DISQUS

Judy

I see you borrowed by power parthenon diagram but no problem as you put a link through to my Business Coaching blog.

Looking at your blogroll it looks as if we have very similar influences with Jay Abraham, Jay Conrad Levinson, Chet Holmes and Michael Gerber all featured.

Good luck with the blog - it is coming along nicely.

John what I find interesting is that so many of your survey respondents are already getting such a high number of referrals despite not having a system.

So it is almost as if they are thinking "I don't need a system because I already get a lot of referrals".

Perhaps the benefits of having a structured referral system are not clear but the costs are - time to create, time to operate, cost of any incentives to the referrer and referree.

I also think that there are so few common, established examples that people can see and be inspired by.

I have mused about the proliferation of free as well John.

It's definitely a double edged sword as people find it so easy to collect stuff that they get no value from. My hard disk is full of reports and audios downloaded but never listened to.

Grabbed because it sounds good at the time but it never works up the priority list.

But I also see the reciprocation desired is diminishing. The zero marginal cost of digital products means the receiver realises that the giver hasn't given anything with a cost.

Not sure where it is all leading.

I agree with you.

Wherever possible I like the person who is referring me to contact the person and at least explain why they have passed their name on. Even better if they can convince the person to call me.

I have just blogged and Twittered about your referral survey John as I am also very interested in referral techniques.

It was possibly my favourite chapter of your book.

Great idea but it only works for the USA at the moment.

Thanks John

I agree with you that it is good to build up a series of real life examples of these structured referral programs.

I intend to review your "Referral Flood" system for my Business Coaching blog sometime as I know businesses leave a huge amount of hidden profit in this area.

Customers are happy but need to be given that extra push to make positive referrals.

John
Thanks for publishing your Duct Tape diagram which has given me food for thought for both my Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity and Hidden Profit approaches.

I guess that's daughters for you John.
Thanks for making me laugh and I hope it is a huge success for Jenna.

There is always the wife John.

This is a huge issue but it is the big reason for having a coach as the accountability can be given one-to-one.

Tracking time can be a great habit, if only to show you where it all goes. Especially true if you get involved in the social media sites which can eat up time very quickly.

Very refreshing John to see you say "Admit you’re slower"

There is too much bluster which gets in the way and creates distrust and wrecks any attempt to strengthen the relationship.

After all what is a customer to think when you are in denial.

It is the first time for a while that I have commented but I like the Twitter feature as well.

I find that there can be some resistance to creating a marketing calendar from small businesses.

It forces people to think ahead and hold themselves accountable for inputs into the marketing process and the results that come out the other end.

I must blog about this myself John although I do wonder whether eventually, even the worst victim of Parkinson's Law won't have "all the time in the world".

Thanks for this job. Viral Marketing is a fascinating development that can generate enormous increases in traffic.

The trick is to find the way to be creative.

Great marketing coup John which will certainly bring the Duct Tape Marketing brand to the attention of many more small businesses.

Thanks John. I have played around with different locations for my email sign-up and different headlines to see whether there was a change in results.

I have shied away from pop-ups because they can irritate me but yours on your main site is quite tasteful.

Looks like you have persuaded me that it is at least worth spending some time on looking at what you can do.

I have used Google Alerts for years and find it a great way to track my name and key phrases I associate with my name. It doesn't pock up every though. To do that you have to go for a more comprehensive system.

Still Google Alerts is quick and easy and lets me keep an eye on what is being said about people I'm interested in and competitors.

One tip. Make your search as specific as possible. It takes out the irrelevant nonsense so if you are interested in "Duct Tape Marketing" put it in inverted commas, otherwise you may learn more about teh uses of duct tape than you want.

the natural temptation is to be very reluctant to submit your own stuff because of the social media thought police who immediately jump on you.

I found your article reassuring.

the natural temptation is to be very reluctant to submit your own stuff because of the social media thought police who immediately jump on you.

I found your article reassuring.

This is such an important point because so many people don't get it at all.

Just look at the proliferation of "me me me" marketing trying to take instead of give.

I will enjoy listening to this John and you have a great collection of resources in your podcasting series.

A great little tool. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Interesting. My my main blogs are on Typepad but I do have a couple of wordpress blogs but the upgrade fears have certainly constrained me because I'm just not technical.

I have heard very good things about Google Knol although as I'm in the UK I am very aware that only US citizens can confirm their identity on it at the moment which doesn't seem appropriate for such a global company.

The person who was telling me had the result of being page one of Google search within hours but they do have to be careful since Knol threatens to undermine the credibility of the independence of Google search outside of the sponsored links.

Good to see that you picked up up on this from my comment on local searches John.

It seems that Google very much sneaked this in without any announcement although the SEO newsboards and blogs were buzzing about it quickly.

I find keyword research invaluable since it allows you to identify and use the words your potential clients use. Far too often I see businesses trying to make their services sound all posh and not communicating with their market.

John this is one of my complaints about many website designers who create the website for small businesses but don't even know the rudiments of SEO.

In many cases it is not difficult to get to the top or near the top of local searches both organically and with Google's own local search facility. The more appearances on page one the better from my point of view.

To pick up Randy's question, keyword research shows that there is a long tail and you can pick up extra hits but you'd only chase those when you've got the main keywords covered.

Someone searching for "marketing consultant Forth Worth" is either looking for a marketing consultant in the area or is a marketing consultant checking their own Google ranking and wanting to take a look at the competition.

I can't see that more generic searches would be localised so someone may ask the question "how can I get better traffic to my website" but they are unlikely to add in Forth Worth as it unnecessarily restricts them from getting the best free advice on the web.

What may happen is that instead of searching for an SEO expert or internet marketing consultant, someone may type in "who can help me get more website traffic in Fort Worth" but Google's likely to find good combinations for that search based on website content about generating traffic and mentions of Fort Worth.

The great thing is that for the last two weeks much of the uncertainty has gone. Google are now revealing search data in the Adword Keyword tool rather than those silly green bars that used to appear.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolEx...

Now we can see that "marketing consultant fort worth" doesn't generate many hits at all, "marketing fort worth" only generates a few.

Just to be contrary but also to continue the debate

I love business plans because they provide a record of intention at the time.

So often there is this huge gap between what we say we will do, what we do and what results we get.

A business plan gives you the chance to look back and reflect on why things didn't go as you expected.

A business plan gives you a chance to learn and adapt your future behaviour.

A business plan stops your mind playing tricks on you as each day your plan evolves and you forget what you thought.

A business plan captures some of those brilliant ideas that you still haven't put into action so that you can bring them back to the table.

I love business plans, I love business planning...I hate people failing to take purposeful action.

I hate it when people won't decide on where they want to go and drift aimlessly.

I hate it when people don't measure and monitor the business.

I agree. I am a fan of RSS feeds because it does make it much easier to keep track of what is happening.

As usual there is still a massive education issue because I still believe RSS has not moved into the mainstream.