Archive for the ‘small business marketing’ Category

If joint venture possibilities excite you, let me share my experiences with you. I have received well over 400 JV proposals and offers from people over the years, receiving up to 7 a week at one stage. I reject most proposals however there are some that I do say YES to. Some have been very profitable. Some have been a massive waste of time, money and effort.

Here are some of the rules I now follow. I hope you find them to be useful in your situation.

1. The upside must give the potential to earn at least 3 times what we would earn if it was a fee for service arrangement. It also needs to be fun.

2. We must have control of the sales process. If there is no control over the sales transaction I will not participate because there are too many factors outside of our control, that can affect sales results.

3. If the opportunity is to co-author an e-book/course/online product, is the topic of the book or product in an area where we’d like to be known and therefore build our profile for future opportunities? If it is, fantastic. If it isn’t, the only determining factor becomes $$. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Increase your marketing spend but do it smartly

Many companies reduce their marketing spend in a recession which is counter-productive, to say the least. Make sure you don’t. In fact, I recommend that you increase it,  but increase it smartly.

Let me explain …

First, ensure all your advertising and marketing is measurable. Then - rigorously test and measure all your advertising efforts – all your promotional offers, your sales copy, your headlines, your sales copy, your landing pages, the media you advertise in, the list you market to, the timing and more.

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By now most people have seen all the “hoo-ha” about employees being fired over negative comments they’ve made on Facebook. But the even crazier thing is small business owners don’t seem to have taken the hint and continue to post very damaging tweets of their own.

I was initially reluctant to write this article because I figured that these mistakes were being made by a minority of people, but considering how frequently I’ve been seeing certain tweets pop up, I guess I was wrong.

This article is written in the hope of helping small business owners preserve their relationships with their clients in the future.

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