by Hamish | Jul 31, 2017 | 365 Day Challenge
You wouldn’t think twice about spending money on an advertisement, on some flyers or some other more “traditional” marketing tactic. You wouldn’t think twice about paying cash to attend a networking event. You recognise that marketing costs money. Budget is one of the Sections in a marketing plan. Implementing your chosen marketing tactics costs money. The costs of membership and the cost of sales are common objections we hear when discussing membership of Jim’s TradeNet with our potential members. There is a monthly fee (at the time of writing $20 per month) and a cash “percentage cost of sale” (less if you pay on time.) I want to show you how these fees should be part of your marketing budget – I’ll outline the marketing benefits of Jim’s TradeNet briefly below. Dedicated Opportunity To Market To Members – Jim’s TradeNet have a team of staff dedicated to facilitating trades between members of the network. They have other staff who are dedicated to growing the network. If you are looking for a particular product or service, the Jim’s TradeNet team will facilitate the introduction if there is another member already in the network. If your product or service is not currently covered then they will look to see if they can bring new people into the network. Networking Events and Opportunities – The Jim’s TradeNet team are committed to hosting regular networking events for their members. A recent event I attended was the Jim’s TradeNet Second Birthday Bash where I had a trade stand and there were other members attending as guests – a great networking opportunity. They’ve also had...
by Hamish | Jul 30, 2017 | 365 Day Challenge
I am writing this blog post from 30000 feet on a qantas plane from Melbourne to Perth. Today I am flying “up the back” so I really don’t have much room on the tray table in front of me. Hence, I am writing this article from my iPad mini. Well I was writing another blog post but in writing that blog post it got me thinking about writing this one. Is an iPad the only tool you need? Can you run a business exclusively from your iPad? For me, the answer is “yes” but with qualifications. You can do it, you could run a business from your iPad, but it’s not always the most convenient option – there are some other, better tools out there for certain tasks but these are more just a preference featured, not necessarily a requirement. Here are the iPad’s benefits: Incredibly portable – iPads are incredibly portable. They are lightweight, thin and relatively small. They don’t take up much space, you can easily fit one in a briefcase or folio. They also have a great battery life – especially the newer iPads. You can use it pretty heavily and it will last all day and well into the next day. Create and share documents – With the right Apps on your iPad you can create and share documents with those in your network. I love G Suite, but this is an article for another day. I mention G Suite because they have a range of apps available on the iPad. You can create and share documents and presentations, these documents and presentations are stored...
by Hamish | Jul 29, 2017 | 365 Day Challenge
I drafted this blog post from 30000 feet on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Perth. Now I am sitting here editing it on my laptop Drafting my post and the use of iPads to run my business is not the point of this post but it’s useful to mention. You will see me mentioning iPads as effective business tools in other articles as part of my 365 day challenge. This is a quick article to talk about what to post on Facebook – I talk regularly with clients about posting to Facebook Oftentimes they come to me with comments like “I don’t know what to talk about.” So I’ve come up with a list of 100+ possibilities for Facebook Posts (most are equally relevant for other Social Media Platforms – you just need to make sure you take into account the context of your platform before making a post.) I am not going to talk about all 100 social media post options available to you. Today I am going to share with you 6 social media post options Interesting and relevant quotes – Sometimes you want to publish posts that are more for organic engagement than other reasons – for example driving a call to action or getting sales. The more organic engagement you can achieve with a Facebook Post the better. If you get great organic reach then you will find that future posts are more likely to be seen by your fans on Facebook. Great organic reach is one factor that helps ensure that your Facebook page posts will continue to appear in others news feeds....
by Hamish | Jul 28, 2017 | 365 Day Challenge
I love LinkedIn. I talk about Linkedin regularly and I am always on the Platform. I will talk about Linkedin in the future. In this article I just wanted to briefly touch upon 5 different points all relevant to Lead Generation on Linkedin. If you ignore any of these steps you do so at your own peril – ignoring any of these points doesn’t necessarily mean failure but it lessens your chances of success. Your LinkedIn Profile Your LinkedIn profile is not your resume. It’s a credibility building building tool to show that you have the ability to serve someone – to show the benefits you provide to potential customers and potential members of your network. You need to make sure that your LinkedIn profile is keyword rich as the LinkedIn search algorithm ranks profiles according to these keywords so you must make sure you have the right keywords – those that people are searching for if they might be searching for your product or service. You can also have a number of Media files attached to your Linkedin profile. These could be videos, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files and similar. You must make sure you take advantage of these opportunities on LinkedIn. It is also important to get testimonials and endorsements from people in your network as those you are potentially going to do business with want to know that you are good at what you do. Testimonials and endorsements build trust. Your Initial Connection With A New Prospect You are not always going to connect with people on LinkedIn that you know or have met in real life....
by Hamish | Jul 27, 2017 | 365 Day Challenge
For the past 18 months, in the lead up to June 30th 2017, I was the Public Image Committee Chair for Rotary District 9790. I loved being Public Image Chair. It was great being the Public Image chair because I got to speak to a lot of different Rotary Clubs and find out about a lot of the great projects going on in the community – it’s amazing what these Clubs have achieved and are achieving. The problem that many of these Clubs have is that they aren’t very good at telling people about their projects. Rotary in many ways is the World’s best kept secret. Clubs aren’t always great at promoting themselves but, instead of strategic thinking – they often think a Facebook Page, website or similar individual tactic is all they need to solve their promotional woes. They want to believe that there is some sort of “Silver Bullet” to fix their Public Image – their marketing and public relations problems. Unfortunately it’s not quite that simple. Marketing your Rotary Club is similar to marketing a business – just generally with a slimmer budget. I wanted to talk about the 5 key points that you have to think about. Before you jump into Facebook, before you build a website – you need to answer these questions. What are your Club’s goals – Before you jump into anything you first need to decide as a Club what it is that you want to achieve as part of your Marketing and PR activities – these goals will generally fall in one of three areas – more members and supporters,...
