The Global Language Monitor

Come on, people. Take off the blinders, disregard the lemmings, and grab a cold shower of reality. Twitter is hype, a fad, an in-your-face has-been. In a year of overkill – Michael Jackson’s death, Balloon Boy and his idiot parents, and Tiger Woods’ appetite for off-menu entrees – Twitter takes the Overkill Prize of 2009.

That’s not to say Twitter doesn’t have value, because it does. That Google now includes tweets in real time searches shows the power of Twitter. But recent numbers point to a decline in Twitter’s actual website visitors and, more importantly, a decline in new users.

Matthew Daines, the lead developer of Twellow (Twitter Yellow Pages), shared a couple new graphs for November. The number of new users declined for the fourth consecutive month and is now down 24.4% from the July, 2009 high.

While the number of new users continued to decline, the number of tweets per user continued to rise. This could indicate several aspects:

• those who have found success on Twitter are devoting more time to it
• spammers are having a field day
• those who found Twitter useless for their business were not tweeting often

It’s still too early to determine which is a cause and which is an effect. Twitter saw many changes in November and change makes people uncomfortable, so it’s very possible the numbers just reflect a temporary disconnect. Here are just some of the November changes:

• The new retweet feature was introduced
• The “What are you doing?” question was changed to “What’s Happening?” for updates
• It implemented a partnership with LinkedIn so tweets show up on LinkedIn

Twitter has a paid service planned for the near future though that is no guarantee that it can make money or that its business model is profitable or sustainable. Business people should be familiar with Twitter in case it does turn into a valuable tool. At this time, however, it doesn’t seem prudent to invest too much time, money or effort into something which is profitable for so few people.

The concept is that entrepreneurs looking for funds for their startup business will pay handsomely – up to $1,500 handsomely – to get in front of those with the money to invest, the so-called angel investors.

To most people, angels are heavenly and spiritual. In business, there are angels in name only who have no confidence in their ability to spot a good investment and manage it to maturity. So they take money from the entrepreneur up front. Call me cynical, but these are the people your Mom told you to watch out for.

A few courageous and principled men have decided to take a stand against this type of ‘angel’ investor (screw it, let’s just call them by their proper moniker – devil investors).  Jason Calacanis, CEO and founder of Mahalo.com (a human-powered search engine) is expecting Sky Dayton, who founded Earthlink, and Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills.com, to join him as he launches the Open Angel Fund in the first quarter of 2010.

Calacanis, who is no stranger to controversy, hopes his Open Angel Fund will put Keiretsu Forum out of business.  Calacanis has singled out Keiretsu as an example of pay-to-play angel investors. Keiretsu has 18 chapters, 14 in the US and 4 international chapters in China, England, France and Spain.

Keiretsu is one of the largest for-profit angel groups in the world and, naturally, issued a “… we support and welcome his new organization.” statement. Nobody who rakes in money like Kieretsu wants competition so their corporate statement is the typical smiling face which stabs you in the back the second you turn around. I wouldn’t be surprised to find several cases of Vaseline in their corporate offices.

Calacanis has stated that the Open Angel Forum would not charge entrepreneurs or members any fees. He said he’ll personally cover all expenses and invest in as many as 10 promising companies every year. Calacanis is confident he’ll be profitable and doesn’t seem fazed by any upfront expenses he may incur.

I wish Jason Calacanis the absolute best of luck in this endeavor.  I respect him for his courage and initiative. That’s the spirit of an entrepreneur. That’s the type of person – somebody with an idea, a plan, and passion to act – who can make a difference in business. That’s what business is all about. Go get ‘em, Jason. Go get ‘em.

There are two types of sitemaps, HTML and XML. An HTML sitemap provides a useful directory of all the pages that are in your site and is designed to be viewed by your website visitors. XML sitemaps are designed and written for the search engines and play a vital role in helping a search engine “crawl” the various pages of your site. For a definitive explanation of sitemaps, visit sitemaps.org

HTML Sitemaps

An HTML sitemap is usually a single page which contains links to all the pages of your website. Normally, this is accessible via a link in the footer section of your website, which should be displayed on every page.

On large sites, visitors can get lost and struggle to find a specific page (another important reason to have a search box on your site as well). Assuming your site architecture is designed well, the HTML sitemap will help guide your site visitors to the page they’re looking for.

WebAssist.com has a pleasing, simple, yet well designed HTML sitemap which can easily serve as a template for many sites. Each page in their website has a footer which contains the link to this sitemap page.

XML Sitemaps

The popular search engines — Google, Yahoo and Bing — use the XML sitemap as one part of their process for indexing the pages of a website. A good XML sitemap will tell the search engine what pages are in your site, how often those pages are updated, and when they were last modified. This way, the search engines know which pages to revisit more regularly and are likely to do a better job of indexing them.

Creating Both Types of Sitemaps

Creating an HTML sitemap is easy: simply create a basic HTML page which contains links to all the pages in your site. When new pages are added to your site, add links to the new pages on the sitemap.

For small sites, creating an XML sitemap manually takes just a few minutes. XML-sitemaps.com and GSiteCrawler.com both offer free, easy-to-use sitemap tools.

For larger sites, creating an XML sitemap can be quite time consuming. Sites with 50,000 pages or more will usually need a custom sitemap built.

Google has a page with a collection of links to tools and code snippets that generate Sitemap files.

How Often Should Sitemaps Be Submitted?

Google recommends initially submitting your sitemap using their Webmaster Tools. This ensures that sitemap details are readily viewable on the first tab of the Sitemaps page in Webmaster Tools. Sitemaps can also be submitted (and resubmitted) by sending a HTTP request to Google and including the sitemap location in your robots.txt file (see details below).

You should resubmit a sitemap to search engines about once every three months. This allows you to update the search engines about any new pages in your site. If you create new pages on a daily basis, you may want to submit your sitemap more frequently.

Updating Sitemaps

To resubmit a sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools

1. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want.
2. Under Site configuration, click Sitemaps.
3. Select the Sitemap you want to resubmit, and then click Resubmit.

To resubmit a sitemap by sending Google an HTTP request

If you do this, you don’t need to resubmit it using Webmaster Tools. The Submitted column will continue to show the last time you manually clicked the link, but the Last Downloaded column will be updated to show the last time our system has fetched your Sitemap.

Include Your Sitemap Location in Your robots.txt File

To tell search engines about the location of your sitemap, include the following line in your robots.txt file:

sitemap: http://www.your-domain.com/sitemap.xml

Deleting Sitemaps

You can delete a sitemap from your Google account so that it no longer appears in Webmaster Tools. Google will, however, continue to fetch your sitemap data until you remove the sitemap file from your webserver. If you want to keep the Sitemap on your server for use by other search engines, you can use your robots.txt file to prevent Google from accessing it.

To delete a Sitemap from your Google Webmaster Tools account:

1. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want.
2. Under Site configuration, click Sitemaps.
3. Select the Sitemap you want to delete, and then click Delete.

If you delete a website from your account, all associated sitemaps will be deleted as well. If you delete all sitemaps associated with a website, that website will still be listed in your account so you can view information about it.

Final Words

Google does not require sitemaps but mentions they are strongly recommended. Both HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps are a good step in the right direction to improve your website’s exposure. You will most likely find your search engine rankings climb after submitting a sitemap the first time. This is just one small part of search engine optimization and there is much more you can do to improve how search engines rank the pages on your site and your website’s visibility.

A recent article on emarketer.com shows traffic declining on Twitter from 2.1% to an eye-popping 27.8%. Why? The reasons are varied and may not be as bleak as first imagined.

Twitter’s growth has been tremendous, but 60% of users only stayed for two months before becoming inactive. Recent studies showed 80% of Tweets to be self-referential (as mentioned in the blog post about mono media).

The article does mention legitimate reasons for the drop in traffic which must be considered, especially given the huge disparity in the numbers. Since many Twitter users use third party apps like HootSuite and TweetDeck, it’s difficult to correlate traffic and users.

Social media sites can generate traffic, leads and sales if a proper strategy is implemented. There are many strategies which work, some of which are the opposite of others. You can also establish an authority presence if you desire on social media sites.

Define Your Persona, Then Pick Your Site

Different social media sites appeal to different demographics. Understanding your persona and how it fits in with a site will improve the benefit you’ll get. Pick the wrong site, however, and your social media time investment will return minimal results.

Persona: Professional and business-oriented. LinkedIn appeals to employed professionals and entrepreneurs. Demographics show strong appeal in the 35-50 age range, and users tend to be well-educated and affluent. Thousands of groups are available for networking with those who share your passions. The Questions area is very helpful across a wide range of topics.

Persona: Family and Friends are a priority. You can’t go wrong with Facebook, now a profitable company with over 400 million users worldwide. Facebook is now the second most visited internet site (after Google). There isn’t much new to say about Facebook. If you still haven’t signed up, well, beware. It can be very addictive.

Persona: Freewheeling, entrepreneurial, tech-savvy. You just might find a home at Twitter. Take the time to learn the ins and outs before tweeting (posting) and define what you want before going all in.

There are plenty of other social media sites available if the Big Three don’t float your boat. LinkedIn and Facebook look like they’re here for good. I still have reservations about Twitter. In six months, anything could change significantly. That’s the beauty of the change of pace on the internet. Stability isn’t synonymous with the web.

As always, your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

The latest version of the health care/insurance reform bill – all 1,990 pages of legalese – is the worst screwing of the typical American small business since the Supreme Court’s 2005 eminent domain decision in Kelo v. City of New London. If you own a small business and think taxes are high, your definition of high is about to be considerably expanded.

Like The Alternative Minimum Tax Concept? You’ll Love This!

The AMT was passed into law in 1969 and became effective in 1970. It was originally intended to target 155 individuals with income of over $200,000 who paid no federal income tax. The law, however, was not – and is still not – indexed for inflation.

That is why every year Congress must waste time modifying the law to protect over 24 million mostly middle-class taxpayers (in 2008) from higher taxes. It would be smarter and save time to permanently index it. But Congress is doing all it can – to protect their jobs.

The current health care/insurance reform bill, H.R. 3200, is not indexed for inflation. So, the 5.4% surcharge on incomes over $500,000 will be paid by more and more people every year, even at low average annual inflation rates of 2-4%. By 2020, people will be paying the surcharge on the equivalent of $350,000 of today’s dollars, at an average inflation rate of 3.6%. The amount would be even lower if inflation is higher.

Not only does this surcharge apply to income, it also applies to capital gains and dividends. Dividends, currently taxed at 15%, will rise to 39.6% if Congress lets the Bush tax cuts expire, which they have stated they would do. Add the surcharge and dividends will be taxed at 45%.

Dividends, the portion of corporate profits paid to stockholders, are a source of income for many investors and retirees. How much investing will people be willing to do if almost half of their income is taxed by the feds? Add in state taxes – especially high tax states like New York and California where the top rate is around 10% – and the incentive to invest is reduced even further.

But Wait – There’s Even More Bad News!

Not only is the surcharge not indexed for inflation, neither is the business payroll penalty! The bill imposes a penalty of 2%, starting on payrolls of $500,000 and rising to 8% on payrolls over $750,000. This affects business which do not offer health insurance or pay less than 72.5% of a worker’s insurance.

Using 4% average annual inflation, in 10 years this would affect businesses with the equivalent of $335,000 to $510,000 in today’s dollars. So every year, more business owners will get the shaft while the government gets the gold mine.

The Bad News Isn’t Finished Yet!

In the Senate bill, some of the taxes raised to pay for reform are taxes on high cost health plans or ‘Cadillac’ health plans, those plans commonly costing $8,000 per year or more and most often offered to government employees and union members.

This, too, uses deceptive means to appear indexed to inflation. It indexes $8,000 as a base and it can rise by the inflation rate plus 1%. Sounds good, right? Wrong! Because health care inflation historically is twice as high as the inflation rate.

So the businesses which provide these good insurance plans will pay more in taxes. Business with employees with pay more taxes. Investors will pay more taxes. Which means prices will have to rise on everything, causing more inflation and generating more taxes!

The dastardly, deceptive and debilitating methods of screwing the average American are Hall of Fame reckless. The spin put on by those trying to rush this ruse through before Americans find out more is shameful. Yep, I’ve reach my tipping point. Now I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

I’m bringing back my clenched fist t-shirt from 1970. I’ve had enough.

The Wall Street Journal called this piece of legislation the worst bill ever since the New Deal of FDR. The factors which threaten small business owners and entrepreneurs are:

1. Spending Well Beyond The Country’s Means

Spending and debt are at record peacetime levels, yet only the Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans have made deficit spending an issue. Democrats complained long and loud about George W. Bush’s deficits of up to $450 billion. The deficit for fiscal 2009 was $1.42 trillion. But with Democrats in control of the Presidency and Congress, now it’s okay to have huge deficits. One word comes to mind: hypocrisy.

Democrats have tried to shove this bill though as quickly as possible. Last fall’s TARP bill, rammed through quickly, has turned out to be a mismanaged mess, with $350 billion unaccounted for. Apparently, Congress has not learned its lesson that rushing bills produces bad bills. Again, Democrats complained, yet are doing the same thing

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, $226 billion more than the $829 billion that Pelosi claims. Privately, some Democrats told the Associated Press the bill would cost $1.2 trillion. How can politicians vote on a bill which varies in cost by over 44%?

The bill also assumes Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and more in subsequent years. This fantasy results in a savings of about $250 billion. The house could not pass this cut in costs recently as a stand alone bill. Bottom line: Does Congress really think doctors will work for 21.5% less? The law of unintended consequences says doctors will quit or retire in droves when most needed with the aging of the Baby Boom generation. Less supply means higher costs. Congress, full of lawyers but low on actual business people, simply doesn’t understand the law of supply and demand.

2. Punishing Tax Rates Which Are Not Indexed For Inflation

To pay for this bill, $572 billion in new taxes will be raised, mostly from a 5.4% surcharge on joint filers earning over $1 million and single filers earning over $500,000. This clearly affects many entrepreneurs and small businesses, especially Subchapter S corporations and LLCs ( limited liability corporations).

This surcharge will affect more earners with each passing year since it isn’t indexed for inflation. Again, Democrats have not learned their lesson from the creation and implementation of the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) law, passed in 1969 and intended to target 155 high-income households that had been eligible for so many tax benefits that they owed little or no income tax under the tax code

The AMT would have hit about 25 million taxpayers in 2008 had Congress not acted. Instead of indexing for inflation, Congress now wastes time every year to pass an extension of the AMT to keep middle class Americans from being taxed too heavily.

The bill also taxes businesses 8% of their payroll if they don’t offer insurance or pay at least 72.5% of their workers’ premiums. Such taxes crimp the bottom line, reducing  hiring, job creation, and job and economic  growth. The U.S. has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world. Adding another tax will force more businesses to flee to low tax countries, causing more jobs to disappear and leading to an increase in the unemployment rate.

A tax of 2.5% of adjusted gross income will also be levied on people who won’t buy insurance. If they currently can’t afford insurance, how will having less money make insurance more affordable?

President Obama’s Medicare actuaries estimate that the federal share of U.S. health dollars will rise from the current 46% to over 60%. As any business person knows, when the government gets involved, it’s going to cost more in money and time. Businesses can not afford that expense.

Your comments on this important issue are welcomed.

Pricing Strategy 1: The Goldilocks Factor

Some clients have sold information products which converted online at about 1.8% when priced at $14.97, yet had almost zero sales when priced at $9.97 and $19.97.  By rotating in the middle price, the project went from a near-write-off to a tremendous success as people perceived the value to be exceptional.

In the testing phase of 60 day periods, sales at $9.97 were just over $800, sales at $19.97 were about $1,150 and sales at $14.97 were $18,000!  Hence the name, the Goldilocks Factor where your offer is one of the three beds. One price is too high, one price is too low, and one price is just perfect.

Your job is to get your Goldilocks prospect into one of the three ‘beds’ when they’re ready to buy and see which bed is most comfortable. This is the least important of the pricing strategies, because it’s difficult to know which three prices to test (all three prices could be too high or too low). It’s a good idea to test more prices after your first Goldilocks test, but only if it doesn’t conflict with pricing strategy 5, below.

Pricing Strategy 2: Start By Flooding Your Store

This may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s not in your best interest to set the first price for a product or service which will make you the maximum amount of profit. Chances are, it could cause you serious financial harm. Here’s why.

To maximize your profits usually means setting your price reasonably high.  This results in fewer customers making you more money. That is what you want – once you’ve been in the market awhile and experienced up to 1,000 transactions.

The reason you don’t want that price right up front is you’ll drastically reduce your buyer volume, which means you’ll drastically reduce:

- the speed at which you can finish testing other elements of your sales system, like headlines, guarantees, bullet points, copy, etc.

- the speed at which you can optimize your pay per click ads for profit per impression, a powerful metric which gives more insight into what ppc ads really cost than almost any other.

- the speed at which you can get customer feedback about your product.

- the speed at which you can grow your buyer list.

- the speed at which you can develop referrals from satisfied customers.

The value of all the above is far greater than the extra profit you’d generate if you priced for optimum visitor value immediately out of the gate. Early on is when you’re bound to have product issues which need to be fixed. Often, these are issues which only buyers can point out to you.  People are more likely to be aggravated with these issues if they’ve paid $100 for an item compared to $30.

Bottom line: start  prices low for high volume and a flood of customers so you’ll have a real business with lots of buyer feedback. You won’t keep prices low (see pricing strategy 2), but long term it definitely pays to start there.

The safest thing is to perform a Goldilocks test at about, a little below, and a little above the lowest serious competitor you have. If your main competitor is priced at $59.99, you might test $49.95, $59.95, and possibly $77.  If your product fails to sell, you can be pretty sure it’s not the price.

Pricing Strategy 3: Notify and Reward Your Loyal Customers

Once you’ve been through your first 1,000 transactions and you’re confident in your product and sales system, start methodically raising the price. Keep in mind:

- Make sure to let your customer list know about the impending price increase.  This is a courtesy seldom practiced by most marketers. Those who have been considering your original offer will appreciate your transparency.  Some will be angry when you tell them but more will be angry if you don’t. You can’t please everyone.

In the end, if what you’re offering is actually beneficial and has value, and you firmly believe your customers will be better off with your product or service, then the flood of new customers, driven by the sense of urgency, will be good for everyone.

- If you’re providing a monthly service, make sure your prospects can lock in the current rate. Reaffirm to them that their rates are locked in and protected.  This way, you reward your early adopters and you actually build more loyalty, not only because they’re grateful you’ve locked in their price, but because they don’t want to leave and come back at the new, higher rate.

- In many markets, particularly those with a lengthy follow up sequence, there will be a high volume of prospects “on the fence”. You’ll find it preferable to raise the price gradually, in increments, to take maximum advantage of the “fence sweeping” phenomenon.  This gives you more time to continually improve your product, customer service, etc.

Pricing Strategy 4: If People Say Your Price Is Too High…

…It simply means you have yet to convincingly build up the value in your marketing materials and presentations.

This is where everything begins to tie together.  It’s also the most important reason not to have hard and fast prices. Price is perceived in the complete context of your overall marketing efforts.  Which means an offer from pay per click advertising will perform differently  than endorsement traffic, referral traffic, organic search, direct mail or email marketing.

The more value you build into your free content and follow ups means less marketing effort down the road. Price is also very sensitive to how you’ve built value in other aspects of your business, such as customer service and guarantees.

Pricing Strategy 5: Test Where There Is Money

For maximum conversion, the classic saying is “always be testing”. That’s true, but only to a point. If you were always testing, you could be testing and doing nothing else. There is a cost associated with testing, whether it’s time, money, effort, or morale (like when testing shows a negative result).

The realistic answer is you never know if $29.99 or $29.95 is going to be the Goldilocks price (one marketer did a test in 2007 using those 2 prices and the difference in conversion was over 65%!).  If you reach the point where you have a substantial number of front end buyers, you’ve done a few price increases, and now you see opportunities to expand your lifetime value for each customer several fold by developing your back end, then it makes no sense to test!

Seriously, a lot of marketers go overboard when it comes to testing. Don’t make the same mistake  Testing can give you the illusion you’re in control of a world which is chaotic by nature. That’s why it’s very important to know how to do it – and when not to.

I welcome your comments and experiences.

Michael Jackson was a unique and complex man, a once-in-a-generation entertainer whose personal and professional lives couldn’t have been more different. Set aside your feelings about his personality, his personal life, and his music to see how his business acumen was probably far greater than most people realize.

Have A Goal and Dare To Dream Big

Many aspects of Jackson were larger than life and this movie showed how this concept was applied to the stage performance. The special effects, visuals, and sheer magnitude of any one song was more spectacular than 99% of other performer’s entire shows.

Jackson commented late in the movie about how he felt it vital to give the audience something they’d never seen before. Even though he formed his set list around songs his fans requested, he was willing to update something as tried and true as Thriller. That takes courage and supreme self-confidence.

More important than just daring to dream big is to get everybody to buy into the concept and act as one for the good of the greater whole. Musicians, dancers, singers, wardrobe and all others showed a sincere belief to sacrifice for the big picture. If your business can pull that off, you’re going places in a hurry.

Thank Those Who Help and Contribute

Jackson knew exactly what he wanted and communicated his desires to cast and crew. After explaining his desire, he’d give someone a chance to do it to achieve the result he sought. When they got it, he sometimes said, “Thank you”, and other times, “God bless you.” Now that’s sincere!

Though Jackson was clearly in charge, he didn’t come across as a pompous, unfair, or bullying boss. If it took several tries to get something right, Jackson’s patience was seldom tested. He still thanked people and didn’t do it in a gratuitious manner. How many times has someone said something like, “It’s about time you got it right!”. Jackson didn’t act that way. He treated others as he wanted to be treated.

Make Your Mistakes In Rehearsal

There were at least two instances when a song finished and Jackson was unhappy with the results. To convey his message, he broke it down by mentioning what was done, then describing what he wanted instead. When it was understood by all how it should go, Jackson simply said, “That’s why we rehearse.”

The same concept applies to business. It’s easy to spot someone who is completely prepared at a meeting or presentation. It’s also easy to spot someone who is going through the motions or ad-libbing. Though people will seldom know if you actually made a mistake, your self-trust improves when you overcome mistakes in practice and then perform at your best when it really counts.

Have A Passion Beyond Business

One song had a message about the destruction of the Amazon rain forests. Jackson was passionate about this issue and wanted to encourage his fans to explore the issue. While Jackson’s legacy will undoubtedly begin with his music and dancing, his efforts to contribute and give back to others is to be applauded.

Details Matter

Very little escaped Jackson’s eyes or ears. Whether it was the slightest pause at the completion of a song or the feeling of playing a note in a specific manner, Jackson mentioned it and insisted on it. He wouldn’t let a small detail be overlooked when, even in the overall scheme of things, very few would notice.

These details, when added in layers one upon the other, showed how each could contribute to the whole and make it stunning. Jackson didn’t have himself emotionally married to the details and was willing to change to make it better, no matter how much effort it took. That kind of attitude can grow a business by leaps and bounds, if you have the courage to implement it.

Not Much Beats Hard Work For Achieving Success

Michael Jackson was 50 years old during the filming of this movie yet had the energy that people half his age seldom have. Physically and mentally, he pushed and pushed, demanding as much from others as from himself.

Jackson worked hard his entire professional career. There are stories which mention how his father was relentless in the pursuit of perfection when Michael was a member of the Jackson 5. That same work ethic is evident in the movie and is shared by many self-made millionaires.

A common statement told to the authors of the book The Millionaire Next Door, was: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Michael Jackson’s success certainly had elements of luck but more of it was due to the fact that he simply outworked everybody. You can knock that concept if you want, but Michael Jackson is the epitome of how that hard work can pay off.

The key to fast, sustainable revenue creation lies in creating or reengineering sales processes and systems. System inefficiencies, including prospecting and cold-calling methods, need to be examined, upgraded, and optimized to achieve revenue goals.

There are five areas which most sales organizations need to master in order to achieve goals and results from cold-calling.

1.  Manage Objections With Excellence

Research has shown that most sales reps and teams cannot properly answer basic objections, let alone complex objections. Most sales people have not been trained in the basic principles of refutation and/or persuasion nor have they been exposed to the concept of managing all objections head-on.

Most sellers, especially rookies, don’t understand that buyers, when confronted with a cold-call, offer objections that should not be interpreted literally. These common objections include, “I don’t have time right now…”  “Can you email me some literature?…”   “We  don’t have budget for anything like that…” and others.

These objections  are usually tactful ways of saying, “You have yet to prove that there is value in me spending time with you on the telephone.”  By identifying all objections and creating rebuttals for each objection, the confidence of the sales reps increases.

Jay Conrad Levinson, the creator of Guerrilla Marketing, surveyed buyers and found the top reason from buying from a sales rep was the seller’s confidence.  Extensive and structured role playing ensures that sellers demonstrate techniques to overcome challenges, whether from prospects or gatekeepers.

2.  Become Competent at Leaving Voice Mails That Produce Callbacks

It is rare that a sales rep or team will achieve more than a 3% callback rate from voice mail messages.  The average callback rate is less than 0.5%.  By using proven techniques, sales teams can convert up to 33% of these callbacks into meetings. See the article, Winner Take All Voice Mail Strategies.

3.  Eliminate Product-Benefit and Value-Proposition Statements

In cold-calling, product-benefit statements simply do not work.  Because sales resistance is deeply embedded in our culture, incorporating product-benefit and/or value-proposition statements into introductory messaging is the kiss of death.

This approach shows lack of creativity, lack of effort, and lack of concern for your prospect.  If your sales team incorporates product-benefit or value-proposition language into your cold-call presentations then there is likely a large gap between the results you are currently achieving and what can be achieved through best practices.

4.  Stop Inviting Prospects to Attend a Sales Call

The fastest way to ensure that your prospects will not meet with you is to invite them to attend a sales call.  What executive wakes up and hops in the shower imagining how great their day will be if they get a cold call from a sales rep with an aggressive invitation to attend a sales meeting about a product for which they have no prior knowledge?

Replace the initial sales calls with Analyst Briefings. Your prospects are far more inclined to accept a meeting where the purpose is to deliver research that is relevant to their professional life.  When structured properly, the Analyst Briefing becomes the perfect venue for deeply qualifying the target, and converting the target to a sales cycle if qualified.

5.  Get Rid of the Easy-Outs

Most sellers make it easy for their targets to say “no” by including easy-out statements in their first sentence.

• Is this a good time?
• Do you have a minute?
• Are you free to talk now?
• How does that sound?

The use of these statements when cold calling is for losers!  Getting targets on the phone is difficult enough. Don’t give them an easy escape!

Good SEO Companies

Good SEO companies have many attributes in common, either things they do or things they don’t do. Good SEO companies:

* Have a quality website with an Alexa ranking of 500,000 or less (about the top 2% of sites in attracting traffic). If an SEO company can’t drive traffic to their own site, how can they drive traffic to yours?

* Have no problem understanding and explaining that first page rankings for new websites and sites with competitive keywords can take up to one year.

* Understand that SEO is not a one-time project, but an ongoing strategy to get to the first page and stay on the first page.

Bad SEO Companies

* Promise #1 rankings, especially in a short period of time. Google specifically mentions that this is unachievable. If it sounds too good to be true…

* Give quotes without even knowing the website domain. That’s like a doctor diagnosing patients without seeing them or asking them questions.

* Have a one-size-fits-all approach, doing the same tasks for every website regardless of its problems. They know a few things and do it to every website, whether needed or not. They are reluctant to share written communication.

Good Clients

* Share all available information needed for the SEO to do the job, including the domain name, host name, user names, passwords and other information.

* Don’t tell the SEO firm which keywords to use. It doesn’t matter what the client or the SEO company think are good keywords. Comprehensive research will definitively show which keywords work best.

* Won’t send out an RFP (Request For Proposal). The RFP may not address the website’s actual needs. It’s vital for the client to interview SEO companies to generate rapport, a feeling of their expertise, and their plans for improving the website.

Bad Clients

* Tell SEO firms to engage in black hat SEO practices.  A good SEO company will fire this client. In this economy, it’s difficult to separate yourself from a paying job. Most people’s integrity is worth more than that.

* Don’t want to pay until the job is finished. SEO – good SEO – takes time, both to do the work and to see results. There’s no need to pay upfront, but paying 25% of the total after specified milestones is fair for the work involved.

Are there more attributes for SEO clients and companies? Of course there are. These are just a few of the basics. If you have some favorite attributes, share them in the comments section. I’m looking forward to some good stuff!