7 Ways to Measure Marketing Performance

If you want to make sure your company is successful, you need to have knowledge of marketing. One of the biggest challenges that marketers face is having enough patience and prudence to wait on results and determine which methods are fruitful versus those that are a mere waste of time and funds. Unfortunately, it can take weeks or even months for the full effect of your efforts to become apparent, so it is imperative to start tracking any available analytics that might provide insight into your current performance within a campaign.

The best marketers use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track their progress in specific areas, and then use this data to hone in on effective strategies and identify weaknesses that need to be addressed. Now that you know why you need them and what they’re used for, here are the top seven marketing KPIs every entrepreneur should know about.

Conversion Rates

If you don’t know about this metric as an entrepreneur, you’re probably not very experienced. The conversion rate is the percentage of leads or site visitors who perform a desired action versus the percentage of leads/visitors who do not.

The “desired action” in question could be anything from buying a product, to signing up for a subscription, to opting into a newsletter, to clicking an ad. Obviously, you want your conversion rates to be as high as possible. In fact, that’s the main goal in marketing, which is why it’s at the top of this list.

Sales Revenue

You might not be tracking every aspect of revenue generation or comparing your data to your marketing efforts to find a correlation between your efforts and increases in revenue. But you should be. That’s what tracking KPIs is all about – using analytics to identify what works.

If you’re not analyzing your sales revenue in relation to marketing efforts on a daily and weekly basis, you’re limiting your businesses. After all, the last thing you want to do is waste time on sales efforts that aren’t yielding results.

Cost Per Lead

It’s also important to calculate how much each lead and customer is costing youin terms of advertising budget. Are you spending more to acquire customers through inbound marketing than you are through outbound marketing? If you are, the sooner you know about it, the better.

Identifying the most cost-effective method of lead generation is just one of the advantages of keeping track of this crucial KPI. Because spending money to make money only works when you spend less than you make.

ROI for Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is the practice of bringing customers to your company or website passively, rather than aggressively going out and seeking new clients/customers. Inbound techniques might include search engine optimization, content development, banner advertisements, and other methods that increase your brand’s visibility and presence.

The greatest businesses reap huge ROIs from inbound marketing, so this is a KPI that should never be ignored. Remember, sometimes playing hard to get actually works out.

Organic Search Traffic

Reiterating the importance of effective inbound marketing, organic search traffic is a KPI that shows how strong your company’s ranking authority is within the search engine result pages (SERPs). Ultimately, most of your online marketing efforts should be put towards ranking higher in major search engines like Google for popular keywords and queries.

Developing and distributing great content related to your brand is by far the best way to increase the amount of traffic gained from organic search results.

Social Media Engagement

Businesses that are firmly rooted in social media have a higher chance of continuing and thriving, so it’s important to keep an eye on the amount of traffic coming from social media as well as the percentage of those visitors who are converted into customers. Tracking KPIs related to social networking will ensure that you’re at least aware of where you’re at and what needs improvement in this pivotal department.

If you’re slacking on your social media game, you might want to try increasing social media engagement and presence and monitoring your KPIs along the way.

Average Customer Value

Finally, while all of the above KPIs are useful in their own regard, they won’t help you manage your budget if you don’t know the average value of your customers. There are several ways to calculate the average customer value metric, either in the short-term or long-term.

Essentially, your average customer value is the average sales revenue generated by each customer minus the cost of lead acquisition, multiplied by the average number of sales per customer. Figure out this number fast so you know how successful you need to be to stay afloat.

  Source: http://bit.ly/297psQR

5 Things I’ve Learned in Social Media

I have had the great pleasure of meeting amazing people all over the world because of the industry of social media. Each of the relationships may have started online, however, many of them came offline and I now have more meaningful connections, friendships, and business partnerships because of social media. I wanted to share with you a few things I’ve learned from social media.

We know you want to know! By implementing these simple things you too can see how social media can help you in your business endeavors and much more!

1. Reach Out and Say Thanks –

Everyone would love to hear that they have made someone’s day. The next time you are reading an article on someone’s blog or you see a sentence in someone’s tweet that really speaks to you, reach out and say THANKS to that person. Whether you send an email, a personal note, a DM (direct message) or you post it publicly on their wall, everyone loves to be appreciated. Far too many people only take the time to reach out to someone if there is something negative to say.  So even if it is the service at the fast food place that happens to be your lunch for the day, reach out and say THANKS! Not because you want to get acknowledgement, but because it might just be what someone else needs in their day to keep them going.

2. Research Your Influencers – 

As in any field you want to make sure the people that you think are great and influence worthy are all they say they are.  Have you ever read an article on a blog post and just felt that it was scam-like or not really a ‘tested theory’ but more so someone just blowing smoke? Sometimes it might feel that obvious and other times it might really seem much more difficult to tell.  I’ve found that once you put yourself into the industry you are seeking to learn more about, you can really start to see certain people popping up all over the place and ‘doing a great job’ or as being an ‘influencer’.  The reason it matters is because you want to ultimately have great people to look up to and learn from within your field. Specifically in social media, I love checking out about 5-10 websites every single day of people that are ah-mazing and I know they are credible, trust-worthy and putting out consistently great content. If you are just following someone as an influencer because someone told you so, it doesn’t really give you the edge you really should have by knowing the ‘why’ they are great.  So, dig down into google, check around and really get to know the people that are out there doing amazing things. Trust me, the research will pay off in the long run because you’ll feel confident in the people that you are connecting with as influencers.

3. Not All Social Media Platforms Are Created Equal – 

You may just use some of the social media platforms such as Facebook and Pinterest but you don’t even know what Instagram is or even more so, how people are using it for business. Maybe Twitter intimidates you.  Or maybe you find yourself in a conversation at lunch with someone and you say, “I got twitted today” and everyone looks at you like you have three heads.  There’s a lingo, there’s value and there certainly is a purpose for all the various social media platforms.  For instance, Twitter is extremely powerful for using targeted searches to find potential clients by joining conversations that are already taking place. It is also great for reaching out to and making connections with influencers. Instagram is great for all visual graphics because it has a focus on one photo and allows you to bring stories to life through beautiful pictures. Whether you want to sell something, offer a service or give tips, encouragement, etc.. And the list goes on.  But what is true is that you need to focus first where you really want to get strategic and really be on social media and do it well.  It is far better to do one thing such as Facebook and do it consistently well rather than doing Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Instagram sporadically and with little clarity of what you are on social media for in the first place.

4. Hashtags are Powerful –

If you don’t think that the pound sign has any significance we’ll make sure that you know that is NOT THE CASE.  In social media, when you use the pound sign (called hashtag from this point forward) in front of a key set of words (with no spaces between) it is very powerful because it allows you to search and focus on specific things. For example, if you want to make a post and put #ColumbiaSC in it because that is the city/state that you live and you are a local hair salon, that might be a smart strategy to not only see who else is using that hashtag so you can join in on some conversation but also because it would allow for someone else that is searching that hashtag to find you. Hashtags are found among most social media platforms (especially Twitter and Instagram) however hashtags are really not encouraged to be used on Pinterest. It might seem overwhelming but before you give it a try maybe think of a hashtag and keyword on a topic that matters to you or your business and type it in the search bar on Twitter for example and see what you find?

5. Money can be Made for Your Business Using Social Media –

I know it is true because I have done it myself since 2011. I used Facebook primarily to launch my first company ElizabethtownFamily.com to a booming website filled with amazing family-friendly information for a small community near Fort Knox, Kentucky. We’re talking about a town that has 30,000 people in it and a greater surrounding area of maybe 125-50,000 people. It started with a Facebook page and then once I had the website developed I simply had a strategy to make 80% of every single Facebook post I made have a link going back to the website.  Today, 4 years later, I’ve been able to have this as a profitable business since 30 days of the business launching and use content marketing to attract the community and thus monetizing the brand via local businesses and non-profits that want to advertise to that very targeted audience. I’ve also personally, of course, launched Sweet Tea Social Marketing as well where I can help small and medium business owners that want to have help with their social media so they can see great results for their business.  Just via the social media platform of Linkedin alone, I was able to secure a $10,000 client. It is one thing when people use hypothetical ideas to tell you that social media can grow your business. I’m not here to tell you theory. I’m here to tell you via hustle, strategy and pulling up my sleeves and daily being in the trenches of seeing what works and what doesn’t work, social media is a powerful resource in marketing to grow my businesses and it can do the same for you.

 Source: http://bit.ly/1Vd5PrZ

5 Digital-Marketing Tactics to Ditch in 2016

Keeping abreast with what works in digital marketing can be a constant catch-up game. Fickle consumers jump from channel to channel. Google updates its search algorithm. Keeping up with Facebook’s monthly changes requires constant education. Because of all of this change, it can be hard to keep on top of which digital tactics still work -- and which are no longer relevant.

Read on to understand which digital-marketing tactics you should consider ditching in 2016.

1. Having a desktop-only accessible website

The mobile website living separately from the desktop website no longer flies with Google. The dominant search engine has made it very clear that a traditional website that doesn’t adjust to the user’s screen size won’t be as visible as one that does.

Google knows its users access their search engine while on the go and wants to serve its users in the best way possible. To make itself look better, it must reward the websites most accommodating to how customers search the web today -- in the car, the Starbucks line and even in the corporate meeting.

Websites must be fluid not only for the user, but for the business owner’s convenience as well. Having a mobile website built on a separate platform runs the risk that information from site to site will be inconsistent. Contradictions erode consumer trust. Handling social media and directory updates creates enough extra work. Having to upload new information to additional sites become cost and time ineffective. The bottom line is that the traditional desktop designed website will lose rankings and visibility.

Despite Google’s clear messages that websites must be mobile-friendly, many small and medium-sized businesses have not converted their websites to mobile-friendly design. To check if your website is mobile friendly, enter your url into Google’s “Mobile Friendly Test Tool.”Google will quickly tell you if and why your website does not render in an effective way on tablet or smartphone. Small fonts and links put too closely together are a few factors that make a website impossible to navigate and access on a small screen. Get your website mobile today to keep customers coming in.

2. Not updating your website.

Beyond mobile accessibility, Google also closely watches how often users click and convert on your website. While it was once speculated that Facebook channels would overtake websites, research tells us that consumers return again and again to a company’s website for in-depth information on the corporation, product and contact details.

Google takes this habit seriously and wants company websites to serve visitors’ needs. Again, like the mobility demand outlined above, Google is laser-focused on delivering quality answers from quality websites.

The place-holding or basic website that acts primarily as a two-dimensional, digital brochure doesn’t win higher rankings from the search engines. The site must be attractive, easy to navigate, timely and constantly updated with quality content.

A/B testing can help your site win better user engagement and sales or other conversions. More, Google interprets users quickly bouncing away from your website back to the search results as a signal the site offers content that’s irrelevant to the search query. To succeed in digital marketing, make sure your website fulfills a need and constantly addresses that need with timely, relevant content.

3. The spammy link

Google changed the determination of quality in 1999 when it decided that, rather than have an editorial team review websites and make subjective judgments, it would derive value of a website by the number of other websites linking to it. In other words, the digital thumbs up in the form of backlinks provided a more accurate reflection of a site’s usefulness.

Unfortunately, business owners and unethical search agencies sullied Google’s trust of backlinks as indicators of the authority of a website. These entities gamed Google’s system by creating backlinks from artificially created sites with poor-quality content and irrelevant information. Google’s strong staff of PhDs and computer engineers rectified this black- hat SEO with the Penguin update, which penalizes websites without authentic backlinks coming from relevant and reputable websites.

Today, Google rewards the quality, robust content that earns backlinks naturally. SEO companies have become big content generators. Keep in mind, too, that in addition to signals from other sites, Google’s staff of editors spot-check a website’s content to make sure it’s relevant to certain search queries. Companies without meaningful and helpful content, products and backlinks drop in the rankings quickly. After all, Google doesn’t want to deliver a poor product.

4. The superficial social channel

Social media marketing progressed so quickly, many companies were thrilled to get cover images and some content -- any content -- up over the past few years. They felt convinced having a presence on social media would prove their credibility.

Companies that overlook the opportunities social media provides to connect one on one with customers do so to their detriment. Studies show that social media has become one of the big three of customer support, alongside telephone and email.

But where those emailing a company expect a response within a day or so, a study conducted by Edison Research reveals that 42 percent of those contacting a company through social media expect a response within 60 minutes, and 24 percent expect a response within 30 minutes. Further, consumers expect the social-customer service team to work all night and through the weekend.

Long gone are the days when companies avoided social media for fear of negative comments. We’ve all learned negative comments happen whether we’re there to address them or not. Now, most marketers view criticism as an opportunity to educate customers and showcase a committed, responsive customer-service department.

5. Single display and Facebook ads

Typically just 2 percent or fewer website visitors convert on the first visit. Sales professionals have always known that it takes seven to nine contacts before the sale is closed. If the website is the digital salesperson, shouldn’t it have the opportunity to follow up on initial contacts?

Google and Facebook have made this possible through re-targeting -- which Google calls re-marketing. When a visitor lands on a website, a cookie or short piece of JavaScript is placed in their browser. After they leave your site, this cookie pings the re-targeting platform to put certain ads on the next pages the visitor goes to.

That’s why, when you spend some time on a hover-board site or when you next go to WebMD or Facebook or your favorite blog, you see an ad for the hover board. It follows you around the web. WebMD, Facebook and some blogs also have a relationship with the re-targeting platform that acts as a clearinghouse or middle man to deliver ads to appropriate publishing platforms. The WebMD page you see won’t be the same WebMD page a friend sees even if you use the same URL. Ads served to your friend will be different and based on her previous Internet activity.

When done right, re-targeting helps move the prospect down the sales funnel. It re-engages them after they leave your page. The era of a single display ad that shows up on one blog in the same place every time is coming to an end. Today’s technology enables advertisers to target one customer at a time and lure them down the attention, interest and desire path to action -- the sale.

Each digital-marketing tactic a business chooses must depend on the size of the business, its unique selling proposition, its audience demographics and its ideal buyer’s journey. No digital-marketing technique is a one-size-fits-all solution, but we’re confident that if you avoid these tactics and mistakes, your digital marketing efforts will be improved in 2016.

Source : http://entm.ag/1K1PzRc

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5 ways to use GIFs to make your PR and marketing efforts soar

GIFs aren’t only for powerhouse social media users anymore.

Employing looping visuals lets PR pros and marketers say a thousand words—or more—in shorthand. When used wisely, GIFs are a great way to connect with your audience, increase views and make your brand more relatable to consumers.

Here are five ways you can jump on the GIF bandwagon:

1. Add a touch of sass to consumer interactions.

As Internet culture becomes more pervasive, brand managers are embracing new ways of reaching out to online audiences. In April, Ikea replied to consumers entirely through memes, and Chevy made headlines for its all-emoji press release.

However, brand managers can take things one step further and use GIFs to respond to consumers through Facebook, Twitter and even emails. Just make sure that your GIF use fits your brand’s voice.

2. Spice up social media posts.

As visuals grow in popularity, PR and marketing pros are looking to infographics, videos and more in order to attract eyeballs and hold followers’ attention.

GIFs can add life to tweets, Pinterest pins, Flipboard magazines, Instagram posts and Facebook content.

Though Facebook business pages do not have the option to post GIFs, Facebook profiles do—and it’s a service Facebook is considering rolling out to brand managers. The social network also recently announced that users could now employ GIFs as profile pictures. Savvy marketers could reach out to brand advocates with large Facebook followings in order to implement these features for a campaign.

If you’re looking for something more subtle than cat or reaction GIFs, use or create cinemagraphs. Several brands are using cinemagraphs to add flavor to Instagram posts.

3. Make stories—and emails—more interesting.

GIFs can boost your content marketing efforts by adding engaging elements to stories, newsletters and promotional emails.

Though you don’t have to emulate Buzzfeed, add GIFs to a how-to article or list of tips to attract (and keep) your audience’s attention. A story sprinkled with Olivia Pope GIFs or other popular figures can spike both views and shares.

GIFs can also pack a punch to an otherwise mundane marketing email or newsletter. Show off a campaign, contest or announcement, and your message will probably stick longer in readers’ minds.

4. Repurpose instructions and videos.

Looking to get more play from a list of instructions or a video you created for consumers or employees?

Turn them into GIFs and share across social media, in story roundups or email updates. About.me showed followers how to cook bacon perfectly to celebrate Twitter allowing GIFs in 2014.

Use gifs to turn any YouTube video—including your own—into a looping visual. The tool is easy to use: Pop in a YouTube URL, select the portion you’d like to make into a GIF. and download your finished project. We even immortalized one of our very own editors at Ragan Communications.

5. Show off your prowess with a collection.

Increase your Internet cred by curating the best GIFs through a Tumblr blog or Flipboard magazine.

You can also sign up for a Giphy account and mark your favorites from the website for future use, making it even easier to grab visuals for social media posts and stories. You might also create your own Giphy channel, which displays the GIFs you’ve uploaded to the website—including each GIF’s source information and tags.

By sharing your GIF collection with others, you not only offer followers fun and useful visuals, but you also let them know that your organization has its finger on the pulse of current trends.


Source : http://bit.ly/1L5ctrf

Instagram Images: How to Stand Out on Instagram

Is your business on Instagram?Are you curious about what to post?

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Peg Fitzpatrick, the co-author of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, which she wrote with Guy Kawasaki. She is also a social media strategist and an expert in visual marketing. Her clients include Motorola, Audi, Google, Virgin and others.

Peg will explore Instagram marketing ideas that are easy to put to use right away.

You’ll discover tools to use for your Instagram images.

Instagram Images

How Peg got started on Instagram

Peg first discovered Instagram when looking for apps for her iPad. This was shortly after the iPad first came out. She loaded Instagram and loved it, but no one she knew was on it.

Then, when Pinterest came out, Peg, like a lot of people, thought Pinterest and Instagram were the same, because they were both about images. Although she initially chose to focus on Pinterest, after she learned more about both platforms, Peg discovered how different the two were.

When Peg went back to Instagram, she saw it was a great place for people to have conversations.

Even if you know lots of people on Facebook, Peg believes Instagram is where you can build a community. As a blogger or entrepreneur, it’s the kind of place you want to go to meet new people.

Listen to the show to learn about why more people didn’t get on Instagram immediately.

Instagram challenges for marketers

Peg believes social media is challenging for marketers because they want to look at things in a more traditional way: how to get people to do x, y and z. The newer platforms, like Snapchat and Instagram, are even more challenging. It’s not easy to write a viral blog post or post a YouTube video that goes viral.

Instagram is limited, Peg says, because you just get that one link in your bio and there are no links in the comments.

While a blogger might not see the value in Instagram (“Why should my blog be on Instagram if there’s no link for people to click every day?”), brands are getting more engagement on Instagram than any other social platform. It creates brand awareness that leads more people to your business, events and products.

The biggest mistake marketers make, Peg says, is they aren’t posting enough. On a recent panel, Peg heard Instagram people who have 500,000+ followers say they post multiple times per day. One of them posts 8 or 10 times per day. And they post excellent content.

It takes more time to create an Instagram post. Although you can share a blog post immediately, with Instagram you have to create the image, write the text and figure out all of the things that go with it.

On Facebook, people don’t post enough either. On Martha Stewart’s Facebook pagethey post every hour. Of course she probably has the biggest backlog of content of any person ever, Peg adds.

Ideas for what to post

Peg says there are basic things to post on Instagram, such as pictures of what you’re doing or where you are. If you’re at an event, it’s fun to post pictures of people you meet or do selfies. You can post a day in the life at your blog or business, pictures of your team or behind the scenes at your company.

Show pictures of wherever you happen to be to give more of a human connection with your company.

For example, Peg explains how she uses Instagram to promote a webinar before it starts to give people one more chance to click and join. She’ll share a photo of her computer monitor with something related to the webinar on it.

Before a Google+ hangout, she’ll take pictures in the green room to share. She’ll either take a photo with her phone or do a picture of the screen. For example, if she’s about to do a Google hangout with Guy Kawasaki and Gary Vaynerchuk, she’ll take a behind-the-scenes photo that’s interesting and funny, and also chronicles what they’re doing.

It’s part of creating and sharing your journey, as well as celebrating the things that go on.

Listen to the show to hear what picture Peg posted when she was a guest at the first Social Media Marketing World.

What to put in an Instagram post

Peg explains her method for creating Instagram posts for her blog content.

She creates a square image and then treats the description as a mini blog post, rather than a quick update. It’s important to give enough information in the post that people will get a sense of it and start a conversation.

Start with a good image. While 640 x 640 pixels is the official Instagram biggest size, they will scale it down. You never want to have them scale images up, because that’s when they get blurry. Peg does a 735 x 735 image.

Next, write an intro in the text. Peg will ask a question, add a couple of sentences and then ask a closing question. She also writes “click the link in my bio” in the description, as well as in the “location” for the photo.

Instagram allows you to add a location. If you’re somewhere else, that’s one thing. However, if you’re at home or in your office, you can put a call to action in the location section manually. It will save to your phone too, so you can pull it up again.

Another option is to put the link as text in the comments. This is especially easy, given the way Instagram looks on desktop. Rather than say “cut and paste this,” write it as a call to action that reads, “If you’re on desktop or mobile, just cut and paste this.”

When you add that in your comments, it stays on your Instagram post. So next week when you switch your main link to a different blog post, someone who’s looking back through your old content will be able to cut and paste the exact link.

Listen to the show to discover what kinds of behind-the-scenes photos we took while getting ready for Social Media Marketing World.

Instagram marketing strategy

Peg says you don’t want to build your entire Instagram marketing plan on quotes, but they really are popular. She tries to put her own spin on everything, so if she does a quote, she asks a question with it. Just make sure the content you’re sharing relates to your business goals somehow. There needs to be a reason to share it, other than to post a quote.

Infographics and anything with bullet points or lists are also good. For example, on list posts, share a few tips and tell your audience to click through to read the rest.

Another idea is to put multiple pictures together using a tool like Canva. If you take a bunch of photos at an event, just make a collage to share, rather than overwhelm your audience (and yourself) with tons of photos.

Peg suggests branding your Instagram images. Unless you do this, when people repost your images, their audience won’t know they came from you. Include a watermark with your URL or a line at the bottom with your logo or website.

Listen to the show to learn about Iconosquare and the Facebook Mentions app.

Instagram tools

Peg doesn’t take photos in the Instagram app, because they don’t save on your phone. If you take a few pictures and only share one, the others could get lost.

Instead, she takes pictures in SmugMug’s Camera Awesome app for iOS and Android. It has a grid, plus you can crop and edit photos in the app. Peg doesn’t spend a lot of time editing. She’ll just take the photo and use one filter in Instagram.

Peg also likes the Over app, also for iOS and Android. It takes photos and adds different fonts and overlays. For example, if you’re a coffee fan, they have coffee art. They also do seasonal updates for things like back to school or holidays.

Word Swag, a popular iOS app, allows you to add your logo to photos. Word Swag looks templated because there are tons of things you can do with it, and Over looks more personalized and customized.

Peg also mentions a video tool called Phhhoto, which makes animated GIF videos that are perfect for Instagram.

As far as scheduling is concerned, Hootsuite came out with a brand-new Instagram integration. Now, you can load images for your Instagram account into Hootsuite ahead of time.

Although Hootsuite calls it “scheduling,” what it actually does is send a message to your phone telling you to post. Then you go into the app, and manually post the image to Instagram. This is great for brands that have several people posting for them.

Listen to the show to discover how to find people to follow on Instagram.

Discovery of the Week

Katch.me is for all the diehard Meerkat and Periscope users who want more functionality from those apps, and are frustrated with some of their limitations. For example, you can’t have replays after 24 hours on certain apps and there isn’t a quick way to easily share. Katch offers solutions.

Sign in to Katch, connect it to your Meerkat or Periscope account or both, and it will collect your broadcasts in one place with cloud storage and instant replays.

It works automatically, as long as the account is hooked up. Shortly after you finish your broadcast, Katch sends out a tweet to watch the replay.

Katch is a free app.

Source : http://bit.ly/1FlteBu  If you have time you must listen the podcast . 

9 Lessons For Entrepreneurs From A Sales Expert

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe that a great idea alone will assure business success. Experts argue that it’s more important to have a great plan, and personal business acumen. 

Hardly anyone mentions selling principles. Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business.

In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. 

Based on my many years of watching entrepreneurs struggle and too often fail, here are some of his key lessons for dedicated sales professionals that every entrepreneur should take to heart:

1. Focus on what customers want to buy, not what you want to sell. You can either find customers for your solution or you can find solutions for your customers. The smart answer is to find solutions your customers need. Putting all your effort into driving your favorite solution can lead to forgetting the problem being addressed in the first place.
2. Your first idea about where pain resides is nearly always wrong. Smart founders and smart salesmen look for customers with a painful problem, rather than pushing a nice-to-have solution. No pain usually means no sales. Then every startup has to learn to pivot, because their first understanding of the real problem is usually not quite right.
3. Your price and their value are not the same thing. Entrepreneurs set the price of their solution based on their costs, and their perception of value. Customers set value based on similar products found. For example, with smartphone apps, most are free. Thus, no matter what your value, it’s hard to build an app business that makes money today.
4. You and the customer have to be on the same side. Too many entrepreneurs, especially ones with work-at-home schemes and multi-level marketing, believe that someone has to lose to help them win. Like many salespeople, they see themselves as hunters. With the best solutions, the customer gets value which exceeds your revenue.
5. You are not the servant of your customer. At the same time, every customer isn’t always right. Entrepreneurs need to be customer advocates, but not a slave to their every whim. Businesses must part quickly with low-profit or abusive customers to focus on those who deliver greater return, and appreciate the value their solution provides.
6. Proactively look for problems, rather than react only. In every new business, as in every sales territory, problems happen. Reacting to a customer crisis is always more expensive to recover, than to view a problem brewing, and head it off with proper actions. That mentality has to be part of the culture of every startup team member from the start.
7. Make the tough decision rather than no decision. It’s easy for entrepreneurs to postpone decisions in tough situations, in favor of more study. Yet a startup image can be destroyed more quickly than a big auto company, by not taking action on a customer problem today. Sales people alike, who won’t face their fears, lose in the long run.
8. Telling isn’t selling. Having a snappy presentation on your solution or startup is great, but it’s only half the battle. Entrepreneurs need to actively listen to customers, investors, and other constituents, just like sales people need to listen before they talk. Push marketing doesn’t work well today, in the age of interactive networking and peer reviews.
9. People buy from people and companies they like. Entrepreneurs who fail to invest in establishing rapport with their customers will suffer the same consequences as sales people who don’t put themselves in the shoes of their prospects. Through social media and customer interaction, you must convince customers that your culture matches theirs.
   
Morrison espouses a selling success triangle of good techniques, behavior, and attitude, to turn prospecting opportunities into business success and personal value. Again, these same attributes are equally relevant for an entrepreneur turning an idea into a business. So before you conclude that your technology alone will catapult you to riches, take a success lesson from some super sales people who have learned the hard way.


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