Delete Your Contacts

Yes, you heard me correctly. Start the new year by pruning people from your:

• Address book
• Contact Management System
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• Twitter

Why?

It’s just too much. In the end, I strive for QUALITY over QUANTITY. I want a network of professionals (who know and remember me) so that they can help me advance my causes.

How?

Here’s my suggested criteria:

• You have no idea who the person is… DELETE!
• If I haven’t spoken to someone in 10 years, and don’t expect to ever again… DELETE!
• You don’t like the person… DELETE!
• You’d never hire the person… DELETE!
• The person routinely publishes opinions that don’t align with how you’d like to be professionally viewed… DELETE!

Some might think it’s a bit harsh. But I believe that it’s liberating. I can search through my connections faster and the results are more meaningful.

So come on, trim some fat this holiday!

Hope you find this helpful.
-Roland

Email Scam Prevention Tips

It’s happened again… one of my clients got scammed by an email they received. It can happened to even the most vigilant person. It can happen to you!

Have you noticed how increasingly frustrating it is to sort legitimate email from those who wish to part us from our money? No matter how careful you may be at identifying and separating scam and junk emails from your legitimate email, someone else in your organization may not be so savvy — which can lead to bigger problems!

Watch For Warning Signs

Before you even click to open a suspicious email, there are clear warning signs visible in your inbox. Mispelled from domain names and grammar mistakes are red flags warning you to treat carefully.

The example to the right is a typical scam email made to look like it was sent by Google about the status of our Google Adwords account. (Or it could be from your domain registrar, PayPal, your bank, your email service provider, etc.) It seems legitimate enough at a glance.

This is a typical “phishing” scam trying to get it’s victim to click through to a fake page and attempt to login, exposing the username/password to the scammer. If the victim is busy and the email has an alarming warning (e.g. “your service has been canceled”), the victim might react before thinking.

Can You Trust Your Employees?

Although you may be extremely vigilant, how savvy are your colleagues to catch a scam?

I’m suspicious by nature. Here’s what I do to evaluate suspicious email if my spam filter or other method doesn’t flag it:

• I take my email account offline. That way I can open the message and reduce the chance of sending a tracking alert back to the sender that the email was opened.
• I click on the sender information to look for obviously incorrect address, but that can be faked to look legitimate.
• I’ll view more details of the header information to determine where it was sent from.
• I’ll mouse-over (not click) the main call to action URL in the body of the email. Often that displays a URL that doesn’t match the URL displayed in the body text. I pick the main call-to-action URL because sometimes other URLs in the email are legitimate to make you think it’s a real email.
• Bad grammar and misspellings are often a tell-tale sign.

Best Practices

If you’re spider-sense starts tingling, do not click through – no matter how tempting it may be.

• Don’t click links in emails that ask you to take an action, such as to login to change your account information.
• Bookmark the real URLs of banks and companies you do business with and always use the bookmark to visit the website. That way you can’t mistype a URL and end up at a fake site designed to look like the real one.
• Don’t click “unsubscribe” or reply back to the sender. That only verifies your email address and encourages the sender to mail more to you. You’re better off to just delete it.
• Be a good netizen and forward fake emails to the companies you do business with. (e.g. phishing@google.com, spoof@paypal.com)
• If it’s taking you longer than 20 seconds to figure out if the message is legitimate, just delete it. You have better things to do with your time.

Hope you find that useful. Be sure to teach your colleagues and family to be vigilant to such scams.

-Roland

Selling Bulk Products B2B

I provided some counseling to a business owner who wanted to sell bulk lots to commercial buyers. The question being posed to me was how to send a flier to as many businesses as possible ONLINE.

The products could literally be anything. The target audience could be in a wide variety of niches or stores that sell broad inventory. She did not want to receive inquiries from the general public.

That’s a bit of a challenge. Usually when I consult with a business, we’re able to identify unique target audiences and niche needs.

Ultimately I advised the following:

• Contact:
  • NJ Small Business Development Center (www.njsbdc.com)
  • Local/surrounding Chambers of Commerce
  • State Chamber of Commerce
• Do not rent email lists.
  The quality tends to be poor. It’s best to adhere to CAN-SPAM legislation rules and regulations about sending unsolicited commercial email. You can learn more by searching Google for info about “CAN-SPAM” or “email marketing best practices”.
• Identify your online competitors and try to figure out what they do. Sign up on their email list.
• Expand your website beyond 4 pages. Increase the number of pages, making each focused on a specific product to increase your visibility in the search engines.
• Use Google to research “small business marketing tips” and “search engine optimization tips” to help give you more ideas how to get found online and increase your visibility.
• Evaluate paying for online advertising, display media ads that appear on sites that the target audience visits.
• Create Search Engine Advertising campaign (Google Adwords) around the keywords that retail buyers might be using in the search engines.
• Find sales people with connections to the type of procurement agents/buyers. Maybe they get commission on sales made on your behalf.

What would you add to this list?
-Roland

Should We Work Together? (Or Not!)

I find myself turning down a lot of business opportunities lately. You might think I’m crazy. Perhaps.

In fact I think it would be quite irresponsible if I accepted every opportunity offered to me. The reality is I need to be a responsible business owner and select working relations that will positively benefit both my company and our client.

I decline opportunities for a variety of reasons. Often it is because I don’t want to negatively impact our ability to do good work for other clients that we are currently engaged with. Occasionally I’ll decline if I just don’t believe in the prospect’s product or business model. Other times, my spider sense is tingling, warning me that the prospect will simply be too difficult to make the working relationship mutually beneficial.

So… Should We Work Together? Or Not!

I think the criteria is simple.

YES, we will work well together if…

• You can admit that what you’ve done so far needs improvement.
• You are willing to make significant changes. (Change is good.)
• You can remove emotions from your decision making, and instead make decisions based on facts.
• You like to learn.
• You’ll accept us as a marketing partner interested in helping you to achieve success.

NO, we will not work well together if…

• You’re not willing to share information about how you run your business.
• You’re not willing to test different marketing tactics.
• You don’t want to test a past marketing tactic again. (Often times it can be done much better than your original attempt.)
• You can accept constructive criticism.
• You think everyone is your target audience.
• You don’t see value in measuring success.
• You are afraid of change.
• You think of us as a disposable commodity/vendor.
• All you want to do is scrutinize and criticize every suggestion we make.
• You think your sister’s teenager has all the necessary skills to build a strong business web site.
• You insist that you host your website using Yahoo Store. (Sorry, no thanks, we wont waste time with that platform.)

Some might think that this is a bit arrogant. Possibly. Everything I stated above is based on my real world experience. I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

I’m running a business and so are you. In order for my team to deliver great work, you and I both need to be confident that’s it’s a compatible fit. Wouldn’t you agree?

Let’s connect if you think we’d make a good fit.

-Roland

Tip From My Doppelgänger

Ever Google yourself? Many people find dozens if not hundreds of listings for other people sharing the same name. I am fortunate that I only compete against a handful. This isn’t a vanity issue, it’s actually about whether your prospects or potential employers can find the real you online.

As I was Googling/Binging/Yahooing myself today, I came across a video from Roland Reinhart M.D. He made a very interesting comment about his pain management practice in California.

He commented that his office tried to be more efficient by enforcing their patient appointment schedule and not accepting same day appointments. But soon after, they received a lot of negative feedback from their patients. Turns out that their patients wanted same day appointments AND were willing to wait longer in the waiting room in order to make the pain go away.

Moral of the story is, just because some process is more efficient for you, it may in fact be harmful to your customer relationships. It’s often better to solicit input from your frequent customers before instituting a major process change that affects how they interact with you.

Hope you find this helpful in your business.
-Roland

Prospect Research Tips For Not For Profit Organizations

Maria Semple shares prospect research tips for non-profit organizations to adopt in the new year. Maria is an experienced researcher, trainer and speaker on the topic of prospect research. Based in New Jersey, she consults with organizations and firms nationally. Learn more at The Prospect Finder website.

Starting A Business During The Recession

When Roland Reinhart took the leap and launched his own marketing and advertising business in Bridgewater in the middle of 2008, he had no idea that the economy was about to take a nosedive.

But despite the challenges, Reinhart has blazed a new path for himself and his company, Reinhart Marketing Group, by following his passion—to help small- and medium-sized businesses enjoy the same marketing and branding tools available to Fortune 500 companies at an affordable price.

Reinhart, who enjoyed a stable and enjoyable career working for a number of advertising and marketing companies since 1988, yearned to have his own business. He wanted to fill what he saw as a growing need—to offer sophisticated branding, marketing and advertising methods and tools that could be scaled for newly-formed and smaller businesses.

“I was very lucky throughout my career to work with some of the biggest brands in the world, and therefore was able to spend millions of dollars on groundbreaking marketing tools,” said Reinhart. “But I wanted to take what I had learned and make it available to the little guy.”

“For most clients, I develop a whole new custom website, search engine and advertising plan,” he added. “I begin with getting to the heart of what they are trying to accomplish. Then we can layer on marketing tactics that make sense, including search engine marketing, email marketing, audio/video content, social media marketing, direct mail and more.”

Reinhart also has a passion for what he calls “demystifying technology.”

“A lot of small business owners say, well we have a website,” he said. “But beyond that, they don’t know what to do next.”

Reinhart said he works with small business owners by first assessing what they are really trying to accomplish and what they can afford, and then coming up with the best solutions.

The technology has changed, giving smaller businesses access to sophisticated tools, he said.

“A website that years ago would cost $70,000 to build can be built now for under $5,000,” he said.

Reinhart gives small business owners the tools to manage their own websites if that makes sense for them. As much as possible, he said, he tries to equip them with whatever they need so they can be as independent as possible when managing their own communications plans.

In addition to running his company, Reinhart teaches several classes and serves as a business counselor for the Small Business Development Center at Raritan Valley Community College.

“I love helping entrepreneurs identify specifically what they want to offer and the best way to do it,” he said.

One of his success stories involves ATA Martial Arts, in Branchburg.

“The owner, Cory McNallan, is a young man who had a website up and running, but it just wasn’t generating enough new business,” Reinhart said.

Reinhart, who teaches a class in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), worked with McNallan to identify his target audience, and then designed the website for it to become highly visible in the major search engines for the keywords his desired audience most frequently used. The result is that the website receives a steady stream of ideal visitors, allowing McNallan to use his marketing dollars on other tactics to promote his business.

“This is now one of the best performing small business websites I’ve ever worked on,” Reinhart said. “And McNallan has often told me that he’s very happy with the traffic that it has generated.”

“It’s such a good feeling to help a small business owner,” Reinhart added. “After all, it’s the small business that’s going to revive this economy and make it strong.”

For more information visit Reinhart Marketing Group at reinhartmarketing.com.

March 4, 2009
By MaryLynn Schiavi
Staff Writer
Bridgewater Patch