I was in Dallas, Texas, last week, as some of you know, attending the Glazer-Kennedy SuperConference. It was a great event with over 1,100 people there and I’ve learned loads. It was my fifth SuperConference and I reckon it was the best one yet.

Rest assured that I’ll be sharing all the key stuff that I lerned with members of my Entrepreneurs Circle in the weeks andmonths ahead but to give you a head start let me get you thinking. Here’s a quote from my good friend Bill Glazer:

“The only difference between high income earners and ordinary income earners is…implementation”

The more I think about that phrase, the more I know it to be true.

On Sunday at the Conference 18 entrepreneurs competed for the Marketer of the Year contest. It’s a prize I’ve won twice before, in 2004 and 2005, and the standard of entries was very high this year. What stood out a mile though was the huge amount of stuff that these individuals had I-M-P-L-E-M-E-N-T-E-D.

They had just made a shed load of stuff happen. It hadn’t all been wonderfully successfully but because they’d done so much they’d all had lots more winners and their businesses had grown exponentially as a result.

I’ve come back armed with a ferocious ‘To-Do’ list and I intend to be ruthless in implementation over the next few weeks. Watch this space.

In the meantime, what will you be doing?

If you need ideas or inspiration or verification that you’re on the right track then come to the Circle Meeting in Slough next week (14th). There are only a few places but it’ll be great, I promise and if you’d like to be oart of it, let me know.

I’m starting a campaign. May is the month to ‘Get Shit Done – Fast’.

Wanna join me?

Just found this article in Inc magazine. 85% of almost 2,000 businesses surveyed said social media was helping them create a buzz for their business and make money.

http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/04/how-social-media-helps-small-business.html

We are now over one third of the way through 2010.

33% of the year gone.

How are you doing on track with your goals?

I’m ahead on a couple, behind on one and just about on track with the others. I know this ‘cos I track ‘em all the time. Daily usually. I’m very goal focused and in my experience it’s a common trait amongst super-successful business owners.

So, I’m going to keep this week’s post nice and short and sweet and ask you two simple questions:

1. Where are you in relation to your progress towards your 2010 goals? [CLUE - with a third of the year gone you need to be heading towards 33% accomplished!]

2. What are you going to do to ensure that you stay on track during the summer months ahead?

Use the next 2-3 minutes to think, instead about your goals and, in particular your progress towards them. What needs focus? What have you forgotten about? What can you do differently to get ahead?

And if you need a hand, join my Entrepreneurs Circle – cos lots of members are ‘kicking-ass’ with their goals and their business is soaring as a result.

You can try it free for 2 months here: https://www.entrepreneurs-circle.co.uk/public/signup.cfm

Got a lot of emails on last week’s post about the importance of playing the right music to get you in the mood before sales appointments or important meetings.

Quite a few of you have sent me in your list of preferred tracks – brilliant, thank you. I’m contemplating pullin together a ‘kick-ass’ playlist or compilation. Watch this space…

However, to continue the music theme I noticed something else this week. When I was 19 I was working as a cashier at Barclays in Leeds. I used to have to work every other Saturday. I discovered that, on a Saturday morning, if I began Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell’ just as I got into my car I could, with a bit of luck on the traffic lights, get all the way to the car park in Leeds city centre before the track finished. It kept me focused!

Recently, I was driving down to Cornwall for the weekend with Sue and the children and we had the iPod on shuffle. ‘Bat out of Hell’ came on and suddenly I found myself transported back over 25 years to my youth. Music has that power.

Next up, the iPod Gods gave me ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. What was happening? Two iconic tracks from the seventies, back to back. But then I got thinking. Why are those track as fresh and powerful now as when they were first released in 1977 and 1975 respectively?

The answer is because they were both mould-breaking. They were both very different at the time to anything else out there. Both tracks were responsible to a large extent for kick-starting the success of their artistes.

And you know, it’s like that in business too. And not just big international business like Apple or Google. This applies at a local level.
What is it about your business that’s truly unique and makes you stand out from the rest?

What’s your ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Bat out of Hell’?

I was driving down to Cheltenham last week to meet with one of my top franchisees, Simon Bullingham, who runs thebestof Cheltenham. Simon is one of our very best franchisees. He’s built a great business and has a fabulous reputation in the town.

One of Simons little tricks is that whenever he’s going to see a potential customer he plays up-tempo loud rock music in his car on the way there. He’s the king of the Power Ballad.

Why?

Because it gets him in the mood.

Music is hugely powerful in this respect. Play 3-4 of your favourite up-tempo, inspirational tracks loud enough and you’ll feel different.
The right music can significantly increase your chances of success in a sales meeting, because it pumps you up, makes you feel confident, fuels your self-belief, gets you playing ‘from a 10′.

It’s the simplest easiest thing to do and all the super-successful sales people I know do it- yet it’s little used by average sales people. Hmmmmm.

Play the right tunes before your next important meeting…

What was the first thing you did when you came into work this morning?

The answer has a lot to do with your level of success in business.

Did you dive into the day-to-day, like so many business owners do? Did you get stuck into the work ‘in’ your business? Maybe you checked your emails or made a plan for the day?

If so, then that’s very dangerous to your long term success.

You see, the smart business owners started work this morning by focusing at least an hour of their time, uninterrupted, on the marketing of their business.

They worked ‘on’ their business not ‘in’ it – at least for an hour when they first got in. I know it can be difficult to make this happen. It’s a hard habit to establish -especially with so much to do and get on with.

But no one ever said achieving success was easy.

The fact is that unless or until you begin finding 60 -90 minute chunks of uninterrupted time several times a week your business won’t materially shift from wherever it is today. That’s why this is so important – and finding that 90 minute slot pretty much every day has definitely been one of the keys to my success in business. I tried leaving it till later in the day and doing the more urgent (but in truth less important) stuff first but it doesn’t work. Things get in the way, time whizzes by and it just doesn’t happen.

That’s why I spend 90 minutes every morning, before I open email, check voicemail, before I even say ‘good morning’ to my team, working ‘on’ my business, not in it.

I can’t recommend it strongly enough if you’re serious about success.

Stop worrying about over-communicating.

Note: If you’re blasting out pointless salesy emails with no relevance to your target audience, you should be worried. You need more help than I can give you in one article.

But for those of us with even a vague understanding of marketing, we know there’s a lot of competition for our customers’ attention. Do you think your customers are worried they’ll offend you by buying from your competition?

The truth is, if you’re not getting some complaints or unsubscribes, you’re not communicating enough!

Look at it like this. If someone’s not interested in what you’re offering, they’re not buying. They’ll opt out anyway. Don’t sweat it. Get over the fear of inconveniencing the recipient and regularly deliver communications of value. This can be weekly, or even more frequently, depending on your business and how well you target your audience.

In my business, I want my potential customers to hear from me at least 25 times a year – and there’s a chool of thought that says that ain’t nowhere near enough and that I’m,leaving money on the table for my competition. However, I know that 25 times a year is at least five times more than my most ‘aggressive’ competitor – which is why my sales are a ton more than his!

Avoid sales schlock
Don’t abuse recipients with marketing fluff. Avoid vanity announcements that only interest you. And, for goodness sakes, avoid “read all about our great product/latest promotion” rubbish. People aren’t interested (sorry to burst your bubble).

I keep getting this email from God-knows-what business imploring me to download their free brochure. Really, that’s the pull. The free brochure. Get real.

What’s in it for me?

Make it matter
One of my favourite direct marketing tactics was for an IT services company. They sent out email alerts with very timely news like viruses and breaking IT issues. Smart. This branded the company and kept them top of mind. They weren’t always selling. They gave value.

Give your readers useful information. Do a series. Tell a story. Have a pull. Make it count or you’re wasting your time and money.

Use offers and discounts whenever possible
People respond to special offers, discounts and drawings. They’ll open the envelope, sign up for the drawing, or opt into the list. Heck, they may even meet with you!

Mix up the media
Your marketing strategy can’t consist only of email blasts. Not even email marketing companies do that. Instead, integrate tactics. Boost the frequency and relevance by using direct mail, special events, public relations, advertising, etc. Integrate, integrate, integrate.

Know your market
If yours is a transactional consumer business, frequency will be vital.
Important: The easier it is to buy your product, the easier it will be to purchase elsewhere. In a global recession, customer loyalty is dead.

If you’re selling business services, you can communicate a bit less frequently. But use content rich tools like white papers, case studies and webinars. Give value.

Who’s talking to your customers?
If you think reaching customers once every six months is enough, ask yourself this:

How many times are my many, many competitors communicating with my customers? Your competitors are reaching out to your customers. Trust me.

You must control the conversation. Deliver content that’s interesting, and relevant with an incentive to take action, and you’re on the right track.

Send it out frequently using various tools and you’re ready to make money.

I learned a long time ago that every time I send something out I make money.

It was a good lesson.

I’ve just run one of our regular Discovery Days for our thebestof franchise.  We had eighteen people come along to our Training Suite in Solihull to spend a few hours with myself and my Team so we can find out about them and, importantly, they can find out all about us.

I always have at least one, usually two franchisees with me at these events.  Talking to existing franchisees is the most useful thing anyone can do when they’re contemplating investing in a franchise business and, as it happened, one of the customers of the franchisee who was here today was also in the room (the customer is contemplating buying a neighbouring franchise as a direct result of his experience with our franchisee – make sense?)

I was talking about the type of people that make successful franchisees and, first, one of the most important elements is that they are genuine “people people”.  I spoke a little bit about this and gave some stories and anecdotes and then the customer raised his hand and interjected.  “Nigel, I agree with everything you’re saying” he said, “but the thing that makes Ian (i.e. the franchisee) stand out a mile is that he cares so much about his customers”.

He then spoke for a few minutes about things that Ian did that showed how much he really cared about his customers and it was clear that Ian had made a really big impact on this guy, who was in no doubt whatsoever that the reason for Ian’s success was simply that he cared more than anyone else.

When you think about it, isn’t that a really great lesson for success in business and, as a long term strategy, I reckon it’s bang on.

If you care more than anyone else then ….. you will succeed (subject, of course, to doing the right things as well).

It’s got me thinking, I can tell you.  I’m already plotting and planning different ways in which we can show that we care to our customers and to our franchisees.  Watch this space.

What is it with the snow?  I know we haven’t had any for like ten years now but, the snow falls we have had over the last few weeks have been really instructive to me about certain people’s attitudes and their likelihood of success in business.  Let me explain.

We had some major training events for our franchisees last week.  We hold them three times a year in ten venues around the country and these Regional Meetings are the place when myself and my Management Team sit down with groups of twenty to thirty franchisees in each venue and launch our new initiatives, discuss and debate things that need resolving and share examples of success, things that are working, that sort of thing.  They are hugely effective events and very popular with pretty much all of our franchisees.

Given that this is the case, why would you cancel your attendance at one of these events three days in advance because of “the snow”?

Three days in advance?  The event was due to happen on Thursday but three franchisees rang up on Tuesday to say they wouldn’t be making the journey on Thursday morning because of the snow.

Pathetic.

Now, Mrs B gets a bit cross with me about this. She says that not everyone is a confident driver and that I should be more tolerant, but you see it’s not about that.  If you’re prepared to give in to the snow three days in advance then what you have to accept is that you, and your mental approach to life, is wholly incompatible with success in business.

And it’s not just the three days in advance people either. Life has to go on.  To decide not to travel without even trying is completely the wrong thing to do as far as your business is concerned.  (Okay, I know there may be genuinely rare exceptional circumstances – but that hasn’t been the case here over the last few weeks. All the major roads have been open and trains have been running very well).

In business, bad things happen. You will get setbacks and if you’re the sort of person who shies away from travelling two hours because there’s been some snow on your lawn then I’m afraid you’re destined to never achieve big success in business.

Once again, I’m sure this little post will offend a few people and others will call me irresponsible but, the fact is, if you want to be successful in business you have to be prepared to do things that other people are not prepared to do and getting to my Regional Meetings in bad weather is one of them!