Everyday I get asked by someone who is wanting the “quick win” with their marketing.  What do I have to do today to enable the phone to ring tomorrow?  Well, that is a very good question.  I am one hundred percent sure there is some marketing guru out there who can give you some quick win success formula that will enable this happen.  A couple a tweets here, a Facebook status update there and you are off to the races.  You need to simply spend two minutes on Google and you can easily find them, there are lots of gurus and ninjas and self-proclaimed experts who can help you.  Sure get the quick win, lots of promise but they all lack real substance.

Success in marketing doesn’t come overnight, I know…I haven’t been marketing for several years and it takes blood, sweat and tears.  It takes works and it takes time.  It takes patience and most importantly, it takes commitment.  The only thing overnight about marketing is your blunders that knock you down.  Those for some reason they seem to occur overnight, but success doesn’t.

I was reading on the side of my cereal box this morning about healthy eating.  Same thing, healthy lifestyles isn’t a race it is a journey and the same thing can be said about your marketing and especially your social media activities.

Success with social media is definitely not a race.  It is a journey and a tough uphill journey at the best of times.   It takes commitment from you and your entire team.  It takes more than just opening a Twitter account, Facebook Page and throwing up a free WordPress or blogger site.  Social Media takes planning, preparation and it requires everyone in the company to play a role.  I don’t care if you have three employees, thirty-three or three thousand and three.  Everyone must play a part.

This is what we do at Ulistic, everyone plays a role in our social media activities.  David, Frank and myself (soon Melanie) all play our parts and we all have the same goal just different paths that are strategically laid out in our marketing plan.  We all blog regularly and we participate in blog commenting almost daily, we are active on Facebook, Twitter and others and most importantly, we are active in our communities and this includes online and face-to-face.  I mentioned this in my podcast with Daniel Gutierrez and Bob Burg the other night…nothing will replace a face-to-face meeting, your social media fills these gaps and helps you get to face-to-face.

Are you expecting that quick win?  You may be a tad bit disappointed with this mindset.  For those who are out there consistently adding value and enriching the lives of others you will have success and it will take time.  Success with your social media marketing is helping others but also getting paid to help these people.  Bob says’ “Give more in value than you take in payment”.  You need to provide value but don’t do it for free.  Never lose site that you are in business and you must convert visitors, fans and followers to clients.  If you don’t you have a big network.  That’s it.

Need help figuring all this out, give me a call 403.775.2205.

Welcome to the age of the Internet.  I think it is pretty safe to claim this now.  Just look around you and there is no doubt that our online world is just as important as the face-to-face relationships we have.  For some, online is more important.

Cloud Computing For Business

One of the biggest shifts has been in business.  Business is now starting to embrace “the cloud” and the power of online applications.  Need proof, next time you fly, how many printed boarding passes do you notice?  How many people are using the smart phone to store their boarding pass?  More and more everyday.  Big business and small business are leveraging the power of the Internet to run their day-to-day business applications.

Even Microsoft has started to take notice. Well, they have been for a long time, at least 4 years since the first time I heard “Software + Services”.  Businesses across North America are flocking to Microsoft’s Online Solutions.  Many of them are turning to the Microsoft BPOS solution or solutions delivered by Microsoft Partners each day.  The online solutions market is heating up and taking off at an extremely fast pace.

The reality of the market today is that many small businesses are turning to Microsoft BPOS now versus having a server sitting in the back room doing nothing but email.  The next versions of the Microsoft Small Business Server will have a version that is cloud-equipped.  My understanding is that it will do nothing but authenticate your users and store files.  Sounds like a Foundation Server.

Join us for a free webinar

Ulistic is hosting a free webinar on Tuesday to help you get answers to hosting your business applications on the Internet.

Join us on Tuesday, July 20th at Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific for a no charge 60 minute webinar that is geared to help you get some answers on what online service you should turn to.  Is it Google?  How about Microsoft Office Web Apps? Do you need a CRM?  What sort of backup strategy should I have?

Lots of questions and our goal on Tuesday is to help you get some answers.  Real world answers and the facts about the best online solution for your business.  For the past 6 months, I have been doing my own research, testing out many different online platforms.  We have also installed many different solutions ranging from Google Apps, Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite and Hosted Exchange through one of our partners.  I have had my frustrations to say the least.

I will have these real life stories plus intelligence on what some Calgary business owners have been quoted recently and what you should expect to pay the service you choose.  The truth is this, everyone has an opinion, everyone has a favourite and everyone’s needs and tolerance for techy stuff is different.  What works for some, doesn’t work for others.

It is your decision, I can only share with you what I know.

Register for Is Your Business Ready For The Internet webinar on Tuesday.

I found out this morning that a very good friend and colleague was a victim of the latest round of cutbacks across the Microsoft Partner Network.

My good buddy Robert Dutt from CRN Canada reported that long time channel program manager for the Microsoft Partner Network, Carol Terentiak has parted way with the Mississauga crew.

I found by accident when contacting Carol and another colleague this morning at Microsoft Canada, who informed me prior to getting the Google Alert.

During my tenure as IAMCP Canada President, Carol was there for me and the entire team.  She made sure everything was taken care of.  Her commitment to the Partner Program and now Partner Network was second-to-none.  I sometimes have to shake my head at the decisions made at large organizations.  Carol was a gem and still is…she was the type of person who would respond to your emails and return your phone calls.  That doesn’t happen much in these large companies (well doesn’t happen in small ones either).

I wish you luck Carol in your next steps…

Your Friend

Stuart

Social Media and Search Engines are turning the sales world on its head. Is your business attractive bait in the online ocean or is your business just a small fish in a big pond. Businesses today are looking for what you have to offer but how are they finding you?

One of the questions I get asked throughout the course of my day, as a Canadian Social Media Consultant is how small businesses across Canada can actively prospect for new business in our online world. The Internet has opened the kimono when it comes to marketing opportunities.

Is your business leveraging what the Internet has to offer?

I continue to enjoy a strong passion for sales and marketing. This passion was born in my early days as a computer tech and IT Professional in the Calgary market. As a young computer support technician I had a knack for helping those get the right IT solutions for their business and with the right mindset. These core principles I practiced 12 years ago are now very relevant today.

It started with putting service first and the need to provide the client the right solution that allowed them to achieve their crucial business goals. I loved being involved in the sales process and eventually helping build IT Matters through a strong client-first marketing focus.

Like many of you, I had a number of so-called “sales experts” try to educate me on how to sell to my customers. Some strategies worked and some flopped. That was part of the education process. The important component of any experience is that we learn from it.

In a traditional sales environment, we have always taught our sales teams to go out and prospect. Chase down potential opportunity after opportunity and shake things out. Many of us are still taught to “go out and hunt for opportunities”. We do cold calling, warm calling, selling to people in our networking groups and the list goes on from there.

The question is, does it really work in today’s world?

The market is much smarter than just a few years ago. Google, BING and the Internet have helped educate our clients on exactly what they want or need. Social Media and online communities are breeding grounds for those looking for answers. However, many of us continue to turn a blind eye to the power of social media and continue with websites that don’t perform.

Today’s consumer plays the prospector role. Educated consumers lurk amongst us and the Internet allows these knowledgeable consumers to continuous search the information and answers they want. Many will never stop until they get the answer they want. These same consumers once relied on our expertise. Today, that expertise is available with a simple Google search.

I often think in order to fill this need and to be successful in our businesses we need to flip the prospecting model on its head. The roles have to be reversed. Our sales teams and marketing professionals must become the prospect and our future clients…the prospector. I think this is how the model has to look. It is the only way it can work in today’s world where answers are at everyone’s fingertips.

What can we do online and offline that facilitates others to prospect for our services and products? How do sales professionals and business owners become attractive bait for those in need of what we have to offer? I often think about what Jeffrey Gitomer says, “customers love to buy but they hate to be sold”.

How can we become that facilitator who allows people to do what they love…BUY. Can our social media activities play an active role? I think it has to. The reality of today’s world is never before has the opportunity for many of us to become great bait and allow the prospectors out there to find us. After all, isn’t that we all love to buy? The debt crises in North America can attest to that.

The Internet allows us to be searchable. Social media and search engines are the prospector’s tools. The scary part is for many of us is we are nowhere to be found. We have little or no online presence and we wonder why the guy down the street gets all the business. Maybe it is because he is out there, helping and serving those who are looking for what he or she has to offer.

That is the reality, it doesn’t matter what market you are in, you have an opportunity to educate and make yourself the most attractive bait out there. You just need to take the first step and learn how to participate effectively.

At the recent Search Engine Strategies event in Toronto one of their final sessions was held at the Hyatt Regency’s bar where many of the conference attendees got together and discussed tactics around Search Engine Optimization and if they were a Black Hat or a White Hat optimizer. Intrigued I was…interested in seeing all the different opinions and approaches some optimizers take in working on search engine rankings.

Being relatively new to this industry here in Calgary I was intrigued until I finally got it.  White Hat and Black Hat SEO are tactics used to help position business in the search engine rankings.  I related this to what my friend Paul Moffatt would call, below the line or above the line prospecting.  This got me thinking, what do I stand for in business.  The Go Giver approach or the Go Taker approach.  White vs. Black in the SEO world.

At about.com they define Black Hat SEO at unethical or if I relate it to Paul’s prospecting model, perhaps “below the line’.  Is operating in this manner effective?  This is a question I keep asking myself.  Is creating doorway pages or feeding industry forums with false information appropriate tactics in SEO or promoting your business online.  I recently experienced perhaps a “so called” guru SEO consultant at work at a recent trade show who in my opinion confused many of our peers with trickery and black hat tactics.

I left their presentation wondering how long it will take for Black Hat tactics to be punished on Google?  May not to long with their recent Mayday release.

I rather focus on the “white hat approach”.  White Hat SEO tactics focus on quality content balanced across the Internet.  It is about leadership and being an authority on your area of focus.  I may even break it down to specializing, picking a niche rather than attempting to be everything to everybody.  Although it maybe slower in getting the SEO results you are looking for, it will be more effective in the long run.  This is my belief.  It is sort of like the sprinting out in the marathon just to get the TV time as the early leader and your 15 minutes of fame or pacing yourself and winning the race.  What would appeal to you?

About.com defines “White Hat SEO” as clearly defined keywords, important keywords and phrases stand out and I would even take it a step further and I tell my clients about the importance of balance.   On their website, balancing the right content with the right design…this is what matters the most online.  Google’s Mayday update may just reward those who have been focusing in the White Hat space with the changes to long tail searches and maybe punish those who demonstrate Black Hat approaches to SEO and not focused on quality content.

Deep down inside, I don’t like seeing business in Calgary and wherever we serve being taken advantage of by slick salespeople and those only out to serve their own interests (this month’s quota).  This is not the Go-Giver model I have been working hard at focusing on over the past few years.  Your business needs someone who will serve you and look after your best interests.  Your business needs someone they can call on when they need help or have a challenge.  This is what I strive for and if this approach interests you, then call me at 403.775.2205, I will be happy to serve your needs.

Over the course of the past 48 hours, one continuous message was almost a centre of discussion at the SESTO show which has recently wrapped up in Toronto was the elimination of spam in search.

The other day I got to see “doorway page” spam at work. I was on a conference call and was fielding some questions about search engine optimization with a potential client of ours at Ulistic. This client has an older site laced with hundreds of links in the footer of their main corporate site and is reluctant to remove them. He believes they work and my guess is some inexperienced SEO guru told him this is what he needs to do in order to succeed online.

Well, nothing is further from the truth in today’s search world. Those links at the bottom of your page are not scoring high in the Google world and they may be flagged as spam and will potentially harm your overall page ranking. Driving off page one instead of keeping you at the top.

What works? This list is quite a lengthy one but I will touch on just a couple of examples right now:

Keyword Rich Content – I preach about then importance of balance of design and content. Your website needs to work for the reader and for Google. Balancing the design of your site with well-written and keyword rich copy is crucial to attract qualified prospects from the search engines.

Be personable – This point is very important. You need to be personable online. Blogs and social media are wonderful ways your business can “have a face” online. Using Facebook, Twitter, video and blogs are key important personable tools all business must embrace.

There is more to life than self-serving links, especially spam-filled self-serving links…this is from the horse’s mouth and was shared with us SEO professionals at the Search Engine Strategies show in Toronto. Stop the cycle of pages filled with spam.

Get personable and educated your followers. Share your insight and share your knowledge and you just may rise to the top of the table.

My company Ulistic works with business across Canada understand SEO, social media and the importance of doing business online today. Give us a ring at 403.775.2205 with any questions you may have.

A full onslaught war is brewing online between Google and Microsoft.  For those military friends…forces are assembling and loading the mags.  As a career Microsoft Partner (Ulistic is a Microsoft Partner) who wandered away from the mother ship for a while I am starting to slowly move some of my day-to-day technology use back my colleagues from Redmond.  I am very excited about the upcoming Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac and interested in learning more about what Microsoft has to offer online through there Office Cloud.

My friends at CRN Canada recently reported that the new Microsoft Office Cloud (get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote online) has been opened up to Microsoft SkyDrive clients as a response to Google slamming the Redmond software powerhouse a few weeks ago urging Office users to switch to Google Apps.  Microsoft Office Cloud solutions is a  free Web-based Office applications, dubbed Web Apps, gives users access to Web version so Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Web Apps has been in beta for roughly nine months but no Outlook or email client.  Maybe Microsoft still wants people to use Windows Mail or some other mail solution.  Microsoft claims that Office online will work exactly like the desktop version…looking forward to testing it out on June 15, 2010.

Prepare the forces, a war is brewing on another front between Microsoft and Google.

I wonder how it will work with Safari on the iPad?

I am sure readers of this blog can go and find examples of where I praised Google and their Apps solution as a suitable replacement to Office.  I gave Google Apps and Google Doc an honest attempt in my early days at Ulistic but since those days I really missed the functionality Microsoft’s productivity solutions and I recently moved back to Office.  Electing to go with Office 2008 on my MacBook and now I rarely use Google’s online apps.  The move back was brought on simply by a lack of simple and common features that Microsoft offers that are nowhere to be seen in Google Apps.  Simple features that may not mean much to the average user but this power user who requires basic functionality to work noticed.

Sure my email is hosted with Google on the back-end, as a mail platform Google is pretty good for $50 per year.  However you really need a mail client.  I have elected to go back to my MacMail which is a good mail platform on the MacBook.  But nothing beats the look and feel of a robust email client (something I miss by not having Microsoft Outlook) and with Office 2011 bringing in the powerful Outlook application that will be a wonderful upgrade from Entourage.

But, who should you trust with your data.  Do you trust Google or Microsoft?  You will get a chance on June 15 to test drive Microsoft Web Apps and compare to Google.  Both solutions are free for you to test out or use.  Give it a chance…but keep in mind where the data is housed.  Web solutions normally offer storage and the Microsoft offering with SkyDrive or Google both supply a limited amount of data storage as part of the free offering.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

For those who are concerned on what is missing:

1.  Booking meetings across multiple time zones (calendaring)

2.  Page breaks (Google Docs vs. Word)

3.  Smart Art (Google Docs vs. PowerPoint)

For the record…I still love my MacBook..but need Office to survive!

Is your head buried in the sand or does your technology organization understand and leverage the powers of online marketing, search engine optimization and social media to share information, content and advice with your community and client base?

Hello from Toronto and the 2010 Search Engine Strategies conference.  David and I are guests at this years Canadian stop and enjoying a great opportunity to share best practices and ideas with many of our peers in the online community.  It is great to actually see faces in this usual face-less world that is emerging.

It is no secret that the online search world is evolving, is your business prepared for the upcoming changes or are you still attempting to catch up with older techniques?

Today’s age of the knowledge worker empowers users and search is one of the most important ways many learn about what you have to offer and teach the market about your offerings. Search can be a complex yet adaptive strategy and the time is now businesses large and small to take control of how and where people find them online.

Interested in understand the latest on how Google’s search techniques impact the marketplace? Does Microsoft’s advertising strategy tweak your curiosity but allow prospects to find you?

The 2010 Toronto Search Engine Strategies may just have the answers for you. Now underway at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Toronto this annual event brings the sharpest minds together for 2 days of intense collaboration on search engine techniques and facilitates the sharing of best practices amongst conference delegates.

It is no secret that the Internet is evolving and the way small business across North America look at new ways to market their business challenges even the sharpest of marketing minds. SES 2010 provides a forum for online marketers to learn the latest techniques on effective link building, pay-per-click advertising, social media tactics, real-time search effectiveness and many more business and marketing strategies.

Now in it’s seventh year, SES Toronto is organized and programmed by the SES Advisory Board and SearchEngineWatch.com, the leading authority on Search Engine Marketing (SEM), including Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click.

What are some of the emerging trends? Is it Google’s recently announced “Caffeine”, which is a complete overhaul on how Google indexes websites? Will this shift from crawling the net looking for content to a real-time database of online content change the way many of our VAR businesses show up on search results?

Will Social Media continue the onslaught that has attracted the attention from experts, enthusiasts and hobbyists? Gobbling up the attention span of business professionals to casual surfers across everywhere? How important will Facebook and Twitter be in the next year? Will the “instant on” social media services play impact search results and help position business when prospects look for products and services? “We can’t continue to keep our heads in the sand.” states Ulistic Senior Advisor David West.

These questions and others will be discussed in the keynotes, breakouts and in the hallways throughout the 48-hour conference in downtown Toronto. Peter Morville, President of Michigan’s Semantic Studios kicked it all off with his morning keynote address on how search patterns influence the decisions and actions people make. “We really need to understand our users and the vocabulary and the words they use,” said Morville, talking on understanding how people search for information throughout many facets of Internet, mobile and Internet search.

Follow Search Engine Strategies on Twitter #SESTO.

I find myself these days with three Apple products at the ready at all times and with our team at Ulistic growing, collaborating and sharing of information amongst our team members is crucial to our success.  Our MacBooks, iPhones and IPADs travel with us everywhere we go and this allows for keeping in touch with our clients when they need us.   Having instant access to our client data is crucial to our success but having this luxury within our budget is especially critical.

The Internet Cloud allows Ulistic to operate in a manner that meets all of our needs for access, security and affordability.

Enter another robust, secure and free/nearly free solution for business

I stumbled upon a great “free” application over the weekend and what is even more impressive is how seamless it works with all of our computers and mobile devices.  For me personally, one of my biggest challenges throughout my business career has been taking accurate notes of things that happen or are said in a meeting.  I just wasn’t one of those guys who took notes on everything that was said in a meeting.  But I think I just found a solution that can cure me of this challenge.  Sure I tried Microsoft OneNote but it didn’t have a solution (when I was using it) that worked when I didn’t have my laptop.  With this new application I learned about over the weekend I may have just finally found a cure for my challenges with keeping track of what happens in our meetings.

Notetaking Software that just works

Enter Evernote! Evernote is simply one fantastic service!  Evernote offers free and “nearly free” services to a busy guy like me who doesn’t have countless hours in a day to wrestle with technology.  Evernote’s simply interface and synchronization allows our team at Ulistic to have our notes with us whereever we go.  MacBook, iPhone or iPAD they all work like a charm.  Synchronization works virtually without any user interference to all of our devices without any headaches at all.  Need to start taking notes for an idea that pops into your head, no problem, just open Evernote wherever you are a make a quick note.

This includes pictures, movies, typed in notes and audio recordings.  Can you say SLICK!

The free version of Evernote allows for 40 MB of data transfer each month, not bad as a starter. Go Premium with 500 MB of synchronization traffic for only $5 per month or $45 per year – less than the cost of that memory stick you just bought.  When you combine Evernote with other great online services such as Dropbox and Google/Microsoft hosted email, why would you ever need a server or complex information technology solution for your small business?  It just makes technical and economic sense to choose robust, secure and efficient services such as Evernote and the others if are simply sharing files and sending emails.

Evernote also works on the Microsoft Windows platform and Android, Palm Pre and Blackberry mobile phone services.  I am giving Evernote two thumbs up and placement on my home screen of both my iPhone and iPAD.  Great tool for any size of business.

Something else that is cool, Evernote can also track where you were when you worked on a file and bring up that location on a Google map.

Sometimes you just gotta hit the delete key!

That is what I did today, I  dumped the my entire inbox into the Trash of my Google Mail account.

Boy, what a relief and a huge amount of stress taken is now gone.  Nothing like having a tonne of email first thing in the day to get the stress level up.

Have you declared email bankruptcy?

How did you feel the next time you opened your email to see nothing in your inbox?