Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

According to the biography on the great man, Napoleon Hill’s wife at the time, Rosa Lee wrote the manuscript for the greatest motivational, financial and non-fiction book of all time..

In fact she wrote THREE manuscripts for the book…Hill had this to say about her enthusiasm…“…By the time she had finished the manuscript on the third rewrite…the tips of her fingers were so worn and blistered she had to tape them so she could work…”

The biography all this is revealed in was written by Michael J. Ritt jr. and Kirk Landers - Michael J. Ritt jr. worked with Napoleon Hill for ten years towards the latter end of Hill’s working life.

Very interesting little fact I found and wanted to share….

Technorati Tags: napoleon-hill, think-and-grow-rich, thinkandgrowrich, napoleon, hill

This the second post in a short series of posts on Facebooks new advertising programs - Social Ads, Facebook Pages and Facebook Beacon. Check out the first post in the series here..

Ok, so today we are here to talk about the wonderful world of Facebook Pages.

Facebook Pages are one of the newest features the team over in Palo Alto, Calif. have recently launched, along side Social Ads and Facebook Beacon (more to come).

So What Exactly is a Facebook Page ?

A Facebook Page is simply a modified facebook profile designed purely for businesses, bands, no-profits or even celebrities to interact with their ‘fans’.

Other Facebook users can express their support by adding themselves as a fan, as opposed to becoming a ‘friend’.

Basically, on the surface it appears no different to a typical profile, which is why it’s been launched without much fan-fare (pardon the bad punn) from the blogosphere… but from a marketing perspective it’s a whole lot more powerful.

Here’s why…

1. You Can Send Updates To Your Fans Regularly

See, unlike facebook profiles where it can be a royal pain in the rear trying to community with all your friends at once, sending ‘email’ blasts to all your fans is a breeze.

Having a tonne of fans, is exactly the same as having a traditional email database you do blasts too… But inside Faceboook there is no spam or no junk mail to contend with and with internet users opting for communication services like facebook over hotmail and traditional email its where the web is headed people.

In the current landscape of the web, deliverability is one of the biggest issues facing marketers.. but here inside Facebook it’s not an issue at all - your messages go straight to their facebook-inbox and their news feed (I think)

2. You Can Add STUFF to your Facebook Page

Just like a facebook profile, but in a much ‘cleaner’ way, you can engage/interact with your fans via videos, reviews, flash content, and much more.

For example, one of the biggest Facebooks Pages to date is that of the great band - The Dave Matthews Band - where they have added a tonne of this cool STUFF to their page… such as a discography, a bunch of pics, and online music player plus an online shop where fans can buy sh*t.

Ed Dale has done this really well on his Facebook Profile aswell - Here he has added a small number of videos, a few disucssion topics for his fans to gather and communicate (it’s basically a mini-social-network) plus he has already started to use the point above to communicate to his already 991+ fans.

3. Your Fans Love You, and their friends will know it too.

When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, the actions they take are automatically generated into social stories and added to thier News Feed, which their friends will see the next time they log into Facebook.

So when they become a fan, it’s link back to their Facebook profiles news feed, which in turn virally invites more people to interact with your page, which generates more social stories and drives even more traffic to your Page - it’s viral marketing on steroids.

As they say “Think of it as word-of-mouth marketing, only completely free and happening online.”

4. Link It All Together With Social Ads

Some of the feedback I’ve got from my original post on Facebooks social ads, was on the fact that Facebook will not allow you to send traffic to a squeeze page… and savvy marketers kept asking ‘what’s the point if I can’t capture names for a database’ - Well this is the answer…

Send them to a Facebook page about you particular niche topic and encourage them to become fans with videos and content (described in section 2). This way, their whole experience is inside Facebook, they will feel more comfortable and thus increase your conversion rates…

Here’s The Plug: As I meantioned the other day, Ed Dale and the crew at the Immediate Edge are creating a stella ‘how to’ course on using Facebook for internet marketing… and releasing the content for FREE to Immediate Edge members. They actually just realeased the first two videos of the series today and I must tell you it’s going to be amazing. Now, I haven’t spoken to Ed in the last day or so, so I don’t know what the course will cost when it’s actually launched to the general internet marketing community, but if Ed’s recent Dominiche course is anything to go by, the $97 to get into the Immediate Edge is an absolute bargin and you’d be mad not to join today.

P.S. Ed just released a short video on his Tubby Nerd blog you may be interested in - Check it out here.

P.P.S. If for some reason you are still not convinced joining the Edge is going to help you make bazillions online, i’ve got permission from Dan and Ed to create an ‘exclusive inside video tour’ of the Edge which I will post on the blog in a few days… Make sure you subscribe to the RSS Feed so you don’t miss that one.

P.P.P.S. Before you rush off to join the Edge, you may want to check out my “currently lame” Facebook Page and become a fan here… Please excuse the WannaBe America’s Next Top Model photo - I blame Fleur.

Click Here to become a Fan

Technorati Tags: facebook, social, ads, beacon, pages, ppc, pay-per-click, Google, Adwords, ed, dale, dan, raine, online, internet, marketing, immediate, edge, pete, williams, preneur, squeeze

It just arrived from ebay…an old skool nintendo… I think I’ve lost
Fleur for the next week

Facebook does it again… she got addicted to the MarioBros (nintendo)
app on facebook and “just had to by the real thing” for the house!

I wonder when I’ll get a chance to play duck hunt?!?

…Please excuse any typos as this is being sent from my iPhone

This is the first in a short series of posts on Facebooks new advertising programs - Social Ads, Facbook Pages and Facebook Beacon. .

So you may have heard about all the hype around Facebooks answer to Googles’ Adwords, I know Ed Dale, Dan Raine and the boys over at the Immediate Edge have been talking it up alot.

Well I am here to tell you - The Hype Is Justified, and my predication on November 9 was right on the money, even if I do say so myself

For niche marketers this is the biggest thing to happen on the internet since Googles’ Adwords program launched - it really is going to change the way you drive targeted traffic to your niche sites.

Now before I get into Facebooks Social Ads, I want to touch on why Googles PPC program is so effective…

With traditional advertising, online or offline, it was all about eyeballs - In most circumstances your only option was to pay for the ‘privilege’ to show your advert to prospects, be it via a magazine advert, a radio commercial or a TV slot. And, you’d be charged whether your you received a response or not.

This was all revolutionised when Google launched their Pay-Per-Click program - Adwords.

Adwords gave power back to the advertisers, by allowing them to only pay when their advertisements illicit a response - in the form of a click through to a particular website.

It was truly the best of times, because website owners were able to select the keywords and phrases most aligned with their content and only show their adverts to the target group of prospects who are pro-actively searching for those topics.

It was not only the most target advertising available but it only cost (mere cents) when it worked…. It was a marketers wet dream… until now.

Welcome in the New Era - Facebooks Ads.

By now you would be well aware of the phenomenon that is Facebook - and if you are one of the 25+ million people who use it twice a day add me as a friend. Yes, I said 25+ million people using it TWICE a day.

To be honest, when Microsoft paid $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook, I just couldn’t do the math - it just didn’t add up to me - but that’s just changed when Social Ads was launched on Nov 6.

During the launch, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hit the nail on the head when he said “Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online… For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do.”

Social Ads appear either within a user’s News Feed as sponsored content or in the ad space along the left side of the site. Instead of random messages from advertisers, Facebook launched to provide advertisements alongside related actions your friends have taken on the site.

These actions may be things like “Fleur is now a fan of Louis Vuitton”, “Justin wrote a review for Barnes ‘n’ Noble” or even “Rob just joined the Renegade Publicist newsletter” - (more on Facebook Pages & Facebook Beacon in future posts)

Wait For It… Drum Roll Please… Facebook PPC Social Ads

Yep, along with everything else, Facebook also launched a PPC program. Facebook Social Ads allow your business to become part of people’s daily conversations. Your ads can be displayed in the left hand Ad Space — visible to users as they browse Facebook to connect with their friends — as well as in the context of News Feed — attached to relevant social stories.

Instead of creating an advertisement and hoping that it reaches the right customers, you can create a Facebook Social Ad and target it precisely to the audience you choose - based on demographics.

See, Google PPC is great in that it allows you to target your ads based on keywords… but where Facebook takes it to a new level is the fact that it allows you to target based on keywords in a persons profile and demographics such as age, sex or martial status.

So as you can see above, you can get very specific and targeted with your adverts on Facebook… Now, imagine having an info-marketing business that sells products to say a ‘wedding market’, a ‘retired golfers’ or ‘male college students’ - you now have the ability to get really targeted and qualified with your advertisements online.

Which is what the boys inside The Immediate Edge are doing with one of the projects they are working on. If you are an internet marketer and not a member of The Edge, I really encourage you to consider joining because, word around the campfire is that Dan and Ed are in the process of creating a ‘course’ on Facebook Advertising and will be releasing most of the content to Edge members for FREE before they launch the actual product. - You can join here, and send gifts later.

Oh yeah, did I mention the clicks only cost around 5 cents again ?

P.S. Make sure you subscrbe to the RSS Feed, to keep on top of the next few posts covering Facebook Pages and Facebook Beacon… If you thought Social Ads were great, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

If you want to know more, here are some links: Ed Dale’s Facebook Podcast: http://tubbynerd.com/2007/11/22/the-podcast-is-back-and-what-a-return/ Facebook Social Ads: http://www.facebook.com/business/?socialads Facebook Advertising Guidelines: http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php Facebook Advertising Terms & Conditions: http://www.facebook.com/terms_ads.php How To Use Facebook Ads [You Tube Video]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aj8VRwxtlg How Facebook Social Ads Work: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/msid-2528347.cms Facebook’s Social Ad Network: What We (Think We) Know So Far: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/30/facebooks-social-ad-network-what-we-think-we-know-so-far/

Technorati Tags: facebook, social, ads, beacon, pages, ppc, pay-per-click, Google, Adwords, ed, dale, dan, raine, online, internet, marketing, immediate, edge, pete, williams, preneur

My mum has always been a huge chess fan, there was a stage when I was younger where we played together often… That period didn’t last very long though, because she was the one who often got to signify victory with the almighty cry of “Checkmate”, not me - and I hated that with a passion as I am not a good loser.

In business however, checkmate occurs when a customer says YES, opens their wallet and decides to take you, the salesperson, up on an offer.

Traditionally this ‘checkmate position’ would be known as ‘the almighty close’.

However, since any “checkmate decision” actually takes place in the brain of the customer, that buying decision is really outside the salespersons control - and thus makes closing the sale an impossibility…

This is the theory of Newsell (where the customer, not the salesperson, closes the sale) put forth by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, one of the greatest thinkers ever and the man whoco-founded the School of Thinking, with Edward de Bono, in New York in 1979.

Michael defines “checkmate” as occuring when a customer says I’ll buy it and offers her credit card, or when a buyer accepts the deal and signs the purchase order… or in show business, it’s when the director says, “You’re in!” and you get the part you auditioned for.

The main strategic feature of the checkmate situation is: the salesperson (you) CANNOT control checkmate.

In this “newsell” approach all the saleman can control is the check position…

And, the check position signifies any type of customer contact:
– check is a unit of measurement for ‘customer contact’
– check = CUSTOMER CONTACT = check
– check is when your meme enters the customers brain
– check is when one customer WOMs (word-of-mouth) another customer
– check is when it is possible for the customer to say NO or YES
– without check there can be no checkmate– check is the penultimate state, the set-up move for checkmate
– check is the position of the energy switch which makes it possible for checkmate to happen.

Whether you are making offers directly in person, via direct mail, an email auto-responder or even leaving messages on customers voicemail, in business, check is the moment of ANY customer contact.

Check occurs when you have put the prospect in a position that allows them to say YES or NO as a result of an offer made by you. In other words, the customer’s brain has been stimulated by some form of communication (check), so that the customer can/will respond by deciding whether to act or not to act - YES or NO.

Check is when;
– …you ask the customer a buying question
– …you mail the proposal
– …you meet in a boardroom for a presentation
– …you offer a free taste-test in the supermarket
– …you send out a press release to the media
– …you make the follow up call, after an earlier ‘check move’
– …you give an elevator speech; or
– …a hooker asks if you need some company for the night

The fundamental rule of Check Move Theory is that you the salesperson, CAN and must control check… It’s not about trying to “close the sale” with some ‘used-car-salesmann-swindle’, it’s about making as many “check moves” as possible… The more check moves you make, the more opportunities prospects have of saying YES.

On his website, ‘New Sell Coaching’, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson offers a free e-mail course which go’s into much more detail on ‘check move theory’ and covers things like – The UnCheck Position – What An OldSell Check Is – How To Implement A Check X10 Sequence – The T.C.B. – Even More Types of CheckMoves Pardon the punn, but “Check Out” the ‘New Sell Coaching Course’ and sign-up today here.

P.S. The really ironic thing about Michael’s course, is that he doesn’t try and sell a single thing throughout the course… Yep, not even one check is offered during the whole email course.



Download The Audio Version Here (Right Click and download it)

Technorati Tags: new-sell, check-move-theory, check, move, Michael-Hewitt-Gleeson, closing, sales, selling, sale, techniques, pete, williams, preneur