The seeds of success are planted all around us; you just need to recognize them. They’re in books, movies, nature, science, the animal and insect kingdoms. They are all around us, not to be discovered but to be recognized.

Take for example the movie “Pretty Woman”…

Vivian (Julia Roberts) asks Edward (Richard Gere) –

Well, do you plan everything?

- Always. – Yeah. Me too.

I’m actually– No, I’m not a planner. I wouldn’t say I was a planner.

I would say I was, um, a kind of “fly by the seat of my pants” gal.

You know, moment to moment. That’s me. That’s– Yeah.

95% of people fail to achieve success

Could we then deduce the reason over 95% of people fail to achieve the success that could be theirs, is they would rather “fly by the seat of their pants” than plan and set goals in every aspect of their business, career and personal lives?

Reality of the above can be culled from Sun Tzu’s Book of War -
“Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”

Success is simply reaching personal goals
What separates the haves and have-not’s (from the movie “Shooter” with Mark Wahlberg) is that they honestly know where they are today and where they want to be tomorrow and have a plan to get there.

It is not enough to know, one must also do.

What Can Blackjack Teach Us about Internet Marketing?

Blackjack is a popular casino game that requires knowledge of basic strategy. Your results will be a total failure if you don’t know how to play with a proven and tested system.

SEO Web design, Internet marketing, email marketing and social media marketing will also fail if you don’t follow a Proven Business Format Model.

Winning at Blackjack is not easy. Building a thriving business or successful Internet marketing campaign is not easy. A majority of businesses fail within their first five years, many of those that survived have basically bought themselves a Job and the success rate of the millions of websites on the Internet is dismal.

Achieve Internet Marketing and SEO Web Design Success by Following Blackjack Strategies

Winning at Internet Marketing and Blackjack

1) Know WHEN it’s time to WALK AWAY!
If the cards are against you, and you are throwing money at a losing situation with the hopes of recouping loses, walk away!

If the marketing strategy you are using, whether traditional or Internet marketing is not working, and you are unwilling to change, your business will never be able to provide you with what you want.

2) Bring the proper BANKROLL! (Bring 40 x the table minimum. If you do not have the proper bankroll, don’t play Blackjack until you do!

The old adage – You Get What You Pay For!

Investing in traditional business marketing or Internet marketing on the cheap, hoping to generate substantial sales and profits, will give you the same results as 99% of average blackjack players who end up losing money.

3) ALWAYS CHART the TABLES! Watch the tables for hot and cold DEALERS before playing.

What can you learn from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?” – paraphrasing…

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cheshire Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cheshire Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cheshire Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

In Blackjack, you learn how to pick the right table so you can maximize your winnings.

In Business, to maximize the success of your website and Internet marketing campaign you need to utilize the analytical efficiency of Google analytics. With Google analytics you can not only understanding your website traffic, but it can also be used as a tool for business and market research.

The advantage of setting up web analytics for your website is that you will always know where your Internet marketing strategy is, and what it must do to get you where you want it to go.

Entrepreneurs who operate successful websites have a different perspective about what a website is and why it works.

4) Learn BETTING strategies.

To win at Blackjack, you have to know the odds for each casino, how to adjust your bet sizes, when to stand, hit, double or split – and the actions you take need to be based on expectations of what will follow. You base those expectations on the information available — the cards you have seen — and the balance of the deck.

To win in the highly competitive environment of the Internet, you need to know your competition, their strengths and weaknesses – their search engine optimization keywords, Internet marketing strategy, social media networking processes and link partners to name a few. You adjust your search engine marketing (SEM), web content, search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet marketing strategies based on available analytical information.

Failing to use basic blackjack strategy or hoping that your luck and/or hunches will win the day, will lead to disappointment.

Failing to follow a proven Business Format Model, will also lead to disappointment.

You can achieve business success by – Doing the opposite of unsuccessful entrepreneurs and businesses!

You’ll find they focus on what they are selling, rather than The Process by which sales are accomplished, and The Customer to whom they market.

Social mediaprovides a rich set of new tools that allow marketers to create awareness of their brand and provide a way to lead prospects back to content on their website. Your professionally designed website should provide enough valuable education-based content to help visitors understand that you have the products and services they are seeking.

The purpose of social media marketing is to provide value while engaging with an online community about your company, its products and its services.

Your business website and blog should tie all of your social media activity together. Your social media and social networking activity should provide information useful to those looking to build a community – make connections with people, products, and brands they are interested in. People will ultimately want to know more about your offerings once a level of trust has been reached. Social media marketing should complement your online business marketing.

Properly integrated social networking will become your businesses ultimate permission-based marketing tool. Through social media education based content sharing and engagement, you’ll build a level of trust and gain permission to market to your contacts.

Social Media Marketing = Content – Connection – Community

A solid social media strategy must come first

Developing a clear social media marketing strategyhas to come first. If not, you may find yourself joining Alice somewhere in Wonderland grumbling that social media is a waste of time.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

An Integrated Social Media Strategy

Do integrate your social media activity into your other marketing initiatives; do focus on creating awareness of the valuable, education-based content of your marketing real estate, and remember it’s important not to look at social media as a tool to generate leads, you may be confronted with hostile reactions.

“Social media is the production, consumption and exchange of information through online social interactions and platforms.”

“At its foundation, social media is a set of technologies and channels targeted at forming and enabling a potentially massive community of participants to productively collaborate. They use words such as participation, collective, transparency, independence, persistence and emergence”.

No matter what words they invent, it is still NETWORKING, plain and simple!

Whether they call it social media marketing, social networking, social bookmarking,blogging, or link exchange, it’s still networking.

Successfully marketing your web site on the Internet is no different than marketing your business or your profession in the traditional marketing business world.

You attend events, your local Chamber of Commerce, Leads Group, Kiwanis or Rotary club, why?

You attend these networking organizations to network in a personal face to face atmosphere. Politicians do it, savvy business owners and professionals do it. It’s called “Schmoozing” – introducing, meeting, and establishing rapport.

How is it any different than the social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (a Micro Blog) or media-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr? They basically utilize the same real world networking method but in a different format.

No matter how you look at it, whether you network online or off, both methods allows you to nurture new business relationships.

Few politicians, businesses owners or professionals can succeed without some form of networking.

They understand that every opportunity you have to make a connection, builds a network of individuals over time. These individuals can eventually help you in some way - provide quality referrals (word of mouth) or even become clients.

People do business with friends… where an affinity and mutual trust has been cultivated.

A strong Internet brand is critical to the added success and sustainability of real estate organizations. Most brokers operate within very competitive landscapes –– vying for staff, agents and especially, sales.

If your website doesn’t capture them on the first visit and your email follow up doesn’t lock them in as a satisfied prospect, don‘t be surprised if they are forever lost as customers to the competition.

A prospect needs to know that you are:

1. Credible
2. Trustworthy
3. Qualified
4. And have references

Your typical real estate client today is more knowledgeable. Your marketing needs to be used to increase awareness and comprehension around what you do, what you stand for and why people should use you. Every communication — print, digital, environmental, interpersonal — is an opportunity to advance you.

They want a know you, like you, trust you type of relationship.

Anyone can handle the easy sales. You need a professionally developed cross-channel marketing system for the tough sales. The old techniques are not well tolerated by sophisticated, experienced buyers and sellers, who consider anything less than absolute professionalism, extremely offensive.

Since real estate products and services are tough to differentiate between, and realtors are all lumped together, you must find a way to stand out.

If you do what everyone else does, you are guaranteeing that your results will be no better than everyone else.

The upscale prospect is usually well protected and extremely busy. They are special, want to be treated as special, and want to do business with people they perceive to be special. The higher you climb the ladder of affluence, the more they respond to quality in the way they are approached.

Today‘s real estate customer is a hybrid who uses the Internet to gather information about process and properties and often appreciates email as the preferred channel of communication. When they are ready, they turn to a real estate professional in person for specialized expertise to find property, negotiate a contract and close the transaction.

If you don‘t know how to capture them first,
competitors who do know how could leave you behind.

In today‘s competitive climate, a bland, template Web site that does nothing to further your image may be doing more harm than good. When consumers visit a bland or confusing site, it‘s an instant turnoff. It reflects poorly on you as an agent, sending the message that you are behind the times.

You simply cannot operate from that position anymore.

A well drafted Internet Marketing Program can see success on three fronts: reaching more people more effectively, building relationships with those people and using increasingly scant resources — money and time — more efficiently.

Your Web site and E-mail can cultivate customer relationships by providing valuable information, stories and high-quality, custom emails to your farm. By demonstrating how your organization‘s specialized local expertise will help your customers reach their real estate goals, you will differentiate yourself from the competition.

One of the most powerful things you can do with e-mail farmingis to demonstrate your local expertise and target specific segments of your farm. One way to go about this is by consistently providing people with meaningful, valuable information specific to their geographic or demographics.

If you want prospective clients to take you seriously,
it‘s time that you get serious about marketing your real estate website on the Internet.

Online competition is tough – and relentless. Gone are the early days of brochureware websites and classified ads online. Gone is the effectiveness of superficial content and ―Ego Driven template websites.

As more and more agents launch e-marketing, real estate professionals need even-more sophisticated website content, a more appealing ―look and feel,‖ and smarter presentations to stay ahead of the competition – and stay up with today‘s consumer. People who use the Internet to find a Realtor are usually more sophisticated and tech-savvy. You no longer can afford to cater to the lowest common denominator.

Online marketing is changing and, to be successful, every real estate professional must change with it. The real secret to success is how to assemble and cross-platform web marketing to satisfy today‘s online customers.

Websites not only must work, they must also do work. Those who have adopted web-based software have discovered they can better serve their customers, boost sales, maximize the possible number of transactions, streamline operations and create unexpected efficiencies.

Busy prospects size you up and form lasting judgments within a few seconds of opening your website or scanning your email. That means within a few seconds your marketing must create a positive reaction – or you may never get a chance to close the sale in person. What‘s more, today‘s comparison shoppers test you to determine if you can provide the knowledge they need to save them time, money and headache – or they turn to one of your competitors.

In short, real estate marketing today needs new solutions to ever-changing technology that can kill your practice.

IMPROVING WEBSITE VISIBILITY AND INTERACTION WITH CUSTOMERS WHILE GENERATING NEW REAL ESTATE SALES REVENUE

How Do Your Website Visitors Rate Your Online Presentation?
Wow, this guy‘s got it all together?

Your objectives can be met by:

• Developing and repositioning present product-market sets to include your Real Estate Flanker Markets to get the greatest possible yield.
• Developing a site that differentiates you from the competition by taking full advantage of customer perceptions and communicating it effectively. Good positioning with an appropriate sensory package makes for favorable awareness and will set you up for success right from the start.
• Addition of Personal Prospect Lead-Capture Response Forms, using the six secrets to maximize Website Lead Capture. By generating self-qualified customers you can select the right response to offer. The ability to direct the path of growth in your practice will result in more listings, higher priced properties, more dual-sided transactions, greater sales volume and increased income.
• Addition of a Customer Section highlighting real life stories of your customers telling why they choose you and how you benefited them. The purpose of these pages is to motivate your prospects to do business with you as they read the inspirational stories of other satisfied customers – which builds trust.
• Developing informational campaigns to keep customers coming back, to generate referrals and cross-promotional techniques that increase sales. Value-added offers of new listings, estimates of value, interest rate alerts, sweepstakes and other services help identify exactly what your clients value. Then you are in a position to deliver that value-added information and service with integrated offline and online marketing.
• Establishing marketing messages to improve the overall customer experience and helping them choose the right real estate plan best suited for them. The specific needs of individual customers will depend on their perception of the impact the purchase will have on them and the confidence they have in making the decision to buy.
• Building a press center that will build and strengthen relationships with journalists, generate more coverage and increase the impact of all your PR efforts.
• Developing Customized Web Presentations and a Multimedia Business Card designed to take any level investor, buyer or seller and convert them into a preferred customer. With the addition of testimonials, worksheets, calculators and interactive demonstrations, buyers and sellers learn to appreciate their agent on a completely different level.
• Developing an Automated Recruiting Management System. Why operate your office at 65% of capacity, when the ideal candidate to join your team is just a few computer clicks away?

Internet Marketing Solutions

Internet Marketing – First-Page Website Ranking

In order to obtain a significant number of website leads, phone calls and sales, you need to seek a high first-page web ranking via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for desired targeted keywords relative to your existing competitor leaders.

Internet Marketing – Principal Goal of Internet Marketing

The principal goal of internet marketing is to help you market your website on the Internet by outperforming your competition in the search engine optimization (SEO) wars.

Whatever market you are in… no matter how many or how big your website competitors are… once you know what is working for the “leaders” you’ll have the keys to OUT PERFORM the leader… this will allow you to sell more, more often, to more people from your website.

Internet Marketing | Small Business Marketing

How does the movie Rocky III teach us about personal and business marketing success?

If you are having trouble achieving successful results with your Internet marketing or business marketing initiatives, it’s time to take some pointers from the movie Rocky III.

For those who have seen the movie, you will remember the lavish lifestyle Rocky Balboa enjoyed as world Boxing champion.  However, after achieving success, he abandons the training regimen that got him to the top.

Maintaining successful results in marketing your business or marketing online is NOT as important as working your plan – the same way, every day, each and every time. So why do self proclaimed experts, sales professionals, businesses and online marketers change their business model?

Why do they?

They are being sold the new gimmick, tool or service marketing flavor of the month. They don’t understand or they have abandoned the marketing principals that got them to where they are.

What do you mean, “don’t understand?”

In one of our CEOs businesses, he had distributors generate $10,000 there very first month in the business. Now understand that these were regular work at home moms or husband and wife teams who entered the business for the first time with no prior experience and no built in network. They enjoyed above average success, yet they continued to work the business on a part time basis.

With that kind of income, why did they not go full-time?

Because they did not understand the marketing basics that helped them generate their success. They were unconscious competents. They were competent at generating a substantial income BUT were unconscious has to why?

It was our CEOs philosophy to train them to become conscious competents. Therein lays the secret to how the top 2% of income earners enjoy substantial success.

If you find your business slipping or your Internet marketing failing to provide you with the results you seek … Get Back to the Basics!

In Rocky III, Apollo Creed comes to Rockys’ aid after Clubber Lang pulverized the fighting spirit out of him. Apollo Creed offers to retrain Rocky BUT they don’t go back to his fancy gym. Instead Apollo takes Rocky back to his roots … a dingy apartment, an aged gym. He had him chasing chickens around the yard instead of working out on his new shiny equipment.

He took Rocky back to the basics that won him the World Championship.

You’ll have self proclaimed SEO experts state they are Google Certified in pay per click (ppc) advertising, a very expensive proposition for businesses on a budget. Why? The majority of search engine optimization companies are unable to get your website to rank high on the major search engines.

You’ll have others state they will put you on automatic pilot to build your business. The plain truth is that it takes hard work (working smart) to achieve substantial success.

As in Rocky III you have within you the ability to achieve your personal and business goals. Keep your eye on what you want to achieve and guard yourself from those wanting to divert your attention away from the basics.

Rocky regained his world Championship. So can everyone else!

Achieve Successful Results with your Internet Marketing or Business Marketing Initiatives