people know, taking care of sensitive and personal data of customers is of the utmost importance. Failing to do this could see you getting on the wrong side of your customers and the wrong side of the law – and the penalties can be severe. In the past, the Data Protection Act has provided regulations and guidelines to help businesses to implement data protection policies. However, this is now changing with the introduction of the GDPR.

How will this affect your current business and email marketing efforts?

The biggest question is always what needs to be done next to make sure you are compliant. iContact answers this easy enough with the following statement from the site:

The good news is, if you are already following email marketing best practices and asking your subscribers for permission to join your email lists via a subscription form on your website or requiring the subscriber to tick a box on your ecommerce site (and you can prove this ), you are well on your way to GDPR compliance.

Just like CAN-SPAM came out several years ago, and caused a big fuss, GDPR will likely do the same but everyone (and all of the major solution providers) will make compliance process quite simple and direct.

In order to ensure you do not end up being penalized as a result of failing to implement these new regulations properly, it is important to keep up with the latest developments. Businesses that do not follow these new regulations, which are due to come into play within a matter of weeks, could find themselves facing serious consequences. These regulations are all linked to how data is handled by businesses and it is important for all businesses, large and small, to get to grips with them.

Just like any new laws and regulations that are about to go into place, they have some hefty fines lined up for anyone looking to be made an example of. Imperva has a nice write-up and infographic on the new laws, and their associated fines as well. As you will see from the infographic below, the fines associated with the GDPR are quite high… with maximum fines hitting the $22 million range! In short, prepare your business now, or pay the price later on!

Fortunately, the government has already put a lot of information online about the GDPR, so those with lack of understanding can make sure they do their research to find out what needs to be done. Furthermore, specialist experts from specific industries are being taken on so that businesses can turn to someone with expertise in their specific industry in order to ensure they are following the new regulations to the letter.

One thing to remember is that your business does not have to be located within the EU in order to be tied to these regulations. The regulations also apply to businesses that are not in the EU but that sell products and services to others that are in the EU. Therefore, make sure you do not ignore these regulations just because of the location of your business, as you may find that they also apply to you because of the location of your customers.

How to Prepare for the GDPR Going Live on May 25th, 2018

As fun as it is to read up on all of these new laws and legal jargon, it’s much more exciting to watch a short video that breaks it all down. Not only will you learn more about what GDPR is, but you will also discover eleven things you need to make sure you have in place before May 25th hits and the law goes into effect.

An even better and more detailed resource on how to keep your business safe and compliant is this Forbes article on how the GDPR will affect advertising and e-commerce. With nearly all websites, blogs, and online businesses collecting emails, data, or placing cookies on their visitor’s computers, this is something we all need to be aware of.

How to Stay Up to Date with the Latest GDPR News

Since the new regulations are only just coming in, there may be some teething problems to begin with. This means that there is a chance there could be some changes and adaptations to begin with. In order to ensure you continue to implement the regulations properly, you should keep on top of any chances and developments. You can also hire the services of experts to help you get to grips with the GDPR as well as to help keep you informed as and when any changes are made.

With the introduction of the new regulations, all countries within the EU can benefit from the same data protection laws, which can help to make things much fairer and far easier to understand. Having different sets of rules from one EU country to another could be confusing and frustrating for both customers and businesses. Experts believe that these new regulations will help make things far easier to manage and understand as well as ensuring fairness across all EU countries.

However… only time will tell, and it will be interesting to see how the next few months play out after GDPR goes into affect.

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How Much Money Can I Make From Blogging?

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It’s a very common question and what you’ll find, at least from people who aren’t actively involved in the business themselves, is that you’ll get two very disparate set of answers. How much money can you really make from blogging? Some people will tell you that earning a comfortable living from blogging alone is little more than a pipe dream and there are far greater opportunities worth exploring. Other people will tell you that with the right content, the right audience and the right strategy, the possibilities are literally boundless.

As you might suspect, the truth can be found somewhere in the middle. From the outside looking in, the life of the professional blogger sounds awfully attractive. You get to work from the comfort of your home, at the schedule that works best for you, working on subject matter that you’re really passionate about. You get all kinds of “cool swag” and you’re invited to incredible events. You can continue to earn your living whether you’re partying it up in Las Vegas or exploring the Australian Outback.

But none of that lifestyle stuff really matters if you can’t afford to pay the bills, right?

Survey Says…

The exact data is really difficult to acquire because there are far too many variables involved and not all the information is widely available. You can’t know for certain how much money a blog makes unless you ask the blogger (and he is being 100% open, honest and transparent with you). And it’s also very much true that many bloggers run more than one blog too.

And you also have to recognize that a significant number (likely even a majority) of bloggers have no ambition to make any money from their blogs at all. It’s a hobby for them and they’re doing it just for fun. It wouldn’t be fair to include this subset in our discussion, because it would not be an accurate portrayal of income potential. You can’t expect to make money if they’re not even trying.

That’s why an annual report put together by iBlog Magazine is so useful. They surveyed thousands of bloggers and because the report focused on the women’s blogging industry and business, the assumption is these bloggers did have financial aspirations. Again, the data is understandably limited and focusing solely on women bloggers limits the scope too.

If We Set $30,000 as the Benchmark…

According to the survey conducted by iBlog magazine, only 11% of those who responded indicated that they earned more than $30,000 a year. That means for every nine bloggers, only one is earning more than $30,000 annually from blogging alone. That’s decidedly at the lower end of the middle class in a lot of places and it’s nowhere near enough to live in some of the more desirable cities, like New York or Los Angeles.

Of those 11%, a little over half indicated that they are earning more than $60,000 annually. That’s a much more respectable figure, but it also means that if you’re making that much from your blog, you’re definitely among the blogging elite. To put this all into perspective, about two-thirds of bloggers are making less than $5,000 a year (about $400/month) and more than half are earning less than $2,500 a year (about $200/month).

That sounds really disheartening, but we have to put all of this into a bigger perspective.

Are You Treating It Like a Business?

John has discussed in the past why so many bloggers don’t make money and part of this has to do with the fact that the overwhelming majority of bloggers aren’t taking it as seriously as they should be if they want their blog to produce full-time income. It’s because the barrier to entry is so low, so they don’t feel like they’ve invested that much.

If you took out a giant bank loan so you could start a brick-and-mortar business, surely you’d feel a lot more invested in the project and you’d be willing to put in a lot more effort to ensure it succeeds. The urgency is much higher than the few bucks you spend on domain registration and web hosting. There are some bloggers who think they’re trying to make money blogging, except they’re even using a free platform with free hosting.

You need to take it seriously and it becomes a chicken-and-egg type scenario. The same iBlog survey indicated that 42% of those surveyed still work full-time or part-time at some non-blogging job, 30% are stay-at-home parents (who are working on the blog as a side hustle), and 18% own a non-blogging business. This means that they’re not as fully committed to the blog as someone who may be running a more traditional business full-time.

Speaking for myself, my personal blog is hardly my primary source of income. Instead, I make the overwhelming majority of my money from my freelance writing business. On some level, my blog is an extension of that business as it helps me hone my craft and it also serves as a lead generator.

Yes, it’s true that most bloggers don’t make any “real” money from their blogs at all, but most bloggers don’t approach their blogging endeavor in such a way that is conducive to maximum profits either. Don’t be like most bloggers if you want to make more money. Be better.

Click Here To Download John Chow’s New eBook, The Ultimate Online Profit Model!

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How To Fail Better By Reflecting On What Went Wrong

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Vital Stats

• Player: Stacey Brewer


• Co-founder: Ryan Harrison


• Company: SPARK Schools


• No of schools in network: 15


• 2019 goal: ± 12 000 students and 20 schools


• Est: 2013


• Visit: www.sparkschools.co.za

In 2012, Stacey Brewer raised R4,5 million in her first round of funding. It gave her an 18-month runway to focus on launching her low-fee private school model, SPARK Schools. This was followed by R28 million from an international fund, the Pearson Group’s Affordable Learning Fund. The business’s most recent round of funding was a Series B round that raised R150 million in 2016, taking SPARK’s overall funding to R200 million.

“We’ve committed to having 20 schools by 2019, which will enable us to educate 12 000 children,” says Stacey. “Our investors still expect a 10X return, but it’s ‘patient’ capital, designed to support impactful business models. Educational companies are highly valued. They provide a good annuity income, but investors also love what we do because we’re focused on achieving systemic change, and funds are looking for that. More and more, funding mandates are focused on the greater good.

“This is still a business though. One school is not a business — you can’t scale it, and so there’s no growth opportunity. If you can build a network of schools however, you can benefit from economies of scale.”

Here’s how Stacey and her team are turning the traditional education model on its head, and in so doing, are providing value for children, parents and their funders alike.

If that’s how it’s always been done, it’s time to do things differently

As a low-cost private school, SPARK aims to make a quality private school education accessible to parents who cannot afford traditional private school fees. What Stacey and her team soon learnt however, is that everyone is looking for quality, irrespective of social and economic status.

“When we started, we thought our price would be a huge selling point. We soon realised it actually switched people off. There was an assumption that you get what you pay for, and that low fees mean a poor-quality education,” says Stacey. “South Africa is very aspirational, and people want the best for their children.

Related: 4 Leadership Lessons You Won’t Learn In Business School

“We needed to reposition what we were doing and focus on the fact that our schools have a modern, aspirational look and feel, and that we deliver a quality education. Once we had driven those points home, we could discuss price. Now that we’re becoming known and our kids are our ambassadors, this is a different story, but it was very important when we launched.

“Parents vote with their feet — just being cheap isn’t enough. We’ve received the investment we have because we’ve developed a model that’s both affordable and can compete internationally.”

A full year’s tuition at SPARK for 2018 is R21 000. How do you provide a quality educational experience at a fraction of the traditional price? To start with, you need to embrace a disruptive mindset.

Stacey says ‘no’ to doing anything the traditional way, as this will immediately drive up the school’s price point, and the business will lose its ‘why’.

So, what’s the solution? “You need to embrace your constraints. It takes a special person to be involved in our team. We need individuals with a high level of accountability, and who can focus on being lean and agile. But it’s amazing what we come up with when we’re forced to think out the box. Raising our fees is the easy answer, and once you go that route it doesn’t stop. Instead, we need to be excited by the opportunity to come up with solutions given the constraints we’re faced with.

“If I hear the words ‘because this is how we’ve always done it’ or ‘that’s how it works’, I immediately know I have to change it. Too much is done simply because it’s always been done that way. If you want to change an industry, you need to find completely new solutions to the same problems.”

The big idea

Let’s take a step back to how the idea for SPARK Schools originated. Stacey was studying an MBA in Entrepreneurship at GIBS (the Gordon Institute of Business Science). During her economics lectures she discovered that although a high percentage of South Africa’s budget is allocated to education, South Africa still ranks amongst the worst education systems in the world. “I wanted to understand what was going wrong, and to research what the solution could be,” she says.

Stacey wasn’t planning on launching a new and disruptive education model, but she did need a theme for her thesis, and she wanted to address a real problem.

“I believe that all entrepreneurs should be advancing the human race. We need to question what we’re doing to change society. What problem are you solving? How are you making the world a better place? How are you making it more sustainable?

“This view meant I gravitated towards one of the biggest problems I believe we face as our country. One of my professors agreed. She liked the thesis topic, and advised me to start networking in that space. I needed to get on the map and speak to other like-minded people who were interested in education.”

Stacey took her professor’s advice, and started networking. “This was how I met our first angel investor, David Gibb, who was on sabbatical after resigning from his position as head of research at STANLIB. At the time I had no plans to start this business, which meant funding wasn’t even a thought, but I found a very supportive mentor who is very passionate about business and education.

“Dave and I had incredible discussions around the problem, and what the solution needed to take into account. I still had no concrete ideas of actually launching a school, but I was on a path that clearly showed we needed to create something completely new. Tweaking the current model wouldn’t be enough.

“The MBA and my thesis also forced me to take a deep dive into my research. I’m not sure start-ups always do this, and certainly not to the level I took it. But it’s been a very important success factor for us. The research I conducted while completing my thesis has allowed us to position ourselves very well within our market. More importantly, it helped us get from ‘what?’ to ‘how?’”

Related: Why You Need A Million-Dollar Pitch Before Your Start a Business

Thanks to Dave and Stacey’s own tenacity, she was also developing a strong network in the educational space. “Dave introduced me to the blended learning model in the US. He then offered to fund a trip overseas so that we could evaluate if the tech the blended learning model is based on would be feasible in South Africa.”

It was at this stage that Stacey asked Ryan Harrison, a tech-savvy friend from university, to join her on the trip. “I understood the educational landscape, but not the tech — I asked Ryan to join me so that he could evaluate whether or not it suited our local conditions.”

Stacey and Ryan returned to South Africa, and she knew this wasn’t just an idea or a thesis anymore. “I knew I was going to open a school. Ryan was also excited by the concept and wanted to join me. Our trip introduced us to Rocketship Public Schools, who have pioneered blended learning in the US. They were very open to us, and shared everything they’re doing. This feeds back to purpose — they want to change education and solve a real need, and they’re supportive of anyone who shares that passion. Two of their staff came and joined us when we launched, and one is still with us today.”

The lesson: Stacey didn’t start out thinking she wanted to launch a business and trying to figure out what that would be. Instead, she found something she was passionate about — something she knew was broken and needed real, innovative solutions to fix. That passion led her down a path where she learnt as much as possible about the topic, met other passionate people with ideas and solutions to share, and finally developed a model that would help her solve a societal need and drive systemic change.

Matching problems with solutions

Once Stacey and her co-founder Ryan had their big idea, they needed to launch. A school (or more specifically a network of schools) requires capital. You can’t bootstrap a school. This is one more reason why you need an idea that will drive real change (and returns) — something investors are increasingly looking for.

“David Gibb gave us some seed funding and bridged the gap to find formal investment, and GIBS introduced us to a network of angel investors. This was how we raised our first round of funding of R4,5 million to launch our first school.”

Interestingly, raising funding isn’t just about pitching your business to investors — it’s also a dialogue between the entrepreneurs and their investors. At the end of the day, it’s in everyone’s best interests for the business to do well.

“At that stage, we were looking at buying or building a school,” says Stacey. “Our investors disagreed. Their advice was that we prove the model instead of focusing on property. We needed to focus all of our attention on the problem at hand. What makes education expensive?”

The basic premise of all innovation and disruption is starting with the problem. If you can clearly define the problem, the solution will often start to present itself.

In the case of education, particularly providing low-income earners quality but affordable education, the problem is cost. “Infrastructure and salaries are the two biggest costs. To bring down fees, you need fewer teachers and smaller spaces. You also need to achieve both while improving quality. That’s the benchmark. Once we knew that, we just needed to figure out how to do it.”

An added element was the investment component. Funders are interested in businesses that can scale. As we’ve already mentioned, one school is not a business. But a network of schools is. Once you have a network, you can leverage economies of scale, which is when investors start seeing their returns.

“Once we were introduced to the blended learning model, we realised it was exactly what we were looking for. The traditional model doesn’t support low fee solutions. We needed a different solution. I did not want to rely on donor funding.

“NGOs become too dependent on donors and end up struggling over time. They’re also constantly needing to raise cash. I want SPARK to live far beyond me. If we built it properly from the beginning, with decent margins and a sustainable price point, we knew we’d get investors on board — particularly because so many funds are now interested in creating systemic change as well.

“We quickly realised blended learning was the solution we were looking for. It’s a model that drives cost efficiencies by focusing on the utilisation of assets. It’s also data rich, which drives quality. Most importantly, it can be scaled.

“At first, we were fast followers, now we’re evolving into leaders in this space. Our delivery of quality at our price point is one of the best in the world. We never, ever throw cash at a problem. Instead, we rethink and redo the system — that’s where we know we’ll find the solutions we need.”

The lesson: Start with the right problem and you will find a solution. If you aren’t clear on the problem though, you’ll be working around it, either following existing solutions or making assumptions about what people need. You need to dig into the detail. The problems that really need solving are often complex, so learn to interrogate things from every angle.

Forget IQ and EQ, what you need is AQ

Stacey is a firm believer that the success of SPARK is rooted in her team’s AQ, or Adaptability Quotient. “We’ve gathered a team of smart thinkers who are able to adapt quickly to new challenges, based on the ingrained idea that the old solutions won’t work. The problem is that you’re unlikely to be adaptable if you don’t also have passion.

“The name for our schools comes from William Yates, who said that education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. It’s about igniting passion, and we needed that same passion to really start solving our education crisis. We want to spark a change across the country.

“I bring passion, and my team has passion and common purpose — when you have these ingredients, you figure things out,” says Stacey. “When you’re constrained, both in terms of cash and human capital, you need to be smart. We call it ‘frugal’ innovation. If you don’t throw people or cash at a problem, you really find solutions. You can also seldom cut back costings once they are there. I love a constrained environment — I see it as an opportunity.

“We had one major advantage: We didn’t have an education background, which meant we questioned everything. More importantly, it means we’re not precious about anything. We’re willing to try new things to see if they work, and if they achieve our objectives. I’ve learnt that too often, people don’t even know why they do things — they just do them because that’s the way it’s always been done.

“Infrastructure and salaries are the two highest costs we need to solve. We’ve combined two blended learning models to address this. The first is lab rotation. From Grade R, our students are in and out of learning labs. Our teachers introduce a concept in the classroom, and then the students rotate to a learning lab, where they practically work through problems related to the concept on computers. Data is gathered during these sessions and addressed. Our teachers see multiple students based on this rotation. The learning labs are run by facilitators, not teachers. At full capacity it’s a highly operational schedule, and our students are always in small, flexible groups of four to six children. Our staff cover multiple classes and are experts within specific areas.”

The lesson: What skills and attributes does your organisation need most? This may change as you start scaling, but in order to know who you need in which positions, you need to understand your organisation.

---

KEY INSIGHTS

Don’t do what’s always been done                       

Following an accepted industry or business practice will only help you achieve more of the same. If you really want to radically improve your business, a sector or the lives of your customers, you need to question everything.

Start with the problem                     

If you can’t clearly define your problem, you’ll never come up with a solution that suits your target market.

What’s your AQ, or adaptability quotient?                       

Forget IQ and EQ — businesses that are looking to scale need to be highly adaptable.

Scale fast, but learn faster

You’d think that finding a model that solves the cost versus output problem South Africa’s education system currently faces would have been Stacey’s biggest challenge. It wasn’t.

“Our biggest challenge has been scale. We’ve doubled our network of staff and kids every year since we launched our first school in 2013. In 2017 we had 4 000 students and 450 staff. This year we are educating 7 000 kids with a staff of over 700.

“We understood 4 000 kids, but towards the end of last year we needed to seriously consider what 7 000 kids would look like. You have to think about it before you get there. What does 20 000 kids look like? You’re going from a village to a city. There are changes, and you need processes and systems to cope.

“I personally need to grow faster than the organisation. I need to reinvent myself and my role every six months and stay ahead of everyone else. It’s imperative that leaders of organisations are self-aware and willing to improve themselves.

“I have mentors and coaches. I’ve built a network of people that I can reach out to when I have questions or challenges. I love feedback, and I’m always asking ‘what’s next?’ What does the company need from me? Today I’m less operational and more focused on strategy. What are we doing? How do we start leading our industry? Are we engaging other stakeholders?

“These aren’t only local questions. What are people doing and thinking globally? We can’t solve this by ourselves. We need other people to open schools, to offer more choice for families. People vote with their feet, and that’s good for business. I’m all for competition. The people who benefit from healthy competition in this sector are the families and their children, because it puts the power in the family’s hands in terms of choice and accountability. The problem is also so big, there’s room for multiple players.”

A big part of Stacey and SPARK’s success is the team she’s built around her. This frees her up to focus on strategy, but it also gives the business a growth foundation.

“Hiring the right people for their specific roles has been essential for us. You need to understand your organisation and its needs to get this right. At head office, we need two different types of people: Those who can build and improve schools, and those who can focus on operations and structure.

“Scale is tough on people. Things break when you’re scaling, and you want them to break quickly so that you can fix them. If you’re too slow you’ll actually miss stuff, but it takes a very specific type of person who can operate at that pace.”

The lesson: Organisations that are in scale-up mode are changing quickly. Does your team have the tools and skills they need to handle that change? Do you support them? Does everyone understand why changes need to happen quickly so that you can solve problems sooner rather than later?

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The Data Reveals These 3 Fundamentals for Crowdfunding Success

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To achieve your crowdfunding goal, think of it as incentive marketing rather than pitching investors.

May 8, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I’ve watched a number of entrepreneurs and small businesses attempt fundraising success with a Kickstarter campaign or other crowdfunding platforms. The concept is great: You pitch people on your ideas and only start building and investing after you’ve drummed up interest. This puts markets to work. If people aren’t interested in a project, then they simply won’t invest. Bad projects die out -- or so we think.

Of course, a lot of good projects never gain traction, either. What looks like luck boils down to good planning around your marketing and timing, mostly in competition with similar projects. Indeed, part of Kickstarter success simply comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Savvy entrepreneurs try to recognize trends and act on that knowledge to improve their chances of success, but often there is a dearth of timely information available. By the time most campaign analytics firms can supply you with predictions, the data’s value has decayed.

With crowdfunding, it’s not enough (most of the time) to sit back with your fingers crossed. Instead, you have to be proactive by marketing your goods and engaging your audience. There’s no way to guarantee success, of course, and ultimately your crowdfunding campaign can only be as good as your product. The best marketing campaign won’t be enough if you don’t have the goods.

Still, there are some steps you can take. Evan Varsamis, CEO of Gadget Flow, claims his team has helped thousands of companies launch Kickstarter campaigns and provided the numbers to prove it. He allowed me to take a dive into one of the largest repositories of crowdfunding campaign data. The data is definite on three points: social influencers are big sales drivers; video is the "king" of persuasive content; incentives influence all buyer behavior.

But how do you put that to practice?

Related: The Basics of Crowdfunding

1. Identify true believers and social media influencers.

In the technology adoption lifecycle there’s a critical chasm between earliest adopters and not-quite-so early adopters. Kickstarter programs face a similar hurdle: They need enough initial momentum to provide traction and to give the project a chance of success.

 

For Kickstarters, the first to bite are “true believers,” typically friends, family and associates with faith in you (and cash for you). A core group of true believers can get your Kickstarter campaign off to a quick start. Other crowdfunders are more likely to pitch in after they see people investing in your project.

It's important to reach out to social media influencers in your segment. If you’re launching a board game, endorsements by the biggest board game influencers will tremendously increase your chances of success. “Social currency is paramount in campaign marketing," Varsamis says. "If social media influencers and true believers sing praise about you and your products, other people follow suit. They’re following these key players on Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and the sales tend to follow shortly thereafter.”

Related: 5 Ways to Learn the Nuts and Bolts of Crowdfunding

2. Video is Kickstarter’s "content king."

Researchers at the University at Buffalo School of Management found that video, pictures, and other types of media greatly increase the results generated by crowdfunding campaigns. Video content is becoming king not just for Kickstarter, but digital marketing and engagement in general. A number of people quite simply prefer video, which is effective for building trust with people. With video you are front and center. You can make a personal pitch, highlight key features of your product, show off your team, explain your vision and otherwise simply prove that you’re real. Trust is a big issue when it comes to crowdfunding campaigns.

Further, a video is an investment when you’re asking people to invest in you and your campaign. A simple video is evidence that you’re already investing time and resources into bringing your vision to life. For skeptical funders, this can go a long way. Don’t know what your video should include? Consider the following formula from Gadget Flow’s segmented data:

Intro (15 seconds or less): Introduce yourself (best to appear in person) and your product.

The problem, want, or need (15 to 30 seconds): What pain does your product solve? What want or need does it fill? Why do other would-be solutions fall short?

Solution (30 seconds): How does your product address the previously mentioned problem, want or need? Be forward -- explain what makes your solution different from others.

Technology (20 or so more seconds): Demonstrate the credibility for your product. Explaining some of the technological aspects of your product and how it works will help. Consider focusing either on the tech itself or the high-quality materials it’s built from.

Team (15 additional seconds): Now is a good time to introduce your team. This will help build trust, which is going to be very important shortly.

Why you need funding (20 seconds or so): Why do you need funding? What, specifically, will you do with it? What will people get in return?

Call to action (10 more seconds): Make a final pitch to get people to fund you. Reiterate the benefits of funding.

Related: Why Crowdfunding Leaves Other Growth Tactics in the Dust

3. Approach crowdfunding as an incentive-based marketing effort.

Ultimately, your crowdfunding efforts boil down to fundamentals of marketing but with a twist around incentives. Consider running ads and paying for placements. Get your team involved. If you have a staff, run a contest with a bonus. For example, the person who drums up the most leads via their social media accounts gets an extra paid day off.

Your goal is to generate more funding than what you spend on marketing. You can use the tried-and-true formula “traffic X conversion rate % X value per-funder” to determine if your product is a success. As with most other areas of business, to make money, you’ll have to spend it. The Gadget Flow data showed projects that raised above $100,000 usually spent 1/3 of the total money in marketing.

There is too much noise on the internet these days to rely on word-of-mouth marketing alone. You have to be willing to spend money to see a return. Be bullish on your marketing budget and it will pay off.

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3 Sales Meeting Mistakes You Don't Know You're Making

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May 7, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Running effective sales meetings doesn’t come naturally to me. Over time, I’ve learned how to structure them in a way that takes advantage of my introverted nature and my natural awkwardness. But, if you’re still trying to find your own path, you’ll enjoy learning from the conversation I had recently with Jill Konrath.

Related: SalesLoft Grew Its Revenue by 1,750 Percent Using Outbound Sales. You Can, Too.

Konrath is an international sales speaker who was named one of the most influential sales experts of the 21st century by LinkedIn (where she currently has more than 350,000 followers). She’s also the author of four best-selling books -- More Sales, Less Time; Agile Selling; SNAP Selling; and Selling to Big Companies -- and she’s worked with companies like GE, Microsoft, IBM and Staples.

Konrath has also been doing a lot of work recently on the topic of mastering sales meetings, so I was eager to pick her brain. Below are three common sales meeting mistakes that came up in our conversation.

1. You don't understand the goal of a sales meeting.

The goal of a sales meeting is to get the sale, right? Not according to Konrath.

“A lot of salespeople think that their goal is to explain their product and service, to tout their capabilities and to differentiate themselves from their competitors,” she told me. “The real purpose of a sales meeting is to generate interest in continuing the conversation and to determine if you or your product or service can truly make a difference to that person and to that company.”

Are you still trying to hard sell on your first interaction with a prospect? If so, you should take a step back and test a softer approach.

2. You don't really know who your competitors are.

So how did we get it so wrong? How did so many of us come to this mistaken impression about what it really takes to run an effective sales meeting?

Related: 3 Sales Strategies to Help Increase Your Business in 30 Days

In my experience, one big problem is that too many of us copy what we see our competitors doing. They offer a free consultation; we do too. They focus on the features and benefits of their products; we do the same.

The problem, of course, is that your competitors may not be any more effective than you are. They may have different value propositions, or be selling to different types of customers. Furthermore, according to Konrath, you may not really be competing against others in your industry in the first place.

“Your competitor is the status quo, number one,” she said. “The first thing that you have to be able to do is to help people understand why the status quo is not good enough for helping them achieve their future goals or objectives. That should be the number one focus on any initial call. Remember, people are not necessarily buying in the first meeting. In fact, very few do. What you need to do is get people to the point where they say, ‘Geez, we really need to take a look at this.’"

As a side note, there are tools out there that can help with the process of sales call targeting and messaging. Konrath likes Rambl.ai, though there are similar products available to suit different needs/budgets.

3. You aren't prepared.

During our meeting, Konrath shared a sobering statistic, courtesy of Forrester Research: Of 319 executive-level buyers surveyed, “Only 20 percent of the salespeople they meet with are successful in achieving their expectations and creating value.”

Understandably, according to Konrath “If you''ve got a meeting with an important buyer, and you're not prepared, the chances of you having a second meeting are really slim.”

So, how do you prepare? Reading up on the company is part of it, as is learning more about the specific people you’ll be speaking with. Using this information to prepare relevant case studies and examples to share in your sales calls is a good idea, as well.

In addition, use your preparation to come up with the specific questions you’ll ask during your call. Not only will this demonstrate your level of preparedness, it’ll enable you to drive the conversation in a way that gets prospects engaged. Konrath gives the example of the kinds of questions she’d ask a tech company aiming to reduce its time to market:

• How important is it for you to be able to shrink your time to market on a new product launch?
• How are you currently handling your product launches?
• People doing launches [a certain] way, Konrath said she'd tell a tech company, experience "these kinds of problems." Her question: "Are you guys running into these problems?" 
• What are your objectives related to this?
• What are you trying to achieve in 2018 in this area?
• What's coming up the pike that is related to this? Or how big a priority for you is reducing time to market in your organization  this coming year?

Related: Traditional Sales vs. Social Sales: How to Keep Your Strategy Fresh

Customize questions like these to your company and its products, according to the research you’ve done. Use them to get prospects excited about your solution. If you can do that, the rest of your sales process will fall naturally into place. 

Are you guilty of making any of these sales meeting mistakes? Leave me a note below sharing your experiences:

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Overcome Webinar Offer Anxiety and Get Your Audience to Buy

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Think back to a webinar you attended in the past.

You signed up for that online training for a reason, right? Maybe you dug the topic, or you really liked the host. Or maybe you were genuinely interested in buying what that webinar might be selling, but you wanted to learn more about the product first.

Then the day of the session arrived. You tuned in, ready to take notes. It started out well. The host was articulate, knowledgeable, and had a lot to say.

But as the well-meaning host opened up their mind and spewed a ton of information, the minutes started to tick away. And you found yourself wondering:

“Yeah, that’s great, but what are you trying to sell me?”

After all, you know how it works. No one hosts a webinar just to give away free knowledge. Therefore, they’re trying to sell you something.

The webinar continues. You hear more facts, examples, and step-by-step tutorials than you’ll be able to remember.

But you’re only half-listening. You keep hearing a voice that says:

“What are you trying to sell me? Will everything you’re teaching me work if I don’t buy? And what if I can’t afford it? This isn’t a great month for me to spend extra money anyway …”

At some point, you realize you’re not listening anymore. You may even consider leaving, because you’re too stressed out about the host potentially hard-pitching you something you might not be interested in.

That’s what I call “Webinar Offer Anxiety”

This anxiety is something I’ve discovered firsthand while hosting more than 1,200 webinars over the last five years. And most people who give advice about webinars just don’t want to talk about it.

I define “Webinar Offer Anxiety” as the feelings of unease, nervousness, stress, or frustration that attendees experience when they don’t know what you’re selling on a webinar.

This anxiety stops would-be customers from buying — long before you even have a chance to tell them what you’re selling.

Sadly, most webinar hosts don’t even know this anxiety exists. So they have no clue how to get around it. (I’ll show you how to overcome it — and boost your webinar sales — in just a minute.)

Even worse, most webinar presenters go the other way. They try to keep their product offer a secret.

Your average (i.e., wrong) webinar presenter: 
“Whatever you do, don’t mention the offer!”

I’ve seen it way too many times.

Lots of presenters spend entire webinars talking about everything except what they’re selling. Somehow these hosts believe that the longer they hold off from mentioning their product offer, the better their chances for sales.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

These hosts might as well tell all their attendees to not think about the giant elephant wandering around the room. (Don’t think about the elephant. Seriously, don’t think about it.)

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash.

Most webinar hosts follow a webinar structure that looks like this: “Content … content … content … introduce offer … HARD PITCH … close.”

They spend nearly the entire session shrouding the offer in mystery. In doing so, they actually screw over their webinar attendees in a very interesting way.

Because when you don’t mention the offer, that’s the only thing attendees can think about.

Attendees can’t focus on your content, no matter how awesome it is. They can’t hear what you’re saying about that one amazing customer who had that fantastic experience by using your company’s product. They can’t even make an informed buying decision.

As rational, well-informed human beings, all your attendees can think about is what you’re not talking about: the offer.

As the minutes tick by, you’re losing attendees’ trust, their attention, and what they might have spent on your product if only you approached your webinar differently.

So, let’s talk about how to fix that …

It’s almost too obvious, really.

If not knowing the offer causes all this anxiety, why not treat your webinar attendees like grown-ups and tell them the offer right up front?

I’ve done this myself in hundreds of webinars over the years. I even tested it in door-to-door sales once upon a time. So I can tell you: It works.

I start every webinar by introducing myself, the company I’m representing, the webinar topic, and then I quickly introduce the offer like this:

“Okay, so I’m going to do something really weird that you’ve probably never heard on another webinar before. I’m going to tell you exactly what I’ve got to offer right now. You can take advantage of it now or later — but this way we can get it out of the way and then dive into the training.”

I then take three to five minutes to introduce the product I’m selling and explain:

• What it does


• Where to get it


• How to purchase it


• The bonuses I’m giving away on the webinar

Simply telling your attendees what you’re selling at the beginning of the webinar doesn’t just erase anxiety, it boosts sales.

More chances to sell = more sales

Now, this is important: I don’t just mention the product in the first five minutes of the webinar and never bring it up again.

Instead, I introduce the product offer at both the beginning and end of all my webinars. I save the bigger details for the very end, but I also mention the product offer right up front.

This accomplishes several goals at once.

1. It erases all offer anxiety. Your customers can now listen to the rest of your webinar content without worrying about what you’re going to offer and when.



2. It treats customers with respect. It shows your customers you appreciate their time and their intelligence by not trying to shroud your offer in mystery.



3. It gives customers time to think it over. By not shoehorning your pitch at the end, it gives would-be customers time to considering purchasing. (Yes, that increases sales.)



4. It gives you more chances to sell during your webinar. When you introduce your product at the beginning, you can talk about your product throughout your entire webinar with complete ease.


5. It creates a webinar structure that sells. The end result is a webinar structure that’s designed to make sales. I start by saying what I’m selling, I give awesome content that explains why they might want to buy what I’m selling. Then I show them how to purchase what I’m selling.


6. It helps ease potential sticker shock. If I’m selling a product that costs more than a couple hundred dollars, when many people hear the price, they’ll get instant sticker shock. But bringing it up in the beginning of the webinar means I’ve got the next 45–60 minutes to blow their minds with value, overcome objections, and then present my offer again without that initial sticker shock weighing them down.

In other words, I get multiple chances to sell while still showing I respect my customers. Gold.

Questions? Comments? Keep ’em coming!

I’d love to hear from you in the comments: Did you find this blog post useful? Even just a two-second “Yes, Tim!” comment below would make my day. 🙂

Also, do you have any questions about hosting your own webinar? If so, drop them in the comments below. I’d love to answer them.

Join us for an in-depth workshop on selling with webinars:
Tuesday, May 15, 12:00 Noon Eastern U.S. Time

If you want to learn to make much more effective offers, join us for an in-depth workshop we think you’ll find helpful.

It’s specifically about selling with webinars — one of the most reliable ways to convert interested fans into happy customers and clients.

To get all the details, click here and drop your information into the form.

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Good Work Habits Stick Only When Leaders Step up to the Plate and Help

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A bad work habit can be a form of self-preservation. How do you, as leader, convince the employee to ditch it?

May 7, 2018

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Good work habits don't happen overnight -- they take time to form. As a leader, you (hopefully) agree that it's important to support employees while they try to create more productive habits. To do this, leaders must first understand which tactics work best.

Related: 7 Bad Workplace Habits Millennials Need to Stop Making

This requires examining which factors help employees form habits and which ones hinder them. By being supportive, leaders can help prevent employees from heading down the wrong path and instead work to help create a stronger, more productive team.

Let them know they've already "won the race."

Bad habits are often a form of self-preservation. For example, David Maxfield, the vice president of research for leadership training company VitalSmarts, told me he once had an employee who had been through the competitive ringer.

This employee, whom we'll call "Bill," had attended a prestigious college and constantly felt the need to prove himself the smartest person in the room. As a result, Bill was neither welcoming nor receptive to what other team members brought to the table. As a result, Maxfield wanted to help Bill form better collaborative habits.

The first step? Showing Bill he had nothing left to prove.

"He had won the race, and nobody was competing with him anymore," Maxfield said via email from his company in Salt Lake City. "He was a valued member with a secure position on the team."

Helping Bill see this new perspective opened up the employee to changing and forming better habits. Do the same at your company by sitting down with staff and explaining why they're important to the team. Then, show how their current behavior is holding them back. This will help them let down their guard and embrace change.

Related: The Work Habits That Will Make You Successful

Set a good example.

One of the most universally effective habits an employee can have is a positive attitude. But this doesn't come naturally to everyone. Employees need to see a model of such behavior, and that starts with leaders.

"A positive leader makes a remarkable difference," said Don Rheem, CEO of Arlington, Va.-based management-consulting firm E3 Solutions.

Set an example for employees by sporting a positive attitude. Find sincere ways to show confidence and optimism. The key here is for leaders to identify an aspect of the company they're passionate about, and then take the time to share this with employees. Seeing their boss's positive outlook will help them do the same.

Break down their behavior.

An employee who's working on autopilot doesn't stop to see if there's a better, more productive way to approach things. He or she just acts. To get employees to change, leaders need to walk them through their actions and show them where there are problems.

For example, Jeb Ory, CEO of Washington, D.C.-based digital advocacy platform Phone2Action, had an employee who had trouble prioritizing tasks. Ory worked with this man to help him break down his tasks into four categories: urgent, important, urgent but unimportant and not urgent/not important.

"He was spending unnecessary time on unimportant but urgent tasks -- which were basically preparing materials for other people," Ory said via email. "Important but not urgent tasks were not completed ahead of time, so they became urgent and important tasks when they didn't need to be."

Have employees make a list of the various tasks they perform and how long each takes. Make sure they include frequent jobs that pop up unexpectedly. Then, have them talk through how each task affects their workflow. This will help them see how they might be wasting time and adjust accordingly.

Make it a practice to revisit habits.

Just because a process works today doesn't mean it will work in the future. As such, leaders need to remind employees to continually re-evaluate how they approach their jobs.

Revisit employee habits during performance reviews. If there are any signs that individuals' performance levels are dropping, have them take a look at their habits. Encourage them to try something new and see if things improve.

Related: Adopt These 12 Habits for a Better Work-Life Balance

When trying out new behaviors and habits, have employees log how their days go. Make sure they pay attention to things like the time it takes to complete tasks, their end-of-day energy levels and their general happiness. This will help them see what new behaviors should become long-term habits. The good kind.

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Money Mindset: Is It All Gonna Go Away??

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How do you manage the financial growth of your business? Does dealing with revenue give you anxiety? How do you get rid of the fears that are attached to money?

Today we talk about all the scary elements of running your company’s finances. Right from the start, it is important to be laying out a path to success and growth, but balancing these elements is not always easy. That’s why we’re here!

In this episode, we go through all the different types of worries that accumulate as your ideas and business grow. We discuss the all important aspects of mindset and experience, lifestyle, investing and self-belief.

We also talk about the fundamental act of paying yourself and manifesting a working environment away from scarcity. The team really opens up some avenues for examination and by the end of the episode, we are sure you will be more clear on how to progress bravely in your work!

So tune in, with us, the Fizzle team as we banish those fears and get your business popping!

 

Key Points From This Episode:

• The fear of running out of success and maintaining revenue. [0:06:13.2]


• Collection anxiety and balancing the fun with payments. [0:10:32.1]


• Lifestyle adjustments according to income. [0:14:50.7]


• Sidestepping the aversion to the act of paying oneself. [0:19:26.9]


• Balancing reward and necessity and managing finances. [0:24:28.8]


• The great wall that is built by mindset and experience. [0:26:01.3]


• Pumping the gas to get that combustion going! [0:29:30.2]


• Comparing the mindsets of scarcity and positivity. [0:33:40.1]


• The mathematical model of Profit First. [0:38:37.2]


• The question of investing in help, products and diversification. [0:40:40.6]


• Asking yourself how much you believe in your business. [0:47:02.7]


• The compounding effect of ignoring money problems. [0:51:19.5]   

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

• Gusto — https://gusto.com/fizzle


• Fizzle — https://fizzle.co/


• Fizzle Toolkit — https://fizzle.co/toolkit


• Fizzle Goals Course — https://fizzle.co/courses/goals


• Fizzle 80/20 Copywriting Guide — https://fizzle.co/sparkline/writing-copy-for-web


• Fizzle Journaling Course — https://fizzle.co/courses/journal


• Courage and Clarity — https://www.courageandclarity.com


• Chase Reeves Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/user/chasereeves


• Profit First — http://profitfirstbook.com/

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SME Survey: Day Zero Warning Hits SMEs Hard

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SME Survey is the original and largest representative survey since 2003 to measure the forces shaping SME competitiveness in South Africa.

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