Marketing & Strategy
News: Online Marketer Sydney 2011 – Day 5 Photos: Speaker’s Dinner & SMX Elite
The final instalment!
Photo highlights from Day 5 of the Sydney Online Marketer conference – the International Speakers’ Dinner and SMX Elite, both held at the historic Qstation, in Manly.
Many thanks to Barry, Lisa and Paula for their support and energy over the 5 days, and to all the speakers and fellow attendees for making it such a hugely fun and valuable learning experience.
News: Online Marketer Sydney 2011 – Day 4 Photos: SMX, Site Clinic & Bootcamp
Lots’n'lots of highlights from Day 4 of the Online Marketer conference in Sydney Australia, 2011. SMX and SMX Bootcamp in full swing; excitement in the Expo Hall; Video Interviews; and ending with the traditional Site Clinic and prize draws.
News: Online Marketer Sydney 2011 – Day 3 Photos: eMetrics, SMX & Bootcamp
Whew – photo highlights from the *big* day: eMetrics Day 2 upstairs; SMX day one downstairs; plus Bootcamp running all day in the Expo hall. Oh, and the expo hall, too.
Advice News: Epoch: the end of one era – the start of the next
This month marks a major shift in my business life: I’m changing from a solo consultant to joining the full-time workforce. Yes, I’ve been seduced by the Dark Side. They have cookies.
Rebusiness, Andrew Ballard, and this blog will still remain, however from here on in, I’ll be a little more selective in the clients and projects I take on out of ‘work’.
I thought that after 11 years of business in this mode, I’d go back through my archives and tease out some revealing insights from my records, to give you a brief glimpse into the life of a solo consultant.
So sit back, relax, and help me unravel some of the deepest and darkest secrets (??) of the solo entrepreneur. I’ll bring the cookies.
News: SMX/eMetrics/Online Marketer Melbourne 2010: Day 2 Photos
Photo Highlights from Day Two of the SMX/eMetrics/Online Marketer conference in Melbourne, November 16-17th 2010.
News: SMX/eMetrics/Online Marketer Melbourne 2010: Day 1 Photos
Back at SMX once more, this time a lot closer to home! In their inaugural Melbourne event, a combined SMX/eMetrics program arrived under the banner of Online Marketer. While the hashtags for Twitter were a little muddled (#emetrics – but only for day one, #smx – but more predominant on day two, and #ommel for both days), at least the new name had begun to catch on, so by SMX Sydney in 2011, it’ll be second nature.
Huge thanks to Barry, Lisa and Paula, and to the wonderful array of local and international speakers for their time, effort, and expertise. The main conference stream went from serious to advanced topics, and the ever-popular (and free!) Bootcamp stream was excellent for both novices learning about SEO/SEM/social media – but also for those already in the know, to catch up on the latest trends in the industry.
What follows is a selection of the many hundreds of photos from Day One of the conference. Feel free to copy and paste them into your blogs or tweets and give them some captions.
Advice: Mind the gap
I’ve been out and about some local businesses in the past couple of weeks, gathering support for advertising for a cookbook fundraiser for my kids’ school.
Almost all businesses I’ve approached have expressed interest in the project – yet the thing I’ve been struck by is the yawning gulf between those businesses who could instantly identify that a) this was or wasn’t their target market, and b) that the price point was or wasn’t within their marketing budget.
The fact that the majority of businesses couldn’t identify two of their fundamental business metrics (target market/marketing budget) is more than a little scary.
With secure knowledge of these two fundamentals, you can quickly rule in or out the opportunity. In an effort to try to get to this easy-to-decide method of ruling opportunities in or out, let’s take a moment to explore market share, and see if we can close the knowledge gap just a little bit!
Advice: Finding your virtual salesman
This month is a weird topic, but stick with me: the challenge to you as a business owner is to find yourself a virtual salesperson. Let me explain. A *virtual* salesman is a person who is not employed by your business whatsoever, but has a vested interest in actively telling others about your business, your products, and the wonderful service you provide. The trick is in finding them.
Advice: Bowing to a higher authority
I’d suggest that as an individual, we don’t need to be able to amass 100% of the skills we need all by ourselves – in fact, we simply can’t – and that apart from the odd moments of epiphany, we gain our skills and experience by absorbing information from other rich sources – our own stable of mentors. So – who are my own ‘rich sources’ of pure gold? Who are my mentors? Let me introduce you to a couple…
Advice: So, what do you do?
Just like the bad pick-up lines from days gone by (shudder), your opening line to a prospective customer can sometimes be a make-or-break thing: it’s the first opportunity you have to get across what you do with a bit of passion, and a bit of flair. This first contact is often called the ‘elevator pitch’ – if you only have 30 seconds to explain your business to someone you’ve never met, how would you do it? All it takes is a little navel-gazing, a little pre-planning, and some guinea-pigs to practice it on… Ready? Let’s take a quick look!