Sometimes less is more.

You don’t have to try and fill in every bit of white space when writing sales copy, designing a business card, or creating copy for your website. White space is a good thing. It gives room to “breathe” as the reader is going through your copy.

Even when writing a long sales letter, it’s best to write short paragraphs and give the reader short bursts of information. And double space between those short paragraphs.

Another place where less is more is when working with clients or making sales calls. You should talk less than you listen. Whether on the phone or in person, less is more in these situations.

Have you ever been in a conversation with a sales person who seemed to not take a breath leaving you no room to join the conversation? How did that make you feel?

Blogs should be kept to 250 words or less. Even a few short sentences in a blog will work if it gets your message across.

We live in a world that sometimes gives us too much information and too many options. Ever go into a restaurant and read through their 8-page menu trying to decide what you want?

Make it easy for your prospects and clients. Keep it simple, and keep it short.

Adhere to the less is more rule.

In keeping with the tone of this newsletter. That’s all I have to say this week.

It is a tough job market out there and a lot of people are spending a lot of time looking for a job. Maybe it’s time for a change.

It may be time to take a step back, and take a look at what you really have to offer the marketplace. Is what you have to offer only needed within the structure of a corporate environment? Or do you have skills that can be marketed to the “right” audience and turned into a viable business?

So many people never take the time to evaluate the skills they have that could be turned into something profitable without the “security” of a job. Or even worse, they sell themselves short and don’t think they are – smart enough, pretty enough, young enough, slim enough, blah, blah, blah – to do anything.

I also hear a lot of people say, “I’m too old to learn anything new.” What they are really saying is they are too lazy to learn anything new.

Please don’t fall into any of these traps. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking any of these things, or telling yourself any of these things. As I have written in previous newsletters, your self-talk is extremely important.

Take a realistic look at your skills, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. There are several resources available to help you with this, such as the DISC assessment.

If you want to improve your economic status, it may be time to invest part of the time you are spending looking for a job on starting a business.

Here are three things you can do today:

1. Take a realistic assessment of where you are now and what you have to offer.

2. Start developing your personal brand so people know who you are and what you can do.

3. Find a good business coach to help you through this process.

When you put these three things in motion, you will be surprised at the results. You will find that you are smarter and more innovative than you ever thought possible.

The only thing you can be sure of is that things will change. The economy will change. Your hairline and waistline will change. Your business will change. More than ever before, you have to be constantly evaluating your business model, your marketing strategies, and every other aspect of your business.

Things are moving too fast to sit around and wait very long for something to work. Money loves speed. Successful business owners are constantly testing new strategies, adding new services, removing old services, evaluating old ways of doing business to see if they are still working, and getting rid of things that are not working.

Even if you are selling widgets, there are a lot of ways you can promote the widget, shape the widget, manufacture the widget, and price the widget. You can even create a whole new line of widgets to target a different market.

This same logic applies whether you are selling a physical product (widgets) or selling professional services. Always be evaluating your business model to see if it still works for what you want to accomplish. This doesn’t necessarily mean you go into a completely different business.

Usually it’s just a matter of tweaking your current business model. It could be something as simple as adding another service to your offerings. For example, one of my services is building WordPress websites for businesses. I am in the process of adding additional services that I can offer the marketplace such as hosting, managing domain names, and geomarketing. All of these services fall under the umbrella of what I already do. So not much changes, other than being able to better serve my market (and I am creating new streams of revenue).

Is your current business model working? If not, what do you need to change? Are there additional products you could develop? Are there other services you could offer that your target market needs?

Embrace change!

I have always been a Grateful Dead fan. They were the first “jam band”, and they were ahead of their time in so many ways. For example, most of the music they played during their live performances was improvisational and not a lot was planned as far as the performance. You may see them in concert one night with one show and then see them a few nights later with a totally different show. That’s what made them interesting.

Another way they were ahead of their time is in how they ran their business. There are many business case studies on the Grateful Dead, but if you want a quick and interesting read on the subject, the book “Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead: What Every Business Owner Can Learn From The Most Iconic Band In History” by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan, covers it very well.

One of the chapters in the book discusses how they built such a loyal following. As early as 1968, they had someone in a booth at their live shows signing people up for their mailing list.

They also had a “call to action” on the inside of their “Skull and Roses” album that was released in 1971 – “Dead Freaks Unite: Who are you? How are you? Send us your name and address and we’ll keep you informed. Deadheads, P.O. Box 1065, San Rafael, California 94901″

This was the beginning of their fan club mailing list. They realized the importance of having a large list. Within six months they had over 10,000 names. Remember this was before social media and the internet. Within five years they had over 63,000 names which was quite a feat at the time. And their list continues to grow.

And these were very, very loyal followers of the band. These were not just “Facebook friends”. These were people who felt a very personal connection to the band. They were eager buyers of anything related to the Grateful Dead brand – CDs, t-shirts, concert tickets.

Think about that as you are building your list of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Are these people just taking up space in your social network or are they eager fans and buyers of your products and services?

It’s one thing to have 5000 Facebook friends. It’s quite another thing to have 5000 Facebook friends who are loyal followers, fans, and buyers of your products and services.

What do you tell yourself when you lose a sale or when you lose a client? Do you evaluate the situation to see what you could have done differently, learn from it, and move on or do you start doubting yourself and your abilities?

Don’t let things that happened in the past affect your future. Be very aware of your internal dialoque. Here are six causes of a bad internal dialogue:

1. Unrealistic expectations.

2. Lack of confidence or low self-esteem.

3. Not clear on what you are supposed to be doing.

4. Not clear on what you offer and the value you deliver.

5. Seeking counsel from the wrong people.

6. Comparing yourself to others.

Here are six action steps you can take to improve your internal dialogue:

1. Get a clear picture of what your expectations are for yourself and your business.

2. Put together a plan of action to meet those expectations.

3. Find your own path. It’s your journey. What works for one person may not work for another.

4. Think about who and what you are becoming rather than thinking about where you are right now.

5. Celebrate the small victories. Focus on the things that are going right.

6. When you do something wrong or make a bad decision, let it go. Learn from it and move on.

Doing all of these things will take you a long way towards developing a better internal dialogue (and building a better business).

It’s important to measure everything in your business to make sure you are maximizing every opportunity that’s presented to you.

Here are three areas in your business you need to benchmark or measure – sales calls, technology, time.

Sales calls should be measured and analyzed constantly. You can do this by creating something as simple as an excel spreadsheet to track your results. Create columns for calls made, people talked to, proposals sent, closed deals, etc. Just create something that works for you so you can track your numbers. Keep it simple.

How many visitors are you getting to your website every day? Are there specific times or days of the week that are busier than others? Is one of your pages getting more traffic than any of the others? Google Analytics will give you all this information and more. You can benchmark the performance of your website just like every other aspect of your business.

How many hits are you getting on your social media? There are several tools you can use to measure your social media. For example, you can measure your Facebook Page results by using Facebook Insights. Go to your Facebook Page and on the right side you can click on View Insights. Or go to Facebook Help and do a search on Insights.

Many times a lack of results or lack of consistent income in a business can be traced back to poor time management. There is nothing more important in your business than being aware of how you are spending your time and making sure you are spending enough of your time on the tasks that will grow your business and make money. Keep track of how you are spending your time and hours worked for a few weeks. This will be a real eye-opener.

You cannot stay in business without benchmarking and measuring every aspect of your business. If it can’t be measured, then you may not need to do it.

Consumer buying patterns have not changed that much over the years. But the way people approach the buying process, and the tools they have available for researching their purchase before they buy have changed dramatically.

Awareness of your product or service is the first part of the buying process. So make sure you are making your target market aware that you exist. It is your responsibility to raise awareness in the marketplace, and to prove that you are the best person to deliver a particular product or service. You can do this through networking, direct mail, advertising, cold calling, speaking, your website, and various other means. You just have to find the ones that work best for you and your business.

The research part of the process is where the most dramatic changes have taken place. There are so many tools available for people to use for researching your product or service. They can use social media, user reviews on sites like Amazon.com, and other similar tools. And all of these tools have increased the effectiveness of word-of-mouth referrals because everyone has free access to so much information.

As the buyer does their research it is easier than ever to comparison shop to find the best price and best value using the same tools mentioned above.

The final step of the process is for them to shop and make their purchase. You should make the process of shopping and making the purchase as streamlined and easy for the customer as possible, especially on your website. It’s too easy for someone to click away from your web page.

So make sure you have all the bases covered – awareness, research, comparison, shop, and purchase.

It’s more important than ever that you make information freely available so potential purchasers of your product or service can make the most informed decision possible. We live in an age of total transparency. So be real. The more authentic and transparent you are, the higher your chances of making the sale.

There are three areas of your business that have to be working for you to move forward in your business: marketing, business development, digital media.

Marketing includes networking, direct mail, advertising, writing sales copy, speaking.

Business development includes things like sales, prospecting, lead generation, follow-up, list building.

Digital media is anything you do online. Social media, pay-per-click advertising, video, WordPress website, QR Codes, and article marketing will fall under this category.

You have to be doing all of these things every day if you want your business to grow.

It’s so easy to let certain aspects of your business fall by the wayside if something starts to become difficult or too time consuming. But you have to be aware of each of these areas and your status in each of these areas if you want to grow your business and make more money.

I see marketing and digital media as more passive ways to grow your business while the strategies under business development require a more aggressive approach.

That is why business development is sometimes disregarded. It’s an area where some people tend to procrastinate. It’s the hard stuff because you actually have to pick up the phone to call someone or follow-up with a potential client. Be willing to do the hard stuff.

If you learn to focus on all three areas – marketing, business development, digital media – every day, you will reap the rewards.

Is customer service that hard?

I stopped by McDonald’s recently to get a cup of coffee. I told the person at the register what I wanted. He took my money and then took orders from the next three people. Then he proceeded to help fill their orders. After their orders were filled, I asked if I could get my cup of coffee.

He seemed frustrated that I asked him to do such a difficult task and poured me a half cup of coffee. One half of a cup of coffee!!! He then went to the next customer to take their order. So I stood in line to see if he could continue to fill my cup. When I got to the front of the line, he poured more coffee in the cup. Now it was close to 3/4 full. He put it in front of me with no apology and without saying a word. He didn’t ask if I needed anything else. Nothing. He then proceeded to get the next customer’s order.

They weren’t very busy. He actually had time to talk to someone who knew his parents. But he could not fill one cup of coffee for me.

How can this be so hard? This is just one example of bad customer service with no apologies.

I understand the pay at McDonald’s is not that great and the work is not easy sometimes. But if you don’t want to do it. Get another job or do something else.

Also had a problem with my air-conditioner. The air-conditioning repair person told me they would be at my home between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM on Friday. They arrived at 7:30 PM.

This type of customer experience happens all the time. Why has this become acceptable behavior in our society?

What is the customer experience for people who purchase your product or service? Are you doing everything you can to make sure everybody gets what they need?

We all fall short sometimes. If you deal with enough clients, you will eventually have issues because the reality is, you can’t please everyone.

But the important thing is how you handle these issues. Are you keeping the communication open so you take care of any issues your clients may have as quickly as possible in a professional way? Do you have empathy for their situation?

Every customer is not going to be satisfied, but even a dissatisfied customer can become a loyal customer if you keep the communication lines open and handle any issues with empathy and professionalism. Doing this will differentiate you from almost everyone else out there and keep your customers loyal to you, your product, and your service.

I would love to hear your thought on this.

Is marketing all about Facebook and Twitter now? I don’t think so. Traditional marketing is alive and well.

But too many people are spending too much time on social media and their whole marketing strategy is out of balance.

The key is to have the right mix of traditional marketing strategies along with your online marketing strategies. You need both to survive in this new economy.

The real power of an online marketing strategy comes from the relationships you build offline using traditional marketing and having face-to-face contact with people.

What do traditional marketing and online marketing have in common?

With both strategies you must:

1. Clearly identify your target market.

2. Communicate your message to your target market.

3. Build the know, like, and trust factor.

4. Provide value.

5. Clearly articulate the benefits of working with you.

6. Be consistent in your marketing efforts.

7. Have systems in place to track your progress. (You have to know your numbers.)

8. Differentiate yourself from everyone else out there who is providing the same service.

And they both require a lot of hard work.

Don’t view social media and other online marketing techniques as THE way to market your business. They are just tools in your marketing toolbox and nothing more.