More and more business is handled over phone lines and screen-share. Well planned, these are brilliant ways to do business. If you miss important details, however, it can really take away from the experience. Those details have a way of seeming insignificant when two or more parties who haven’t met in person try to become conversational without facial cues. It can get awkward real fast. Don’t you just love it when someone tries to break the tension with a really poor joke or comment? That helps, right? Not.

Time may be a luxury you’re not used to taking, but the truth of the matter is that preparation is going to take a little time. Time is a necessary component. Without taking those minutes to think about objectives, roles and time frames, it can be too easy to have a misunderstanding between teammates or even between your company and your client.

Our company uses a screen sharing and phone conferencing tool that has just a little lag time between voices. It isn’t much, but that small delay occasionally causes a misunderstanding about who was talking and who had a comment they thought it was time to share. A little humor can lighten the situation, but we’ve learned that in addition, it is imperative to have an agenda and clear understanding of the team roles in the conversation.

I suggest taking these precautions and preparations before scheduling or participating in a phone conference:

• Write down the things you absolutely must discuss. Leave room between topics for additional notes once the conference has begun.
• Put topics in order of importance and natural conversation flow.
• Talk with your teammates and decide who will handle each aspect of the conversation.
• Decide on verbal cues to alert team members to a change of presenter.
• Decide who will play a more supportive role.
• Discuss how you all will be addressed, and whether the tone should lean toward jovial or serious.
• Visualize all participants. Visualize them satisfied and willing to discuss possible concerns.
• Plan to be a good listener.
• Acknowledge that it’s easy for two people to begin speaking at the same time and decide how you will deal with it.

These nine things are going to help you make the most out of your phone conferencing experiences. Whether video conferencing or phone conferencing, it is still a good idea to have a handle on things you plan to discuss. They won’t solve all the issues related to this type of communication, but they will make your call effective and interactive.

Do you write your own Web site and blog content? Your own articles? If you are paying to have your content written, consider the source.

There’s an old saying that still holds true – you get what you pay for. If you purchase from freelance writing boards and only offer low-ball pay, the odds are good that you may end up with regurgitated content that was previously written for someone else, or student work. Now, that may not matter to you when you get the great idea to stick a Web site up as a feeder and fill it up with inexpensive copy to pull the reader into another site, but a quality job of feeder site building can be done without sacrificing reputation.

Not that you can’t find good writers on a freelance job board, of course you can. But some writers who are willing to work for less may not believe your project is worth their best effort. If you do hire off of a job board, offer a decent rate of pay for the job to be done. This benefits everyone and gets you closer to the writer who knows what good content is worth and is willing to do a great job if paid fairly.

“Fairly” isn’t the lowest price. Fairly understands that a writer has to know style, grammar, punctuation, and often conduct research. Your writer may need to be capable of writing in your voice. You may need the material to be humorous, edgy, maternal or technical. All of these characteristics make up more than most realize when it comes to a writer’s competence. Some writers just can’t deliver creative, original, style-appropriate copy. The ones that can’t, often don’t understand what good writing is worth. Some offer their services on the cheap because after all, at least it’s money … and there probably won’t be much effort required for such a low-paying job. So do you want 20 inexpensive, somewhat usable, lower quality posts? Or do you want four, great, keyword-rich, insightful and professional sounding posts at a higher rate per post? It’s all in how you look at it.

If you don’t want to take chances, get your writing done by people who understand the writing business. Hire writers who have their work reviewed, and are knowledgeable about how to convey your perspective in the correct style to the right people in the right arena. At Zero To Sixty Marketing, that would be Shari Voigt and Susan Hamilton. Call us today for more information about how we can help you with all your copywriting needs, and be sure you’re getting the best copy for your money.

If you’re a smaller residential service company, chances are you create your own fliers and marketing materials. It’s likely you create your own business cards and order your invoices and time cards from a company that also offers t-shirts, baseball caps, and embroidered name tag button-down shirts. It’s affordable. You get to have the appearance of a legitimate company and no one selling you pricey services and telling you how your message needs to sound to your clients. Certainly, these things are important for you to stay in control of your costs and your reputation.

Or is it?

If it’s all you’ve got, think again. All of those things do agree with your service van that you’re in business, but does it say, “I’m the only one who will treat you fairly and you should deal with me because I can give you the best service and product, guaranteed.”

Whether you realize it or not, the time you spend coming up with ways to cut marketing costs may very well be the slow death of your company. You may not agree, but if I’m right, ‘lone-wolf’ marketing is far more expensive than using a professional with an eye for detail and a flair for the right words and strategies.

There are many cost-saving methods of getting your message to your potential clients. This blog is dedicated to teaching small companies how to market effectively at reduced costs. Don’t get the idea, however, that you’re better off with a half-hearted, single-minded approach. No, what we advocate is that you learn new, aggressive strategies being used by professionals now with the understanding we impart to you through this blog, and have the polishing done by experts who care about your holistic success. Do what you can do well, outsource the rest.

The difference is clearly financial – but it’s more than that. Consider what Dan Kennedy teaches in No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs (NO BS): if you are in business to be a restaurant owner, caterer, pool service owner, electrician, or plumber, your services doing that are what make your business valuable. Although necessary, the time you spend marketing brings less value to your company than doing what you get paid to do. You will get more bang for your buck when you hire someone to help you bring that quality to the table. Each part of your business should be handled by the people who handle that part most effectively.

Say you’re a florist, for example. You own a brick and mortar shop on the corner and business between holidays is slow. Maybe you employ three others who do various things, like delivery, floral arrangements, and bookkeeping. Between all of your employees and yourself, you’re capable of handling large volumes of business because each can play a part in floral arrangement as well, as long as the finished product is inspected, approved, and re-arranged as necessary by the experts who know this stuff.

Stay with me here.

In another instance, an electrical service has been in business for almost two decades. You hire the electricians who go out on the job, you estimate the large projects, oversee and troubleshoot, and ultimately hold the responsibility for the job being done correctly. Say you manage a team of six, each with their own service vans. You’ve probably got an office manager and receptionist who handle the phones, scheduling, and payroll.

In each of these scenarios, each member of the team brings value to their position. Each player has a financial value in the company and a direct interest in their particular part. They get paid first. Overall company performance and income for the business owner is based on everything above that overhead.

Is the best use of company dollars to pay the delivery driver to answer the phones, or the florist to make deliveries? The best way to utilize electrical technicians isn’t to schedule team members, or do the payroll. Your company makes more when you can charge hourly for skilled work on the job, right? Of course. The right people need to be bringing the money in. It wouldn’t pay the bills to spend company money like that.

What is your dollar value per hour? What do you have to bring in for your company to show profit? If you are doing all of your own marketing, you’re not making money doing what you do best. Time is money. If marketing is what you do best, why not do that for a living? If you only promote your company with limited skill-set, and not for a living, aren’t you short-changing yourself?

There are plenty of things you can do for yourself, don’t get me wrong, but pay for the professional advice and outsource the things that may be taking away from your bottom line. Those same hours are worth more when the right people are on the right job. In the long run, you DO pay for marketing, and you may be paying far more than you can afford when it doesn’t bring in the desired results. Go through our Do-It-Yourself pages, check out our Small Business Acceleration Packages, and look at our Services page for a la carte options our company provides to augment or overhaul your current strategy. Need more information? Call or email us today and see how we can help you get the most out of your marketing dollar.

As much as I know that social media forums like Facebook and Twitter offer brilliant free marketing for small businesses when used strategically, there are a handful of things I’ve begun to hate, I mean…er…strongly dislike when it comes to socializing on those platforms. They are, sadly, things I could have done better or understood more fully if I had made it my entire life for a set period of time. I couldn’t, and can’t, and I’ll assume that you don’t have that kind of time, either. I really do work, and because I write for my living, quiet thought is my friend. That means long hours of intense mulling over and reading (the one thing I love about Twitter, by the way – things I read and learn from what is posted there.)

Please learn from my mistakes. I committed these social media crimes knowing full well what I was doing, and thought in time these problems would rectify themselves. They haven’t. And now I’m paying the price for poor planning.

I wanted to name this article, 6 Things I HATE About Social Media, but my sister and mentor scolded me and told me I needed to speak more effectively about my calamity, and also that I should share with you problems I could have avoided, rather than just throw the fit I was intending.

I learned social media for business and accidentally realized it was a good hook up for long lost family. That was cool, but I’m not in there constantly typing about my life, and I haven’t talked myself into purchasing the $400 phone that would let me Twitter and Facebook the only time I really would, (out and about with my unique, humorous perspective:-) I should be ashamed, because I endorse social media for my clients and really believe that a local business can use these tools with some really kick-a** results. But for me, I’ve been in it just long enough to know what I hate…er…strongly dislike.

1. I indiscriminately chose people to follow believing it was more important at the beginning to start a list and refine it later.  I thought it was O.K. to start my list with ‘who-evers’ but now I have to go in and fish through them to rid my list of them so I don’t accidentally get rid of someone I like. What a pain.
2. I followed marketers just because we were in the same industry. B-a-a-aad idea. Only a handful are really interesting, the rest just abuse the twittersphere.
3. I allowed strong political perspectives, but prejudice is prejudice, and I hate it. Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative – whatever, why must you decide you’re one thing and someone else is another? I’ll choose for myself, thank you, but political party certainly doesn’t define me and shouldn’t make you angry.
4. I don’t know how to get rid of the disreputable, vulgar and obscene people that for some reason decided to follow me. I report them, they come back. DON’T FOLLOW ME! I get updates in my email every once and awhile when checking my new followers. I look at their profile and see their updates and can’t for the life of me figure why they followed me. Yuck, go away. I’m not a part of any one’s harem.
5. I allowed automated quotes. I should have stopped following those eons ago. Thought it might keep me positive. Some are actually pretty insightful. Know what keeps me positive? REAL conversations and feedback. I’m a positive person, really.
6. I didn’t get that expensive phone so I can’t update when I’m out running errands. Trouble is, I really engage in conversations with people. Real people I can see. I talk to my favorite cashiers, neighbors, people waiting in lines, and just about anyone. If I’m zeroed in on my cell phone during those precious moments, I’m missing out in some rewarding interaction. That phone is a thorn in my side because I know for business, it would help me be more efficient. I don’t think it would help me as a person, though. Sometimes ya gotta make choices.

So, I guess that’s a shameful perspective for someone who thinks all small businesses should be represented on social forums. There’s only a handful of people I really enjoy, the rest I will delete soon, if I haven’t already. How I wish I had been more discriminating. It will easily take hours.

If only local businesses would represent themselves, they could completely tear up their industry giants. Marketers, on the other hand, seriously over-saturate.

Oh, there’s one more thing I strongly dislike...

I love God, and I’ll tell you all about it in person if our conversation ever goes that way. In no way would I ever publicly or otherwise disclaim God, I think that would be stupid because He’s been integrally involved in my life and I’m uber-thankful, but I really strongly dislike what’s happened to marketing-speak. Every time I try to forage new relationships with what I hope to be my peers, I end up with these people that scream Holier than Holy all over my Facebook page. Nothing wrong with inspiration, but what I’m talking about is over the top. Gonna have to thin that out.

I hope you’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ll try to do better, promise. For those of you who’ve stuck with me through the weird stuff, well…please accept my apology, and…thanks.

Throughout the year, I receive requests from groups and organizations seeking product donations and sponsorships for events. These events are primarily related to the hobby industry, more specifically to scale modeling. I support as many events as possible, but there are times I simply toss the request in the trash because the request was written by a boob.

Some authors come across as simply begging. Others don’t know the name of their own organization or how to spell it properly. A word of advice: If you’re running a first-class event, take the time and effort to send out first-class marketing materials, even if all you’re sending is simply a well-worded letter.

I produce quality products, therefore I want them represented in like fashion. Any event that has a well-documented history, is represented by a reputable organization or promises to promote my products will get consideration of my support. If the request for support is of poor quality, what does that say about the event itself? If you are going to invest the time and effort … Do It Right! Don’t send out materials that won’t paint you in the best light. Have several sets of eyes review the materials for flaws…especially the spelling of your organization’s name!

Many an event has failed to launch because of amateur promotional materials. Even when operating on a budget of nothing but good will, those willing to spend the time to do the work can do a first class job. If they aren’t willing or able, then find those who will and can.

Bottom line: if your event marketing materials are of poor quality, the perception conveyed is that your event is not worth supporting. After all, your potential sponsor is also looking for something in return…brand awareness and new customers.