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Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Self Improvement

Perfect is the Enemy of Good

from Entrepreuner.com

File under: Self-Improvement

I have a sticky note on my monitor with the quote “Perfect is the enemy of good - Voltaire” and I found out from the following article that I have misquoted the famous French writer and philosopher. The meaning is still the main point, which is why I keep it there. If you’re like me, you tend to overthink and want to make things perfect before you launch them.

“Good” will get your product to market and move the ball forward. “Perfect” freeze you before you begin. Doubts start to creep in, and you’ll never move forward.

Neil Patel, a serial entrepreneur and online marketing expert, has an article on Entrepreneur.com about the subject, you can read it HERE:

Photo by Jonathan Hoxmark on Unsplash

“I’m just checking in…”

Communication

"I'm just checking in..."

from HubSpot

File under: Communication

I’m not going to lie. I delete almost (sometimes I’m weak) every email that comes to me that starts with “I’m just checking in…” or “I’m sorry to bother you…”.

Karla Cook from HubSpot (@krla_cook) posted an article that is a useful guide on how to get that useless chatter out of your emails. The goal with any business writing, be it marketing copy or simply business communication, you don’t want to sound like everyone else.

HubSpot goes into detail about why each phrase is not good. I think the overarching message is, “Don’t sound like everyone else! Stand out!”

Read the post here 10 Business Email Phrases to Stop (& Start) Using With Clients

Photo by Rupert Britton on Unsplash

If ‘We’ score 80 and ‘You’ score 20… ’We’ lose

Communication

If ‘We’ score 80 and ‘You’ score 20… ’We’ lose

from Social Media Examiner

File under: Communication

How often have you gone to someone’s website and read, “We focus on the customer, and we do wonderful things, and we do it better than anyone, and we can solve all your needs, and we can...and we do...and we...and we…”?

‘If’ you read the whole page, it’s a good chance that you still don’t know why they are different because those words seem to be the same words that you read on their competitor’s website too.

On Social Media Examiner’s blog, they interview Pool Company owner and Marketing Guru Marcus Sheridan. It’s pretty eye-opening stuff about how to phrase your website (and all your marketing language as a whole).

The mistake he mentions that I see the most is the ‘We vs. You’ mistake. Here it is below:

"Here’s another test that you can do with your site right now. Count the ratio of “we” versus “you” on the website. You or yours. We or our.

If you look at most homepages, you’ll see that it’s 80% “we.” So if you have ten statements using “we” versus “you,” eight are going to be “we”-based, and two are going to be “you”-based. It needs to be the other way around."

This article is well worth the 15 minute read. Fair warning, it may cause you to get more business because you’ll feel compelled to re-write everything.

You’ve been warned.

 

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Don’t Fish in the Desert

Social Media

Don't Fish in the Desert

from HubSpot

Social Media

File under: Social Media

You probably fall into one of three general categories. You are one of the following:

  • You are an avid social media person
  • You have an account but don’t use it much, or
  • You are a social media hermit

There are subcategories, of course (I’m talking to you, Facebook Anonymous Members), but three general categories, in my opinion.

If you are looking to do some marketing on social, you need to know which ones your customers are using and why. Just because you are a big fan of Pinterest, for example, doesn’t mean your customers are. They may be, but you should do some research.

HubSpot has a useful post here about who is using which platform to specifically research products.

Take a look here

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-product-research

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Advertising

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

from Buffer

Hear Ye

File under: Advertising

You wouldn’t walk the streets with a sandwich board, would you? Don’t do the equivalent with your advertising.

Creating a custom audience allows you to clone your best clients for your advertising. This cloned audience will save you money on advertising and increase sales by targeting those people most likely to buy from you.

Custom audiences will save you advertising dollars and increase sales. What better reason to jump into it?

Buffer has a useful post on how to build custom audiences on all the major social media platforms; you can read it here:

https://buffer.com/resources/a-crash-course-in-custom-audiences-for-your-social-media-ads

 

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‘Showing up is 80 percent of life.’ Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both. – Woody Allen

seo

‘Showing up is 80 percent of life.’ Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed.

I’ve done both.

- Woody Allen

from Duct Tape Marketing

Showing up

File under: SEO

Just showing up might help you reach the top of google in local SEO too.

Local SEO isn’t that hard. It does have a lot of moving parts. You CAN ‘show up’ on that coveted first page of google if you take Woody’s advice and ‘show up’ and put in the time to do it.

Duct Tape Marketing has a guide to walk you through the process of the basics.

https://ducttapemarketing.com/local-seo-playbook/

Photo by Melanie Pongratz on Unsplash

 

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

Business Development

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

from Workfront

Learn from others mistakes

File under: Business Improvement

Every small business has a dream of moving on to the next level like it's a video game. We all want to level up. One of the things you can do is to look at the higher levels and how they do things to see what they do well and what they do terribly. Learn from others' mistakes.

Workfront, a project management software company, produces an annual paper called "The State of Work" and the 2020 edition is out. It does research in companies of 500 employees and up. Its clients are enterprise size clients. You probably don't have that many employees, but you can still learn from the data. Here are a couple of things that stood out to me:

"Company decisions don't always rely on data. Only 46% believe business decisions are made based on data."

    • Where can you get data on your business? Don't make gut decisions when detailed data is available. The hard part of balancing that is paralysis by analysis. Don't miss an opportunity because you are too busy chasing data to make a decision, either.

"People expect consumer ease and simplicity at work. 94% saying searching at work should match the ease of Googling."

    • This is a big one for me. My background in training has ingrained the "Training Manual" into my head. Start building a manual for your business, and put it on google docs so that it can be edited and searched. It will make everything more accessible to employees.

There is a lot of other useful data here to look at and to use as inspiration as you continue to grow your business to the next level.

https://www.workfront.com/campaigns/state-of-work

 

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“When to email, or when not to email: that is the question” – Hamlet

email marketing

“When to email, or when not to email: that is the question”

- Hamlet

from HubSpot

Email Marketing

File under: Email Marketing

Ok, so Hamlet didn’t really ponder that, but I know I do, and so do you probably. If you use email as a marketing tool (if not, you should start) you have had to have this question in your head:

‘Which day and what time should I send it?’

The success of any email campaign is how many people open it and interact with it. There is a myriad of things that will affect that, but the timing of it is one of the first details. While this is still more art than science, there is some data that can give you some guidance.

HubSpot provides some evidence as to when it’s best to send them.

Read more here: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-time-to-send-email

 

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Don’t get old

Social Media

Don't get old.

from HubSpot

Don't get old

File under: Social Media and Development

"ANYONE WHO STOPS LEARNING IS OLD, WHETHER AT TWENTY OR EIGHTY."

—HENRY FORD

 

Kayla Carmicheal from HubSpot put some work into this list of Social Media courses you can take on your own time.

I subscribe to Ford's conviction that anyone who stops learning is old, but not just for the ability to stave off age. Lifelong learning has been proven to work wonders on your career, social life, as well as lifespan. Lifelong Learning Is Good for Your Health, Your Wallet, and everything in-between.  Harvard Business Review has a great piece about that here.

Take a look at the exhaustive list that Kayla put together and take a course or two! I regularly recommend HubSpot Academy. It's free and has proved incredibly useful.

Read Kayla's whole post here https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-marketing-courses

 

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