Writing the book that will help traditional brick and mortar businesses move to a progressive internet marketing plan

Do You Really Know What Business You Are In?

by Joe Manausa, MBA on July 4, 2013

The Business Of Getting BusinessWhen I was starting out in the real estate business, I felt like I had to be the perfect technician for everything that a real estate agent needed to do. I broke the industry down into every functional area and became an absolute expert at each one of those areas including the use of CRM technology I found on Salesforce, to follow up and keep track of all of my clients.

I owned my company for many years before it dawned on me that I was doing the wrong things. I owned a real estate company and thought I was in the business of helping people buy and sell homes. At face value that might seem like it makes a lot of sense, but that just isn’t the industry that I am in.  If you are searching for the best riding lawn mower for rough terrain, you are on the right place. Riding lawn mowers are powerful enough to minimize the energy and work you need to mow a large lawn, and they are pretty easy to operate. The best riding mower for rough terrain are great for larger properties and people who do not want to hustle of pushing heavier gas mowers across the whole field.

Perhaps you own a business as well. Maybe you are an architect, an engineer, a plumber, a lawyer, an electrician, a doctor, or any other small business that you might find in America. While each one of these businesses has a different set of technical competencies, the reality is that none of these businesses are any different when it comes down to what the owner should be doing.

If you own a business, you are in the business of getting business.

An accountant who owns his own firm does not count, he seeks people who need accounting help. Some of the benefits of choosing a Liverpool accountant: they are established, dependable, and transparent. A lawyer who owns his own firm does not practice law, his primary focus is getting clients who need legal representation, even more if he gets his clients online, so for example if someone suffer a fatal accident, his family can get a New York wrongful death lawyer to get help in these cases. In those of us who own real estate companies do not list and sell real estate, nor do we recruit and retain real estate agents, we are in the business of getting people who want to hire real estate agents.

If you share this philosophy regarding the focus of every business owner, then you will realize that we all are in marketing and sales.

If we want to guarantee the health and longevity of our organization, then we need to take ownership of the responsibility of generating customers. The Founder Club has a lot to offer for your business. If you want your business to grow and achieve success, just go to their online page to get the details you need.

Old Business Standard Is Dead

In the past, we could simply run an ad in the Yellow Pages and people knew we were in business and where to find our contact information.

In case you haven’t heard, the Yellow Pages are dead.

The world has turned to the Internet for information, and the actions of consumers are predictable and track-able and can help you generate all the business that you need by having the correct presence on the Internet.

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Top 6 Blog Posts On The Internet Squeeze

by Joe Manausa, MBA on July 13, 2011

Internet Squeeze 100th-Blog-Post

This is a special day for the Internet Squeeze, as it is the 100th blog post that I’ve written as I continue to write the book for brick and mortar businesses who want to move to a new business model. Many companies are feeling the internet squeeze, and they know they need to make the change to a model that relies heavily on the internet.

As a side note, I will be taking a hiatus for a while as I complete my case study (that will be the focus on the last half of the book).

In order to celebrate reaching our 100th blog post milestone, I thought I would recall the top 6 blog posts thus far on the Internet Squeeze, based upon how often they have been viewed by our readers.

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The Top 6 Blog Posts On The Internet Squeeze

The following list shows the most popular offerings on The Internet Squeeze about internet marketing for brick and mortar businesses. They are good reference articles and are worth a repeat viewing if you are serious about making significant changes at your company.

  • The 3 Stages Of The Internet Buyer – Most companies market to the wrong type of buyer on the internet, hitting the buyer when they are not prepared to buy. This article shows how to reach the buyer, for differing reasons, at the three different stages of their buying process. This is the biggest contributor to the Internet Squeeze effect, because it reduces the effectiveness of the sales force.
  • Social Media – The Shopping Mall Analogy – Many traditional brick and mortar business owners have no idea what social media is and how it can be used effectively to grow their business. This analogy compares many different social media sites to the types of stores you would find in a mall, and makes it easier to understand if and how a social media strategy would make sense for a brick and mortar business.
  • What Every Internet Marketer Would Do If… – As 100 internet marketing professionals what they would do differently if they could start all over again, and you would get the same answer from most of them. This article examines what that answer is and why they would choose to do it differently.
  • Building Backlinks: Learn From The Littl… – Building backlinks is a major part of the search engine optimization process, and most businesses have no idea about the right and wrong ways this should be done. But there is a group of people who are doing it right, and brick and mortar businesses can learn a lot from them.
  • Do Your Website Visitors Know Something … – Every brick and mortar business knows that you can learn a lot from your customers, and the same is true online. This article addresses the lessons and methodologies that you can use to learn how to better reach your customer on the internet and reduce the effect of the Internet Squeeze.
  • Waiting For Thesis 2.0 – The Thesis Theme for WordPress allows brick and mortar business owners to establish an inexpensive content marketing solution that is second to none. If you are waiting on the new version, you are missing both savings and opportunities. Push back the Internet Squeeze with a dynamic, content marketing plan using the Thesis Theme for WordPress.

The Internet Squeeze 100

I hope this review of the top 6 blog posts on the Internet Squeeze was worthy of the 100th blog post position. If you review these articles, you will be well on your way to understanding the Internet Squeeze and what your brick and mortar business needs to do to successfully conduct your business on the internet.

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LinkedInfluence

Four LinkedIn Imperatives

July 12, 2011

Have you discovered that all the noise about LinkedIn is just not amounting to anything measurable for you? Do you wish you had a powerful strategy that would allow you to reap the enormous growth and profit that the social media masters are yielding each day? Well, here are the four LinkedIn imperatives discovered from […]

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LinkedInfluence

Will The 100,000,000 LinkedIn Users Buy Your Product Or Services?

July 11, 2011

Most people might not know that LinkedIn has more than doubled in size (OVER 100 Million Members) in the past year with one user added every single second! And did you know that the average user of LinkedIn has no clue about gaining top exposure in their business niche? Would you be surprised to find […]

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LinkedInfluence Product Reviewed

Product Review Of LinkedInfluence – Maximizing Your LinkedIn Benefits

July 8, 2011

If you are like many brick and mortar business owners and managers, you most likely are wondering how to get better results from your social media activities. There are many different products that claim to help you grow your social media accounts, so I have targeted one that I have purchased and use, and this […]

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Brick And Mortar Business Blogging

Brick And Mortar Businesses Do Not Need To Blog

July 7, 2011

While I believe that brick and mortar businesses must engage in a powerful content marketing plan, I rarely recommend a regular blog solution for most of these businesses. Blogging for the sake of blogging, as many people seem to do, has little value to a business that is trying to grow its customer base and […]

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Internet Marketing Budget

How Brick And Mortar Businesses Can Budget For Online Marketing

July 6, 2011

Brick and mortar businesses are feeling the internet squeeze, the shrinking of the bottom line due to an increased cost of marketing (due to the perceived need to be “on the internet”) combined with a reduced effectiveness of the sales force. Perhaps you are seeing this as well. Most companies know they need to step-up […]

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Product Review

Have You Seen Your Product Reviews?

July 5, 2011

Some of the most sought after information on search engines by consumers is product reviews, and if you own or manage a brick and mortar business, I would suggest you google your products to see if their are any reviews of them on the internet. Of course, this begs the question, have you written any […]

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Video Search Results

74% Of Searchers Will View Video Search Results

July 4, 2011

We conducted an informal poll on video search results yesterday to get an idea of just how likely people were to select videos that were served up by Google and other search engines when a non-video specific search was conducted. The results are early yet (and you can still vote in the sidebar of the […]

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SEO Video Poll

Do Google Searchers Select Videos From The Search Results

July 1, 2011

After posting yesterday’s article about using video to enhance consumer engagement, it got me wondering just how many people are likely to select a video from their “non video specific” searches for information on Google (and the other search engines). So I have set up a very informal seo poll of our readers about editorial […]

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Use Video For Engagement

Video Your Message For Customer Engagement

June 30, 2011

I have some experience at creating videos for the web, and I can tell you that video should be part of your internet marketing plan. Different people like to communicate in various ways, so video adds another method for you to reach potential customers for your company. Nothing on the internet is more engaging or […]

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Law Firm Website

Law Firms Can Modernize Through Their Websites

June 28, 2011

I had a long-time friend and his wife over to the house the other night, as they were visiting from out of town. As we sat and talked after dinner, the main topic was raised by them. They are both attorneys and wanted to know if the Internet Squeeze had any application in the legal […]

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Website Map

Better Internet Marketing Begins With A Better Company Website

June 27, 2011

There is so much information about the internet, on the internet, that it is no wonder that many a marketing professional just throws his or her arms up in despair and resorts to hiring a “techie” to “handle” the company website. But this is so wrong! It is time to acknowledge the importance of your […]

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Social Media Image

A Social Media Business Exercise That Works

June 24, 2011

If you are an “older” (meaning over 36 years old :)) business executive who has been hearing a lot about social media and wants to understand how it will truly benefit your business, I suggest you give this simple exercise a try. It is free, it will take 30 days, and at the end of […]

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Business Social Media Plan

Viral Marketing Comes From A Smart Social Media Plan

June 23, 2011

If you own a brick and mortar business that still relies on traditional methods for gaining new and repeat business, who should really consider implementing a social media plan for your company. We all see stories on the internet (and in our email inbox) that have “gone viral” due to the connectivity that social media […]

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Iceland Error

IcelandAir Loses Viral Marketing Opportunity

June 22, 2011

Icelandair probably does not pay much attention to social media, and because of this they are missing the boat (er, plane) on a great viral marketing opportunity. You see, when an extraordinary customer service issue arises, it makes for great viral fodder, but if only somebody chooses to use it. This is word of mouth […]

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List Marketing

Great List Marketing Isn’t An Accident

June 21, 2011

This is the third and final article in our brief series on list marketing. You should consider reading The Power List Marketing Tool For Your Company Website and How To Write A Strategic List Marketing Plan as solid background for this to make good sense. As the title to this post exclaims, great list marketing […]

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Strategic List Marketing

How To Write A Strategic List Marketing Plan

June 20, 2011

As a follow-up to our last post on The Power List Marketing Tool For Your Company Website, this post will identify the strategy behind your list marketing plan. While many companies use an email campaign to try to create more sales, very few have developed a long-term strategic intent for delivering the potential that list […]

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List Marketing With Aweber

Aweber: The Power List Marketing Tool For Your Company Website

June 18, 2011

Brick and mortar businesses must utilize list marketing techniques if they want to optimize their internet marketing plan. Studies have shown that more sales occur through the company’s list of subscribers than from any other source, including direct online sales. The purpose of today’s blog post is to demonstrate what a company needs to do […]

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