Tiny Business, Mighty Profits » Russ Henneberry

Growing a Business Through Better Public Speaking

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:00:46 +0000

This is how I have grown my business:

I write and distribute tons of free content
Writing and distributing content leads to more public speaking opportunities
Public speaking opportunities lead to more clients

If you want to start speaking more but you don’t know how to get started, you need to start listening to Fred Miller.

Fred Miller writes a free public speaking blog called No Sweat Public Speaking and is publishing a book on the subject of public speaking in the winter of 2010.

I interviewed Fred on the subject of growing a business through public speaking.

Enjoy this 30 minute interview:

Click Here

If you want to stay in touch with Fred, receive his free report on “getting over the fear of public speaking and find out when the No Sweat Public Speaking book will be available, join his email community on the No Sweat Public Speaking blog.

Music courtesy of Kevin Macleod

What are your thoughts or questions? What advice do you have for the rest of us about public speaking?

IMPORTANT: RSS Feed Has Moved

Russ Henneberry — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:18:43 +0000

Howdy all. If you have been following this feed, it has moved:

Click Here to Find the New Feed

The feed has moved because my website has moved to TinyAndMighty.com.

One. Powerful. Tribe Building. Action.

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:11:44 +0000

What do you call your Tribespeople?

The most powerful Tribes in the world have names for their Tribespeople.

People that organize around powerful brands, ideas, products, services —- want to be part of a community. And strong communities have names.

Green Bay Packer fans call themselves CHEESEHEADS
Twitter users call each other TWEEPS
Fans of Ronald Reagan called themselves Reaganites
Jim Rome’s sports radio listeners call themselves CLONES.
The Grateful Dead’s followers call themselves DEAD HEADS.

So, TINY BUSINESS OWNER, what do you call your tribespeople?

What are some other examples of names of Tribespeople? What advantages do you see of having a name for the members of your Tribe?

Image courtesy of Nathan Soliz

What Is The Duplicate Content Penalty And How To Avoid It

Russ Henneberry — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:08:30 +0000

Aint Google a pain in the butt?

They seem to have an answer for everything and especially this question:

“Can I just copy and paste some text content from another website and get some Google traffic?”

My answer: Don’t you remember when your mother told you —

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”

The duplicate content penalty is one of the ways that Google ensures that their search results are as reliable and trustworthy as possible.

Google does not want multiple copies of the same content in its index.

In this 7 minute video, learn more about the Google duplicate content penalty and how you can avoid it:

TBMP Radio: Top SEO Tips and Resources For Tiny Businesses

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:00:16 +0000

Will Hanke is an expert in Search Engine Optimization.

He is also a tiny business owner.

Will shares his top SEO tips and resources in this 30 minute interview on TBMP Radio:

Click here

Find Will Hanke

You can find Will’s SEO blog here
You can find Will’s SEO Services website here
You can find more about the Market STL Conference here

SEO Tools mentioned by Will Hanke

SEO Resources Recommended by Will Hanke

Marketing in the Age of Google – A book written by Vanessa Fox, former Google employee.
Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch’s classic book about Internet Marketing
Digital Point – Forums for those talking Internet Marketing and especially SEO

Also mentioned by Will Hanke

EzineArticles.com – The “granddaddy” of all article submission sites. Submit articles and put a link back to your website in the by-line.

Music for TBMP radio provided by Incompetech

What questions do you have about the discussion on the show? What questions do you have about SEO in general?

How and Why To Schedule Blog Posts Into The Future

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:00:57 +0000

How on god’s green earth do those bloggers keep all that fresh content coming?

One way — create lots and lots of draft post ideas in your blogging platform so that you don’t have to rack your brain for a new idea on the day that you MUST publish a post. Learn more about creating blog post drafts here.

A second way — go on a “blogging spree” and schedule out as many posts as you can into the future.

That’s right — grab a cup of coffee or your favorite energy drink and put your creative hat on (that’s the hat with the propeller on top) and start putting the nails in some of those great blog post ideas you have.

Now, schedule those puppies to go live in the future and grab a Mai Tai. Your blog is taken care of.

Watch this 6 minute video to learn how to schedule blog posts into the future in WordPress.

Read about why you should be creating a “well” of blog post drafts here.

17 Ways Your Tiny Business Will Defeat Big Bucket, Inc

Russ Henneberry — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:00:12 +0000

Big Bucket, Inc. makes every kind of bucket imaginable. Blue ones. Red ones. Big ones. Little ones. Round ones. Square ones.

Big Bucket has a six-figure advertising budget and a sales force that has “sales conventions” and “sales trainings” and all of that cool stuff.

Big Bucket has an accounting and human resources department to count their dollars and manage the other humans.

Sheesh!

You are just…. well…. you.

And here is how you win:

Produce fewer types of buckets
Produce a better bucket experience
Charge more for your buckets
Find partners to count your dollars, you make buckets
Create and present presentations on buckets
Listen to the bucket market…. carefully
Be quick to react to new needs in the bucket industry
Be more personal in your customer service than Big Bucket
Be more flexible in your customer service than Big Bucket
Create free articles that adress the needs of the bucket market
Create free audio that addresses the needs of the bucket market
Be more personal than Big Bucket in social media channels
Be more genuine than Big Bucket in social media channels
Create free video that addresses the needs of the bucket market
Create events around the needs of the bucket market
Use your own buckets
Teach classes around the needs of the bucket market

Your turn. Add a #18 in the comments section below. How do you beat Big Bucket, Inc?

The #1 Factor In Increasing Email Open Rates (And It Isn’t The Subject Line)

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:12:02 +0000

The #1 factor in increasing email open rates is not your subject line.

It’s your “FROM” line.

Are you Mr. Trustworthy? Or Mr. Shady? (Insert Mrs. if appropriate)

I don’t care what the subject line says if the from line says Mr. Shady. I aint opening it.

I don’t care what the subject line says if the from line says Mr. Trustworthy. I’m going to open it.

How To Become Mr. Shady

Step 1. Send email to people that didn’t ask for it
Step 2. Send them nothing but promotions
Step 3. Send these promotions as often as possible
Step 4. Have no regard for the relevance of the message to your recipient

How To Become Mr. Trustworthy

Step 1: Send email to only those that asked for it
Step 2: Send a good mix (80/20) of valuable content and promotions
Step 3: Don’t overdo it
Step 4: Only send relevant content and promotions to your list

If you really want to increase the open rate of your emails, spend more time building trust with your email list by sending a good mix of helpful and valuable content along with your promotional messages.

What are your thoughts? What are the factors that you consider when opening/deleting email? Does Mr. Shady have a mustache in your mind? He does in mine, not sure why. I don’t have anything personal against mustaches.

Finding and Optimizing Your Business Blog For The Right Keywords

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:00:09 +0000

Finding and optimizing your business blog for the right keywords is step one to a sound business blog SEO process.

SEO is the act of making your web content more likely to show up highly in the Google search results.

And it all starts with choosing the right keywords.

In this 8 minute video, we discover how to use a free keyword tool to discover the “intent” of the searcher. Discovering the intent of the searcher allows us to segment our keywords into those that belong in blog posts and those that belong on our product and services pages.

Enjoy the video:

[Part 2] How To Generate Scorching Hot Leads For Your Business

Russ Henneberry — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:20:45 +0000

This is Part 2 of a post about avoiding warm leads and concentrating on scorching hot leads. Read Part 1 here.

Creating scorching hot leads is the key to building a successful tiny business. Wasting your time with warm leads will sink your business. If you don’t believe me, add up all the time you spent last month on calls and in sales meetings with “warm” prospects and forcing a time consuming proposal down their throat only to have them disappear from the face of the earth.

Warm calls are a trap.

For me, scorching hot leads always have at least one of the following 6 characteristics BEFORE you even know they are interested in your products/services and sometimes before you even know who they are:

1) They already know who you are

A scorching hot lead often knows who you are before you know who they are. They will be studying you and your business long before they make it known that they have a need for your service.

They will study you through your marketing content. If you are creating any.

2) They already know your process

When a scorching hot lead makes it known that they are interested in your products or services they will often already know your process. They will know what you believe in and understand your take on the industry. They will know how you will solve their problem.

They will have learned your process through your marketing content. If you are creating any.

3) They already know your prices

I am a big fan of putting my prices on my website. This creates an added buffer between my business and the dreaded warm lead. If you want scorching hot leads, put your prices on your website. If you can’t put a clear price because everything is custom built, put a “Starting at XXX dollars” out there for all to see.

Only scorching hot leads wanted.

4) They have been referred by one of your former customers

Referrals tend to be scorching hot leads but not always. Building outstanding content and sharing it with your network is the best way to create viral buzz about your business and your expertise. This will grow your referrals.

Building great web content is a powerful way to grow referrals and scorching hot leads.

5) They have already consumed lots of your free content

Most scorching hot leads have consumed a ton of your free stuff. They have had numerous good experiences with your business by consuming your free content and they are now ready for a paid experience.

Building a way for prospects to have lots of free transactions with your business is the road to scorching hot leads.

6) They are already members of lots of your permission based lists

When you create valuable web content, you share it with your network.

Your network shares it with their network.

Your network grows. Scorching hot leads are usually members of more than one of your permission based lists. They are Facebook fans (likes), LinkedIn connections, email newsletter subscribers and Twitter followers. They are consuming your valuable marketing content frequently.

Heating Up or Cooling Down

The brilliance of marketing by using valuable web content is, among other things, the filter that it creates.

As prospects consume your content they will either become a scorching hot lead or they will cool off. In either case, you win. You don’t have to spend a ton of time chasing around warm leads — if they don’t like your message — they cool off and disappear without you having spent much time on them.

On the other hand, if they like what they hear, they will introduce themselves to you for the first time as your biggest fan and newest customer.