1) Get more customers

Most business spend most or all of there time on this activity. There are many ways to acquire new customers, we know of at least 34 different ways but most we use only 3 or 4 depending on the business we work with.

2) Upsell to your existing customers

When you close a sale how often do you sell them something in addition?

McDonalds does this really well “Do You Want Fries with that!”, this boosts there profit from 0.18 per sale to 1.32 per sale.

How about cross selling something, people who buy your product or service might also need a complementary service or product.

Or how about bundling services/products together. The cable company does this with Phone,Cable and Internet.

3) Increase the frequency with which your customers buy from you

Keep in constant contact with your customers and clients via email,txt messaging,newsletters,Phone call,Social Media and paid retargetting.

Introduce a loyalty programs and award discounts and prizes to frequent buyers. Also offer incentivized referrals programs

Put your customers on monthly auto pay

When we work our clients we devise systems that can help them implement all 3 methods of business growth.

Source: http://simonwhiteblog.com/there-are-only-3-ways-to-build-your-business-known-to-man/ Call 760 230 8687 with any questions!

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Real Estate Website 2012

Do not put your head shot in the header as it really hurts conversion.

Quote ” You face on the page is just old bullshit you have been using way to long”. This has been used for Realtor’s for many years and it  has been recommended  for year that you put your face on your business card. The cold hard truth is that the client/customer does not care.

My thoughts: I think there are still cases where your face can help when you are trying to build a brand around you or you are trying to build trust, I leave it up to the reader to decide what is best for you.

Content

The content on your site needs to be educational and engaging. Google reward you for having great content on your site, in the past your where told to write 250 or 500 work articles with a keyword density of 3-5% etc etc. Now after the Google Panda Update you have to write for humans not the search engine. The Panda introduced some called “Machine Learning” into the Google Algorithm, it tries to determine the quality of your article and it test it ideas by comparing it results with human test cases. So now you need to write much better articles with lower keyword density, test from many in the industry indicate that 1000 word plus with a keyword density of 0.5% or less seem to rank better than anything else. Link to your articles are important(very important) but the quality of your content is more important than it once was to get a high ranking. Good writing is important for engagement and conversion, you may need to study copy writing or maybe its time to hire a professional writer.

3 Types of Content

There are 3 main types of content.

1. Classical Original content
2. Curated Content – This is where you gather articles/video etc from around the web and filter out the wheat from the chaff and maybe provide some commentary on these articles or videos.
3. Content as Conversation – This is content put out through the social media channel such as Facebook or Twitter

Don’t label your Blog “Blog”

Call you blog something else “Useful Real Estate Articles” or something, this can help increase readership of your blog, this info can from Jay Thomson – The Phoenix Real Estate Guy who does huge amounts of conversion testing.

Increase the size of your font.

Make it easier for your readers to read your site, try going to font size 16 instead of 12. Make it easier to read on mobile devices.

Make your Website Design Clean and Simple

Get rid of the clutter on your website, less ( a lot less) is more. A good design philosophy  is to design your site for mobile first and work backward to your full site. Mobile website is starting to pick up, I am seeing 8 -15 % mobile traffic across multiple sitesa nd has steadily increased in 2011.

Social Media Icons

Don’t have the social media icons right at the top of your site, you want social media to bring traffic to your website not away from your website.Use a social share button rather than take the visitor to your Facebook,twitter or you tube channel and put it at the bottom of the page.

Video

Video is becoming more and more important for real estate marketing but people have ADD. The good life team team did a lot of testing in 2011 with video length they discovered that less than 60 seconds works best for them. Conventional wisdom say your video should be 1 1/2 to 2 minutes long but the good life team was having much better luck with 59 seconds or less.

Calls to Action

Make sure every page has a clear call to action. Make the tel big and obvious, don’t use the work “submit” on your forms use something more useful “Get Useful Info” or something.

People Only Read 20% of your page

In tests is has been found that people only read about 20% of the text on a page, so bold and bullet point the main ideas you want to get across.

Aspect Ration 16:9 rather than 4:3

We live in a HD world 16:9, make your videos,photo’s and forms a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Do you want people to stay on your site longer?

Use a video library to educate and engage the client. Talk about the neighborhood, the schools, the restaurants and the local amenities, interview locals and get them to talk about the neighborhood.  In a recent study people where asked what is more important the neighborhood or the property: 28% said the neighborhood, 18% said the property and 54% said both.

 Using Facebook to drive traffic to your site

If you are going to drive traffic to your website via facebook, updating your facebook posts 1-2 times per day seems to get into 99% of your fans news feeds (this is where you want to be, if you did no know).

Using auto posting software (hoot suite etc) is frowned upon by Facebook and is said to hurt your EDGE rank. EDGE rank is a factor that determines if you post will show up in a fans news feed.

That’s it for now folks, what out for my post on mobile website for 2012.

Source: http://simonwhiteblog.com/what-should-your-website-look-like-in-2012/ Call 760 230 8687 with any questions!

Here are nine things successful people do differently:

Get Specific

When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague — be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10 p.m. on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

Seize The Moment To Act On Your Goals

Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide in advance when and where you will take each action you want to take. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g. “If it’s Monday, Wednesday or Friday, I’ll work out for 30 minutes before work”). Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300 percent.

Know Exactly How Far You Have Left To Go

Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

Be A Realistic Optimist

When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

Focus On Getting Better Rather Than Being Good

Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong; abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

Have Grit

Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking — well, there’s no way to put this nicely — you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

Build Your Willpower Muscle

Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching or try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up or just not bother, don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur (e.g. “If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.”) It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

Don’t Tempt Fate

No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it, you will temporarily run out of steam. Don’t try to take on two challenging tasks at once, like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time. And don’t put yourself in harm’s way; many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

Focus On What You Will Do, Not What You Won’t Do.

Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g. “Don’t think about white bears!”) has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior; by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.

If you want change your ways, ask yourself, “What will I do instead?” For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like this: “If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down.” By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember: You don’t need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It’s never what you are, but what you do.

This content was originally from The Harvard Business Review

(For more on using each of these strategies, check out the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals.)

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