Edward Giving It Away: CONQUERING the Top 10 Marketing Mistakes for Awesome Success!

Conquering the Top 10 Marketing Mistakes for Awesome Success – One of my fine Giveaway Videos and I hope you love it!

As part of the Awesome Marketing Vault and once I got proficient at “Internet Recording” technologies with my new Windows 8 Upgrade (I am a massive PC fan) – I took extreme pleasure in working on “CONQUERING the Top 10 Marketing Mistakes for Crazy Success”.

These days I have replaced “Crazy” with “Awesome” as I have been very humbled with feedback on this item.  In this video done from my home Office in Inner-West Sydney, I spent time discussing the Top 10 Mistakes I see made all the time.

It was very thought provoking doing this – not only for getting it ready for great people like you to view, but it helped me really summarize some of my core learnings over the years (and helped me recall some amazing experiences from the 20,000+ hours I have clocked up working with some awesome entrepreneurs!)

With the hundreds I have worked with on a personal face to face level, you can see very quickly the “Winners” the “Not so Winners” and everyone else in between.  There are very obvious differences between them that transcend race, religion, creed, vanilla or chocolate ice-cream lovers and even industry.

In helping explore this topic in a constructive way, I found it was important to be “Positive” but not in a “Rha Rha” way – but in a very pragmatic and commercial manner exploring the realism of doing business in the modern world.   Starting with the “Negative / Problem” and talking solutions – this logic hit the mark and has helped thousands make their Sales, Marketing and Overall Business more awesome and successful.

I hope you enjoy this!

Feel free to watch the video and / or read the transcript included if you are more of a word person. And of course, sign up to our Awesome Marketing Vault if you like what you see and want more!!

Thank you and have an awesome and profitable day or night! Edward Zia – Marketing Mentor who loves giving stuff away to awesome people! x x

http://youtu.be/3vortSucNZY

The transcript is as follows so enjoy:

Edward: Hello, everyone. This is Edward Zia here. Thank you for joining me for Conquering the Top 10 Marketing Mistakes for Crazy Success!

My name is Edward as the name implies. I’m actually doing this from my beautiful home office in Sydney, Australia. I spent years working as a corporate marketing manager. These days, I love working from home with me and my cat usually running around. Quick introduction and a bit about myself.

I want to thank you for joining me today. It’s much appreciated. I know life is busy. In this presentation, I’m leaving nothing but amazing content to help you in your small business. You can already see me in the cam window. Hello. That’s me there. That’s my cat who you might see running around and of course, a recent workshop that I’ve run.

Pretty much what I do is, I used to be a marketing manager for big corporates, then one day, post GFC – I got sick of it and I started my business because I love helping small business owners big time. This is the big thing. All of my success and this presentation, I dedicate to my fine mother. Police woman in Victoria Police, where if you’re not from Australia is a station, the southeast of Australia. She’s the one that really helped me get started in my business. I really do appreciate all the great work and stuff that she’s put up with over the years.

This is the big thing. As I get into giving you nothing but powerful content, the big thing I want to preface this all with is mistakes are why we’re here, okay? Now, when I work as a small business marketing mentor, I work with heaps of fantastic small businesses around town, small business owners. Really what I do is I help them master their marketing and get more clients in complete style.

One of the big things that I see all the time is people hanging onto their previous mistakes. It’s disempowering them. It’s holding them back and personally speaking as well, I was that sort of character. Without telling you my whole life story. I’m 35 as I sit here and do this. During my 20s, I was very successful as a marketing manager. Twenty-four, I was a marketing manager, I was on a six figure income by the age of 27. At the time, I made big mistakes, big investment choices that lost it all. I had to start my whole life again when I was 30. It was very hard. I lost a lot of friends, lost a lot of long-term relationships. To me, it was basically dying. I’ve already died and have had to start again.

The thing that I then realize is that when I started my own business and really helping people was that, so many other people were like me. My story was sad but not unique. There’s a lot of people out there and you might be one of them. Look, if you’ve stuffed up a lot of things and you’ve made a lot of mistakes, I invite you to forgive yourself now. Make it part of your previous educational tapestry. Put it behind you and it’s time to move on with powerhouse style.

Here’s the big thing about successful marketer’s mistakes. What we say is small business marketing is making your business more awesome, helping people find it and selling more stuff, okay and of course getting raving reviews. To me, Rosie the Riveter, the, “We can do it” woman from World War Two to me sums up what it’s all about. You might be the underdog, you may not have gotten what you want but this is your chance to reclaim it all. What I want to do is give you nothing but stuff, great marketing content and practical insights, not only just from my education but from what I’ve seen around town of working amazing business owners.

This is the big thing. How do I learn these top strategies? I learned them by stuffing it up myself, by making big, horrific mistakes, by screwing up my life. Also university and also wins, okay? Also making great personal wins in my businesses, seeing other people make those wins, helping hundreds of other people make amazing wins in their business.

Here’s the thing with marketing, getting more clients is only part of the game, okay? I’m all for getting more clients and I teach people how to get more clients but it’s also having the right clients, people that respect you, people who pay you what you’re worth and give you the respect that you deserve so it’s win-win.

To me where a lot of people go bad, you’re selling a physical product. Let’s say you own a retail store or a coffee shop or be it you’re a consultant, let’s say you’re a high chart consultant, a marketing like myself, a business coach, whatever. It’s not just about getting more clients. It’s about getting more clients in a sustainable way which works for everyone. It’s great for them and it’s also great for you. That’s what to me what it’s all about.

These mistakes, I learned … I’m only taking the negative but I will go into the positive. Even though I’m talking about the top 10 mistakes, I really want to come in on the positive of this one, not only say, “You’re bad.” I don’t mean that at all. Its more, these are the top mistakes I’ve made. I want to spend more time talking about the solutions, the things that you can really do and the ways you can really benefit about it.

To me, I studied at Monash University in Melbourne, member of the Australian Marketing Institute. I’ve done a lot of education, right? To me, all this is coming from the combination of the stuff that I’ve seen out at the marketplace and also the stuff that I did learn and connecting that practical advice to that theoretical.

The big thing, number one and this is the big mistake and here’s the big solution. There’s too many fantastic small business owners out there which haven’t yet defined the direction about a clear strategy, okay? To me, that can be quite harmful. I’ve seen this in bigger companies, too. There’s a lot of business owners out there who are just living from month to month, okay? Their goal is to get through the month and they’ll do whatever they can to get through that month. To me, if you’re in that position like I was, I really do feel for you.

To me, the solution to that is and getting out of that trap or even just building your business is really having a clear direction. Having a strategy, having an end game in mind because if you’re just going from month to month. I once worked for quite a big company that did this, there’s no end goal, there’s no motivation, there’s no purpose. Your whole life is just 30 days of just praying and surviving from one moment to the next. You want to have an outcome, a big ticket item, a big thing to keep you going. You want to have a strategy that’s actually based on your strengths.

Let’s say you’re an I.T. repair guy and one day you want to hire someone, one day you want to open a big company, okay? One day, you want to upscale. Always having that goal in mind and of course having a strategy based on your strengths. There’s too many people out there. I once did this, I once tried currency trading and property investing. I totally stuffed it up and lost lots of money because my strengths are marketing, its understanding, it’s reading markets. It was never financial analysis, okay? Having a strategy built on your strengths to me is one of the critical things.

Two, I’ve covered on this is goals and clarity. I just don’t mean by let’s say you want to buy a Lamborghini at the end of the year and make $20,000,000. At a more practical level, what’s your goal in the next three months? What’s your goal in the next six months? For example, it might be to build a successful client base. It might be to, let’s use the coffee shop example, might be include sandwiches in your coffee shop. You really want to have that real clear goal and that clarity so you know exactly where you are going? What’s the point of what you’re doing? Why are you in business? Good to really answer them.

Three, a compelling premium image. It’s looking good, it’s looking premium. To me, what I see all the time out there is really too many amazing small business owners who they’re selling quality goods, okay? What their expertise that they’re selling as a consultant or selling a physical product, it’s absolutely amazing stuff that they’re selling compared to big companies but they’ll have things like homemade business cards, okay? They’ll have things like materials they print at home. They won’t dress well. They won’t sound good. They won’t be eloquent. To me that lack of premium image is really bad because at the end of the day, you could be a, using a car analogy, you can be a Mercedes or a BMW but if you don’t have that image, people just simply aren’t going to hire you. If they do, they won’t pay you as much because they don’t see you as a quality asset.

Four is marketing sales consistency. Please, if you forget everything you’ve heard and you just take this away from the presentation and ply it, I promise you, you will transform your life and make a lot more money.

To me, it’s about marketing and sales being part of the default business process. All too often and this is what I see all the time is marketing and sales is an option. Its like, “Oh, well. The sales are a bit low. Let’s go out and do some marketing,” or, “I’ll go to a networking event when I feel like it,” or, “I only use Facebook if I feel like it.” Marketing and sales to me is like paying your taxes. It has to be part of the business process.

Now, I don’t know if you can see it in the video window but what I have here at my K.P.I.s and what weekly K.P.I.s are and this is what I recommend for a lot of business owners is weekly K.P.I.s. It’s basically a shopping list of what you have to do every week for your business to work.

Now, I’m not sure if you can read it or not but one of the top, it’s basically just a bucket list of the things I have to do every week. It’s not the outcome, it’s what needs to be done. For example, on the top few is three network events per week. Even though my online business is quite different, my actual one on one consulting business was built through face to face networking. To get them, I’ll go to let’s say networking events every week. I only have to go to three networking events a week. Then, my other K.P.I. is three partnering meetings or three coffee chats. Meet three people and connect with them one on one and see if we can help each other. Okay? Three, asking for business, that sort of thing. To me, whatever you have to do in your business, be it to do the job properly and also market and sales, make it a habit, make it a habit of success, make it part of your weekly routine.

Five, well planned products and services. Now, all too often, it’s not in physical goods, it’s not really a problem. Let’s say selling coffee and sandwiches. Easy. I don’t see this problem with people who are often consultants or selling services. They might have an hourly rate but they haven’t really thought through what their actual product is, like if you were, let’s say, like me, a marketer selling you time, what am I selling? I’m not selling counseling services, I’m selling marketing advice time, okay?

To me, it’s really about having well planned products and services. It’s about you really nodding out, exactly what you sell and for how much, okay? The market can buy, you’re transparent when you come across that way.

Six, this feeds straight into commercial feasibility and budgets. It’s always good, make sure you’re speaking to a good accountant, okay? Always great to have a good accountant be it you’ve hired one or a good friend of yours, someone that can really run your numbers by, someone’s who’s making sure that you’re charging the right price, okay? Also, that your budget’s quite realistic.

Let’s say you’re making 200K a year in your business. Making 400k by tomorrow may not be realistic. Let’s say you’re a startup. You’re only earning a few grand at the moment. Making $1,000,000 tomorrow I don’t think is realistic in almost all cases but then, let’s say you’re in zero and you want to earn 100,000 over the year. Now, that’s realistic, okay?

To me, it’s about having something that’s realistic, a plan that can actually be followed and you can actually deliver on. Again, talking to an accountant’s a great move.

Again, offline marketing strategy, I’m just going to spend a bit of time talking about these but there’s really two things on this. Online marketing and offline marketing.

Now, offline marketing is basically real world marketing. Years ago, before the internet, it was just called marketing. Now there’s offline and online marketing. To me, even though I love Facebook and e-commerce is something that I think is absolutely amazing, including myself, always everyone starts in the real world, real world sort of marketing.

To me, here are some of the things that we love and to really is offline marketing strategies. Getting good at face to face selling, learn how to sell face to face is critical. Business networking, going to business networking events, okay? Just Google business networking in your capital city, okay? Coffee chats and partnering, sitting down for coffee and lunches with people you really like, working on how you can help each other, working out how you can refer business to each other. Giving and asking for referrals, supporting business chambers. Now, in the western world, you have things called business chambers which are basically associations and cooperatives of all the local business in the area.

One thing I do say and this has changed a lot, newspaper like old world advertising such as newspaper and radio, it could work. Yellow Pages, what is that? Some of the old world marketing can still work for your business, okay? It can still work but just be careful, okay? The reason why be careful is you do a lot of money there without getting the return. By all means, just keep an eye on that.

Direct mail is another offline marketing strategy, too, where you might be sending letters to people, that sort of thing. Again, a lot of this sort of techniques are moving out of vogue but some things have remained really to me the business network, the face to face selling has been one of those things that is really, not only survived but really grown in the new online world that we’re dealing with.

Of course, online marketing strategies. Now, to me, please don’t put the cart before the horse. Make sure your offline marketing strategies are quite good because generally online marketing does cost a bit of money, where offline doesn’t other than your time but here’s a big thing. We love online marketing strategies and things like having a beautiful quality website. Remember, a website is like your shop. If it looks bad, people won’t buy from you. If it looks good, people will buy it. Automatic opt in boxes. People go to your website and sign up automatically and get added to your database.

Email marketing, we love it. Often, it’s free. Using social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, especially to support your real world marketing. Article writing and blogging, collecting online reviews and just be careful of online marketing. Again, you can do a lot of dough here as well. Watch out for the short term stuff. To me the people that are great are the ones that can fit together. They can get the offline marketing up, real world marketing and really connect it to their online.

For example, if you go face to face business networking, when you get home, add everyone on Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s about the hybrid ones. It’s not about hanging your hat on one or the other, it’s about doing an effective mix of both. This is a general conceptual thing. Is referrals and automation. This is having marketing going 24 hours a day while you’re in bed. In a real world context, it might be having partnerships so people are out there selling on your behalf. Let’s say you’re a mortgage broker and you partner with a financial planner and an insurance salesman and you refer business to each other, okay? That referral relationship, whether you’re in bed or awake, there’s someone out there selling you services and giving you business and you’re doing the same thing for them.

In an online respect, it can be using advertising, Google advertising, Facebook advertising, it can be sending traffic to your website. It can be order responders, that sort of thing.

To me and this is where I’m working through my business is really having that automation. Whether I’m working or not, my business is being marketed, my name is getting out there and of course is to strive for perfection. Now, we can never get perfection, right? But one thing is I know a guy who used to work for the late Steve Jobs. Brilliant man and Steve Jobs was reportedly saying, “It’s either perfect or it’s SHIT!” He really drove people to deliver high quality, so he really knew what he was doing.

Here’s the big thing. Always be improving your quality, always be striving for perfection. Remember, your competitors are striving every day. You have to be a little bit better to win. Here’s a big thing. If I look back on my own personal journey. There’s me getting some beautiful healthy chips and a long black that tasted really good. If I think back on my own personal journey, when I started off as a business coach, then I became a marketing mentor, my elevator pitch to the room sucked. This is when I go to a networking event in front of 30 business owners. I always say the wrong thing. It was shocking. It was embarrassing and laughable, right? I used to have real quality business cards. Now, I’ve got, if I can find some, the high end plastic stuff, the real good stuff, right? It used to suck what I used to have. It used to be terrible but now it’s absolutely awesome, okay?

To me, it’s about … Doesn’t matter where you are. You got to start somewhere. You got to keep building and building and building and getting that little bit better all the time. To me, that’s what really matters. My own advice to you is be it you’re start or established, please sit back, work out what you really want, what you need marketing wise, get hungry and either do it yourself or outsource the weaknesses, like I’m a terrible accountant so I’ve got an accountant. I’m not a graphic designer so I got a graphic designer but as a marketing strategist, that’s where I really come to town. That’s why you always sell your strengths and outsource the weaknesses, okay? To me, the people that do that is the ones that make big businesses.

Thank you. I really hope you enjoyed this. My name is Edward Zia. I’m often nicknamed, “The Crazy Persian.” Visit our website at www.excellenceabove.com.au. We’ve got some great tools that can really help you. There’s my cat there who didn’t join us. She’s just sleeping over there. I love working from the home office. A big thank you, okay? Feel free to email us anytime. I really hope you’ve enjoyed this presentation.