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Browse every published article connected to Charlie Cook, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Charlie Cook, or search within this exact expert archive.
You're in a meeting with a promising prospect. You review the project and the services you provide and then, just when you're hoping to get the okay, the prospect raises an objection. They may tell you: "I haven"t got the time right now." "Send me a written proposal and I'll think about ...
What's that ringing sound you hear at this time of year? It's the sound of store registers ringing up the sales generated by Santa Claus. Just because he's old, overweight, long haired and unshaven and dresses funny, don't overlook his marketing success. Santa is a marketing expert and you can become one, too, if you follow his marketing methods. What's that you say? You don't believe in Santa Claus or you don't celebrate Christmas? It's true that Santa may be mostly mythi
Do you know when the best time is to help your prospects make their first purchase? Timing is everything in marketing. Get it wrong and you can't get your prospects' attention. Get it right and you'll see your revenue grow each month of the year. My daughter was twelve when we got a dog. She couldn't get enough of that cute, cuddly puppy and made good on her promises to take care of it – at first, anyway. The first week she fed, walked and brushed our new dog. The second we
Steve called from Minneapolis to ask how to attract new clients for his auto repair shop. He has been in business for two years and has four trained technicians to keep busy, but he was having difficulty attracting enough new customers. Steve wasn't just waiting for people to show up at his shop. He regularly mailed letters to new homeowners in the area. His rationale was that people who had just moved into town would be looking for a mechanic before long. Steve wanted to k
"I'm getting zero conversion on my Web site (no ezine sign-ups). What can I do to improve my lead generation and income?"n- Beth, from Chicago If you have a web site or are thinking of building one you want it to do two things. You want it to generate leads for your business and help you grow your business. What should you do if your web site marketing isn't accomplishing these two tasks? Imagine you had a new car in your driveway that didn't start reliably or wasn't runnin
Your marketing could be pulling in clients and profits like a magnet. Think about how many people could benefit from your products and services. Even if only a fraction of them bought from you, you'd be amazingly successful. It doesn't matter if the economy is headed up or down, there are plenty of people looking to spend money to solve their problems and meet their needs. People are happy to spend money on things they want, whether it's a five thousand dollar painting, five
Cathy, a business writer, emailed me and said, "Boy, do I need to work on my Web site this year!" I gave her a couple of ways to improve her site and had her look at several websites that sell effectively on the Internet. Her response was a common one; she thought those sites were marketing aggressively and she worried about turning her prospects off with a "hard sell". Are you conce ed about being too aggressive in your marketing? No one in business wants to be seen as the
Everyone wants to see growth in sales and net revenue. It's important for small business owners to set income goals and to watch sales results, but too much emphasis on these numbers can prevent you from reaching your goals. Using your revenue figure to guide your marketing is like driving by looking in the rear view mirror the whole time. That number tells you where you've been. It doesn't tell you how to get where you want to go. There are a couple of key numbers and rati
You could be generating 50% to 100% more sales with your marketing. How? By working with basic human nature to convert more of your prospects to customers. Each week 100 or 1000 people visit your web site or read your small business marketing materials but only a handful of those are contacting you. You can double the number of people who buy your products and services and double your profits. The biggest mistake made by small business owners is that they treat marketing as
You know that hundreds, if not thousands, of people want and need your products and services. You're spending good money on advertising and mailings and you have a great looking website up, but you're still not getting all the clients you want or could handle. Why aren't more people responding to your marketing? The most likely reason is your small business marketing materials aren't answering the questions your prospects are asking about your goods and services. Imagine yo
If you have a web site that's not pulling in prospects and sales, I have a marketing secret to share with you. Your s.ales and profits will increase as soon as you apply it. Whether you're marketing on the web, in print or in person, you are guaranteed to improve your web site marketing and make more sales. Here it is; people buy from you when you give them what they want. Sounds obvious, but most people don't apply this secret to their online and offline marketing. Many pe
Do you know what one of the most powerful incentives you can use in your marketing is? One that is guaranteed to capture your prospects' interest and attention? You may be surprised to learn that it's not money or love. Is it making offers of products that are "guaranteed", "limited", "proven", "easy and simple to use", "on sale", "includes a free offer", or "new"? You're getting warmer. Offers like the ones above are helpful in getting a prospect's attention and are some o
If you live in the U.S., at the end of October you'll be preparing for a stream of young children to come to your door on Halloween. One by one or in groups of friends, they'll ring the bell and shout, "Trick or Treat". To avoid having them actually play a trick on us, you bribe these youngsters with a selection of mini candy bars. You could offer them healthy treats like apples or small boxes of raisins or you could try something novel like telling them a favorite joke, but
My kids taught me a lot about marketing communication when they were teenagers. My son had me playing 20 questions. When I asked what he'd done at school or out with his friends the night before, I'd get one of two classic teenage responses; "Stuff" or "Nothing". I'd have to pepper him with questions to learn any more. With my daughter, I could hardly get a word in edgewise. She's a great storyteller, but she wanted to tell me everything about everyone. Neither of them were
"Advertising doesn't work." I hear it from my clients all the time. One client was about to file for bankruptcy because she wasn't getting a good response to her radio ads, and the cost was killing her. But she knew her target market was listening; she knew she needed to get her name out there to generate more business. What should she do? Owners of small businesses and professionals like yourself realize that to take your business to the next level, you need to get your pro
Have you ever put on a jacket you haven’t worn in a while and found a twenty-dollar bill in one of the pockets? You'd forgotten all about it, so discovering it is like getting a gift. If you've been in business for a year or longer, you may have gifts in forgotten pockets — sources of additional revenue waiting to be discovered and tapped. There are four ways to increase your net profits: reduce costs, increase prices, attract more clients or sell more to existing clients. W
"I was at your site for all of two minutes before I bought one of your manuals. I'm impressed!" I love to get emails like this one sent by Vicki from Tucson, Arizona. Marketing my business would be easy if every client bought my products within two minutes of seeing my marketing materials, or signed up for my coaching services after a few minutes on the phone with me. Do you make most of your sales in 2 to 20 minutes from the time a prospect first reads your marketing copy,
Do you ever get frustrated with your marketing? Are you putting in a lot of effort but not getting the results you want? Don't you wish you could just hit a switch and get a better response from your mailings, sales calls and web site? You hear a lot about breakthroughs; is it all hype, or can you really create a breakthrough in your marketing and sales? I know that you can. I spent last weekend skiing in Vermont with my spouse, nephew and his finance Sonia. We were all hav
"I hate sales pitches!" You may have felt this way yourselfnor heard others say it. If it's such a common response,nwhat's the best way to organize your marketing to attractnnew clients and customers? While getting all aspects of your marketing right can bencomplicated, the simple truth is that you can attract manynmore clients and be far more successful by doing just onenthing. To get the attention of your prospects and gain their trustnand their business, base your market
What's that ringing sound you hear at this time of year? It'snthe sound of store registers ringing up the sales generated by Santa Claus. Just because he's old, overweight, long haired,nunshaven and dresses funny, don't overlook his marketingnsuccess. Santa is a marketing expert and you can become one,ntoo, if you follow his marketing methods. What's that you say? You don't believe in Santa Claus or youndon't celebrate Christmas? It's true that Santa may be mostlynmythical,
You've got a web site; and you want to attract lots of people to visit it so you can grow your business. But you're only getting a handful of visitors currently. What is the first thing to do to help people find your site? A top listing in the search engines, especially in Google, can increase visitors to your web site and help. Let's say you sell web design services. If your site was at the top of the list when people searched for "web design" in Google, it could increase t
If you are like most service professionals and smallbusiness owners one of your primary conce s is generatingas many leads as possible. And that may be your biggestmistake, resulting in wasting time on unqualified prospectsand working with too many clients you wish you didn't haveto. Bill is a financial advisor looking for clients. Workingfrom his stack of leads he picks up the phone and startsmaking calls. The first person he gets on the phone has lotsof questions and it tu
Marketing is like rowing a boat. When you know how thepointed bow moves smoothly forward through the waterencountering the least amount of resistance. Rowingbackwards, the square ste of the boat pushes against thewater, requiring more effort and increases the risk ofhaving a wave come over the transom (back) and swamping it.Yet most people market backwards, trying to grow theirbusiness while pushing against the greatest level ofresistance. Wouldn’t you like to market your bu
Marketing a business is like any game. If you know the rules you are much more likely to win. All to often small businesses spend their limited time and money on advertising, networking, making calls, mailings, meeting with prospects, yet only achieve middling results. The problem isn’t that they don’t know their business or provide high quality products and services, its that they don’t know the rules of the marketing game. Marketing To Wi To win the marketing game, you ne
Marketing is like rowing. You pull hard on the oars to go forward, then lift them out of the water and push them back to finish the stroke and get ready for the next pull. Once you’ve got the sequence of the stroke right, you and your boat slip forward through the water and build speed and momentum. If you push when you should be pulling, the boat goes backwards, or, even worse, you lose your balance and fall into the bottom of the boat. One of the biggest mistakes people ma