Multi-Media course on blogging

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Hi.. it's Lee calling - sorry I missed you. I wanted to let you know about a new message service that I think you will find useful.. check out my blog for details.. or call me 407-555-1212 thanks..

Do you have a lot of repetitive follow up calls to make?

Do you have an upcoming meeting or seminar you want to remind everyone about?

Do you want to touch base with some clients or prospects to let them know your thinking of them?

Have you tried slydial?

It's pronounced as two words - Sly Dial.

Slydial allow you to go directly to voice mail on calls to a cell phone.

It's a simple service that can be used as a great time saver.

here is a few good example... you have a new loan program you want to tell everyone about.

You record a brief message.. Hi this is Lee Walsh at ABC mortgage - I'm calling to tell you about a new jumbo loan product that could help you sell more homes. Call me at 407-555-1212 I'd like togive you the details.

You have a new home listing that you want to let everyone know about... Hi it's Lee Walsh from ABC realty.. I called to let you know about a special listing I have - a 4 br, 3 bth, river front home I think you will want to see.. call me for details. 407-555-1212.

The basic service is free.. it only works on cell phone numbers, it does not work on pre-paid cell phones.there are two subscription plans. one is 1.5 cents a message the other is $4.95 a month for unlimited messages.

Their domain name is www.slydial.com - check it out then leave me a message to let me know if you found it useful!


(photo courtesy
of Per Hardestam)

Networking - building your referral database

Building your networking database is an ongoing part of your business development project.

This is one of projects that is never completed. Your prospecting database is always changing, your current client list is always changing. Your past clients list is always changing.

What strategies do you have in place to help you develop and refine your database?
What processes do you have in place to review and refine marketing efforts?

This does not have to be a huge undertaking - in fact if you schedule regular reviews it will just be a matter of tweeking here and there.

As you review you should be asking some basic questions.

Is the wording of my messages the bet they can be?
Is the topic of my message the best it can be?
How can I say this a different way?
Am I gathering the correct information?
Do I have my lists organized in the best way.

Can you overthink these things? Yes - it is an easy thing to do. But you should setup a review process for these important questions at least every 3 - 6 months. The more you build and develop your lists and the more experience you gain marketing efforts using your lists the better you will understand how to improrve on your processes.

I hope this information helps, I always welcome comments and subscribers.
(photo courtesy of Dominik Gwarek (kikashi)

opt in spam - Eben Pagan - the Guru MasterMind or Spam Mastermind?

Spam - Don't you hate it? We all get more than we could possibly read.

This week I think I opted in to receive more spam email that I bargained for.

It all started with an email from a group I subscribed to called Stompernet. They are a group of internet marketers out of Atlanta, GA who seem to have some good free information they provide in order to encourage you to subscribe to what I thought at the time was a high ticket item. If I remember correctly the guys at Stompernet charge around $800 for a subscription to their secrets to internet wealth.

Then they send me an email about an associate of theirs named Eben Pagan - the Guru MasterMind. The email was an invitation to listen to an exciting online conversation with one of their friends (read that as someone "Eben Pagan - the Guru MasterMind" who is paying them "Stompernet" a big slice of sales revenue to tap into their email list).

I liked what the guys at Stompernet had to say, so I opted in to receive email from Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind. Holly crap what a mistake.

How many emails do you think I got a day from this guy Eben Pagan the guru Mastermind?

1 a day?
NO

2 a day?
NO

3 a day?
NO

4 a day?
Close but NO!

Yesterday I received 5 different emails from Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind!

OK.. I know what you are thinking.. if I opted in to receive emails from Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind why am I now saying it's spam?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages."

Now your thinking "Wait a minute - didn't you say you opted in to receive his emails?"

Your right I did opt in to receive emails from Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind.

The problem is the trick he uses for opting out.

At the the end of Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind's email messages is this line.
If you wish to unsubscribe, please send mail to: "Guru MasterMind Inc."
3960 Howard Hughes Pkwy, 5th Floor Las Vegas, NV 89109

I think that this lack of an opt out link makes Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind's email messages spam or Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) - and so do most internet service providers.

To be fair some of his emails did have an opt out link - I used it and the emails keep coming!

Before I decided I did not want to receive more email from this guy I actually took the time to review his information.

If I thought the Stopmernet guys were proud of their product at around $800. I have to say that Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind has priced his information like he is selling the secret to the second coming.

From what I can gather his basic price is about $6,000 (yup 6K) and the high end service is about $9,000.

On his information site I found broken links - for $6k to $9k everything better work.

Most of the information I saw was nothing new.. it's all available for free with some searching.

There is a whole lot of content on his free site but I though that the substance was lacking.

If you going to charge me $6k to $8k for something it better be a very big WOW!

So I guess the moral to the story is be careful what you ask for... It was lot easier opting in than it has been trying to opt out.

***I just got another email from Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind as I was writing this.

Message to Eben Pagan - the Guru Mastermind - please stop!

Getting started with your referral marketing plan

Now that you have gathered all of your contact data in one place and organized the information into groups you are almost ready to start using the information.

Are you surprised at the number of contacts you have gathered? Most people are. Usually you will end up with a lot more contacts that you thought you had.



The next two steps of segmenting your contacts data into groups and stages are really important.

Groups
Think about how you would speak to a person that has referred someone to you.

Think about how you would speak to someone who is a past client.

Think about how you would speak to new prospective client.

Think about how you would speak to someone who was referred to you by an associate.

This demonstrates the group separation.

Stages
Think about how would speak to people as you go through the stages of relationship.

You would not have the same dialogue with different groups or people in different stages of a relationship. This is why you should sort your prospect list based on the type of relationship you have with each group and the stage of ongoing diolouge you will have with each group.

Let's use one possible group as the example:
Someone who was referred to you by an associate.

With this specific group in mind write at least 7 messages to that "person".

Dear {name},

I was asked by (referral source} to contact you about assisting you with the mortgage for the your new home purchase. ..........

--------

Dear {name},

Thanks for taking the time to discuss you mortgage needs for your home purchase......

----- or

Dear {name},

I tried to reach you to discuss you mortgage needs. I was asked by {referral source} to contact you....

------

Here is where the work comes into the equation. You have to invest the time to brainstorm ideas for ongoing communication. You can also base the tone of the message based on the steps you know will happen.

1 introduction
2. follow-up on contact
2a. follow-up on no reply
3. confirm meeting
4. meeting follow-up

Importance of regular contact
The content is important and you should invest some quality time developing your messages but even more important is regular contact. You have their information and you should invest the time to establish a regular communication channel with your contact list.

Building a referral marketing list

In referral based marketing your list is everything.

If your goal is to obtain most of your business from referrals you have to have a marketing list. In fact you will have more than one list.

The reason I say you will have more than one list is that there are different types of groups of referral prospects and you will be in different stages of your relationship with the people in each group.

Here are some examples.

Groups: prospects, clients, referral partners, vendors, and friends.

Stages: New, recently meet, trying to meet, recently referred someone else, was just referred to you, and established contact but has not referred anyone.

These are not all of the groups or stages your groups can belong to but it should give you the idea.

I think you will find that referral groups and stages of relationship are something that will grow and evolve as your referral marketing plan matures.

The important point is that you spend time on a regular basis refining the groups and stage descriptions for your list(s) and that you are thinking about how you want to talk to each group at each stage.

If you do not have your referral list formalized now is the time to get started.

You will be surprised at the number of names you already have.

• Gather up all of the business cards you have laying around
  
• Go through all of your emails
• Sort through all of your business agreements and applications
• Go through all of the note pads you have

Once you have all of the names and contact information in one place you should divide them into a few basic groups and stages. Use the examples here as beginning suggestions. Don't worry if the groups and stages are not perfect. They never will be. This is something that will change and evolve as your referral marketing plan evolves. The important thing is to get started.

In the next post I will give you some ideas on how to decide what to say to get your referral marketing plan launched.

Referral marketing for mortgage, real estate, and financial services

What is referral marketing?

The simple answer is "Keeping in contact within your business and social network by keeping them informed about you and the services you can provide to them and their friends and associates."

Referral marketing can be as simple as handing everyone you come in contact with 3-4 business cards and asking them to pass them out to anyone they know or meet that they think can benefit from your services to a well organized market plan using a contact management application to send letters, emails and make phone calls on a regular basis to everyone that you can add to your referral list.

The more effort you put into your plan the more success you will achieve.

Even the simple strategy of handing out business cards can to refined to get better results.

What are you doing with the space on your cards? Over 90% of all business card only use 50% or less of the available space. The backs of the card are blank!

What could you put on the back of your card to gain more business?

Here are some ideas.

• List 5 reasons that someone would benefit from your service.
• Describe the types of services you can provide.
• Print recommendations from past clients.
• Itemize the information you need to help them.
  

Think about the risk /reward ratio.

It will cost you about 25% more to add content to the 2nd side of your cards but it will double the content.

Next look at your envelopes, are you wasting a lot of unused space?

I hope this information helps, I always welcome comments and subscribers.