Help A Friend

Today I was out with, in my opinion, the most talented sushi chef I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. We had a very long discussion about business, in particular advertising & marketing. After about an hour of general talking I started to quickly see both the differences and similarities of my business and his restaurant. Once I saw this I knew what I wanted to do next. I offered my assistance to him completely free of charge to help take is already very profitable restaurant.

My first step was research to find out what people are currently saying about his place online. Luckily this is so much easier now that their are sites like Yelp! and Citysearch.com. After reviewing these sites I was able to find his strength and weaknesses. I have composed this into a power point along with a marketing strategy I am building for him. I am doing a 3 tier plan that will roll out over the next 7 months. My hope is to increase his business by more than 55% over the next year.

Why do I do all this work for free you ask? Well when I first started I asked my self the very same question. When I initially started I planned to create a marketing plan to sell to him. But, then after spending time with him I quickly saw a great passion I had in working with a restauranture. For this reason I took on his project as a test case so to create a marketable plan to other restaurants. My hope is to get something I can recreate and then mass duplicate to all restauranture's.

I share this with all of you so you can see that sometimes you have to work very hard for very little to get a lot in return. So next time you see something you can exploit for money ask your self is it worth exploiting it now, or work to make it better then sell it for huge profit.

From Misc. . .

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Help A Friend” shows why offering your help with no want of payment can commonly lead to the largest sales of your life. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

Creating Landing Pages that Convert

It is expensive to buy traffic using pay per click. It is expensive to “optimize” your website pages for natural search. In both cases, the ultimate goal is to convert these clicks to conversions so that you see a nice return on your investment (ROI). One way to increase your ROI is to increase the conversion rate on the pages that visitors land on when they click on your ads or visit your site as a result of natural search.

There are really two kinds of landing pages; campaign specific landing pages, and organic searched pages. People who know what they want click on ads, and they are different from organic searchers doing research. They want what they searched for, and they want it fast. Your landing pages should provide them with facts, take them exactly where they want to be without any hassles, and make it simple for them to get what they want.

So what should you consider when designing your pages to increase conversions?

What is the Most Effective Landing Page?
Avoid using your home page as your landing page. Create specific landing pages for every ad and paid search term. If this seems daunting, remember that retailers can use the "product page" as a landing page, and service providers can use the "service page". However, if you have the time and resources, the most effective thing to do is to create landing pages specifically targeted towards your PPC campaign. This provides you with more freedom to customize the design of your landing page.

If the ad campaign is a temporary offer, you won't want this landing page indexed by search engines, and you can use the robots.txt file to tell search engine spiders not to index it. It would be embarrassing if you remove the ad listing but consumers continue to find this landing page because it appears in the natural search results.

What Goes On the Landing Page?
Make sure your landing pages answers these questions:
• What's the offer?
• Who's interested?
• Why are they interested, and why should they take further action?
• How do they get started?

On your landing pages, start with benefits, not features, and use persuasive wording.
• Be Concise – If you use paragraphs, use one idea per paragraph and use no more than three lines. Use bullet points. Make headlines bold and prominent.
• Match the Wording on your Landing Page
• Use a Big Call-To-Action Image Button – placed in the top right of the page.
• Show the Price, show the shipping information.
• Make Sure the Page is Grammatically Correct
• Show Credibility – Add testimonials, awards, partners, associations. Show product ratings or reviews. Include a phone number! You want to establish trust.
• Don’t Clutter the Page, and Use Images – make sure the landing page looks professional and appealing. Put graphic on the left side. Make sure the page looks good on a mobile phone.
• Show some cross-sells. Show “best sellers” or “best value” services.
• Use Short Forms – do your need to have more information than: Full Name, Email, Phone, Product or Service interest?
• Thank You. Make sure you thank them afterwards. You can even give them an unexpected bonus like a link to a survey or a case study.


The Message From Your Ad Listing
Make sure the content on your landing pages works with your ad copy, and follows through on your ad promise. For example, if your ad says you are a low cost provider, show them price comparisons on the landing page. In this way you begin to establish trust with your site visitors because your message is consistent, from the ad to your landing page. Trust will increase your sales and encourage long-time customers.

Position Critical Information At the Top of the Page
Your landing page does not have to be short, but all the important information, like benefits and the order button should be visible without scrolling. Web developers refer to this as "above the fold." Since people use different size screens and different browsers, make sure you test this information placement. Your landing page might look great on a 1024x768 screen resolution, but most of your visitors are still using 800x600 screen resolution, and they won’t see the buy button without scrolling. Make sure this is not the case.

Don’t Give Visitors Too Many Navigational Choices
On really targeted landing pages, you should completely remove the website navigation and provide only links which will help complete the sale (such as shipping information and the privacy policy).

You don’t want to give customers too many choices on your landing pages. It might distract them before they buy. Once they complete their purchase, then you can take them to a "thank you" page that offers them links to search the rest of your site.

Use Action Words
Use words that easily convey what you want the visitor to do, like Buy Now, Sign Up, Download, and Add to Cart. In addition, make sure you put the words in a place on the page where they will be noticed. Many people ignore the top 60 pixels of a screen because that's where they expect to see a banner ad. Make your buttons large, graphical, and brightly colored, and put them in the middle of the landing page, above the fold.

Consider the Google Quality Score:
Since many of the landing pages you will be designing will correspond directly to your Google Adwords campaigns, it is important to understand the Google Quality Score.

An Amazing Article by my marketing mentor, trusted advisor, & Great Friend
Sue McCrossin, PA Internet Marketing

A Sale is Everywhere!

Walking down the street one night I see a van parked on the street and I notice on the side of the van it says, "Call 24/7 We Are Here to Serve You When You Need Us!" Now understand this is around 1:00am when I see this, so I decided to put this saying to the test. When I called I got a voice mail saying leave your info and we will call you back. Of course I leave my canned message saying, "Why do you say you are available 24/7 and I get voicemail? Call me tomorrow and get a live service 24/7 like you promise!"

The next morning I get a call from a not so happy service technician letting me know that my call woke him up after only getting 2 hours of sleep. Oops! LOL! But, then about 2 hours later his boss calls me and says that he was very intrigued by what I have to offer. Needless to say remembering that a sales opportunity is everywhere I am now closing a $1000.00 per month account for making a simple call at 1am.

As a sales person you have to remember no matter where you are or what you are doing you are always a sales representative. Now trust me I know how hard it is make sure you look perfect every moment of every day. But, you have to remember that it is worth everything you put into it. A famous saying, "says for every dollar you put into yourself in sales, you will see at least $100 in return." So next time you are getting ready to walk out of the door take a look and think how many dollars did you put into yourself today, and how much money is it going to make it become.

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “A Sale is Everywhere!” talks about how being ready to do business 24/7/365 is what is needed to be in sales. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

You Must Give To Get!

This week I learned possibly one of the most important pieces of my sales life thus far.

"It is better to take an order from a motivated referral, than it is to sell to a defensive buyer!"

What this saying means is that to become a great sales person, instead of just a good sales person you have to earn it.

So how do you earn it you ask!

It is simple! You earn it by making your value to your potential client so great that they start to see you as a friend, or better yet a trusted advisor, rather than some annoying sales person. To do this you must provide them with exactly what you are looking for, MORE BUSINESS!! Now I am not saying this is easy, trust me I grew up in sales and just figuring out now how to do this effectively, and it still is not easy!! But, I have already started to see just how much it pays off by working hard for your clients. Let me tell you what I have done so you can see how this can work for you.

This week I dedicated myself to taking the new people I have met at the YEC event I attended and finding them either new business from my current contacts or solutions to express issues they were having. I did this quickly and efficiently without them asking. I did it so that it was not seen as a burden rather a kind gesture on my part. Now, let me just tell you this was not by any shape or form easy. For 2 of them I spent almost 6 - 8 hours researching the best possibly client's for them and then calling upon my client's that fit in that category. But, the reward from all this hard work has just paid off is ACES!! One of the client's I did this for just referred me a multimillion dollar potential client that just started looking for call center services. Because of my hard work my client referred them to me and told the client there is no other call center they would ever trust more than ACA!

I wanted to tell you this whole story so you can see that this is not just smoke I am blowing up your back side to get you to read my blogs. This is real life, and real dollars and cents. If you are eager to make money, and when I say money I mean LOTS & LOTS of MONEY!!! Then you must be willing to put in the time and effort to make it worth your potential client's time to work with you and buy your product/services. You do this by research, backward referrals to your client, and always fulfilling on the promised you make to your clientele. Done properly the days of cold calls, cold lead selling, & begging clients for referrals will be over. The days of order taking for referrals sent over to you will begin. Then you can tell everyone how proud you are to FISH IN A BARRELL!!!


Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “You Must Give To Get!” talks about how giving value first really makes sales so much easier. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

A Night Networking

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending my first Young Executive Club of Chicago (YEC). Out of many of the events I have had the pleasure of attending I must say this was truly one of the best. Walking in it was very nerve racking as I knew no one at the event. But, after only 2 minutes I was knee deep in conversation with 4 executives an creating a great networking opportunity. If there is anyone in Chicago looking for an amazing networking group I would strongly urge you to look into YEC. If you have questions on the group please visit; http://www.youngexecutivesclub.org.

From Misc. . .

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “A Night Networking” is my personal review of a night out at a business networking event. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

For The Love of Sales

I was one of the lucky few who had the opportunity to grow up in the world of sales. This opportunity has allowed me to experience more networking, sales processes, and get more mentors than most other sales people. All of this experience led me to my sales motto that I tell everyone who I consult with. My motto sets up my entire life. From the way I dress, to the people I associate with. What is my motto you ask! Well let me tell you.. .

"Sales is not a career decision, it is a lifestyle decision that you live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year!"

- Michael C. McMillan

This motto has become the bedrock principle of everything I have taught sales people over the years. The ability to truly understand this quote and embrace it makes the difference between successful & rich sales people, and LOSERS.

I have created this blog to network with other sales representatives, managers, directors, VP's, etc... to share war stories and learn a few new things. So please post, and then post again, use this as your sales journal so we can all learn from it.

From Misc. . .

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “For The Love of Sales” is my introduction to this exciting Blog and a review of my past. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.