Entrepreneurship | Urge Marketing

The Case For Local Search

On March 6, 2011, In Entrepreneurship, Google Maps, Internet Marketing, Local Search marketing, Marketing, by admin

When you need a product or service, what are the ways you choose where to shop? For example purposes lets say you need a roofer after a storm. Do you pick up the phone book? Or search online? Well, I hate to break it to you, but the phone book is dead and not coming back. If you are like most people, you Google it! It’s simple, fast and effective. You can find exactly what you need, read reviews and get the contact information in a matter of seconds.

Research has proven that people are searching for local businesses online at an alarming rate. Here’s some stats for you from Google:

DID YOU KNOW?

o 97% of people with online access will research products and services online before they make a purchase. 74% of these searches are local searches.
o 55% of all local searches are done with an intent to buy. o Of all local searches, 8 out of 10 call or visit a store and 60% of those result in a purchase of some kind.
o Google controls 87% of all searches daily. 1/3 of all google searches are local.

What does all this mean? That the vast majority of people are searching for local businesses online and YOU HAVE TO BE THERE. It’s no longer something you can wait on. You either have to be there or you can expect less customers. That simple. I’m putting ALL of my current clients and my other personal businesses on it because of the power behind it. Wouldn’t it be great for when people search for your product or service online, you pop up on the first page of results? You’d get more business and credibility.

I have a small exercise for you… See where you are. Type your industry type and then your area. For example you might type, “Dentist Louisville” or “Italian Restaurant Kentucky.” See where your business pops up. See where your competitors pop up.

So how do you get there? If you want to get to the top of Google in local search, you have to know SEO or Search Engine Optimization which can be a grueling and painful process. For local search, Google uses an algorithm to determine who gets to the top. It’s based on a number of things together, reviews from other websites, citations, links, etc. If you get it right, you can get to the top within a matter of a few months.
Or if you want to hit the easy button, you can go through a map listing company that knows exactly how to do it already like www.getmaptraffic.com.

Either way, the bottom line is you have to get on there. Whatever you do don’t wait on it. Do it now.

Website Mistake #2: Delusional Expectations

On December 16, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Website Mistakes, Website tips, by admin

Last time, in our series on website mistakes, we talked about no tracking. Another fatal mistake you can make is the “If I build it they will come delusion.” Remember that movie, Field of Dreams? There was a saying, If you build it, they will come. In cyberspace, it’s pure BS. People won’t come unless you promote the heck out of your site. Just because you are online with a website, does not mean customers will suddenly appear. Even with SEO (search engine optimization), you still have to promote it and get it out there! Write articles related to your industry for local newspapers and magazines with a drive to go back to your site, promote it on your social media channels, use local search and other websites, buy banner ads and pay per click. Don’t be a Kevin Costner. Know that you have to get your site out there in order to see results.

Until tomorrow!

- DB

Website Mistakes To Avoid #1

On December 15, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Website Mistakes, Website tips, by admin

Since there are 11 days until Christmas and I’m feeling generous, each day I’m going to release a mistake you must avoid in order to have an effective website. It’s my little Christmas gift to you. You can find them right here on our blog! Be sure to check back each day for the next one. : ) Merry Christmas!

Here we go:

Website Mistake #1: No Tracking:

I have seen tons of business owners that have spent tons of money on a fancy looking website and wonder why they don’t get any sales! If you don’t measure your results, how will you ever know if what you are doing is effective? You need to see whats working, what isn’t and make adjustments with that information. Optimize your site, try new tactics and test it with tracking solutions. Here’s a huge tip: Install Google Analytics on your site. It can tell you how long people stay on your pages, which pages they look at, where they are from, etc. If you have a website that people don’t spend more than 3 seconds on, how can it possibly be effective? It’s a priceless tool that is a definite must have for ANY website. Personally, I track everything. Each individual blog post, splash page, etc. I want to know if people are reading my content or clicking away. I test new headlines, offers etc and know what works and what doesn’t. I don’t guess. I know. All because of tracking. This information can be invaluable to you. Make sure you track your site.

Check back tomorrow for another useful mistake you want to avoid.

- DB

Dump Your Duds

On June 12, 2010, In Critics, Entrepreneurship, Interesting, Success, by admin

If you want to get where you want to go, you have to Dump Your Duds. Your duds are clients, people and friends that are going to hinder your success or keep you from moving forward. They might be close friends, family members or even your old fraternity or sorority members. It’s anyone that does not encourage you to become more. This was something I have had to learn the hard way. I held on to for a long time to my duds thinking they were my friends. Truth be told they really weren’t. They were encouraging me not to do something worthwhile and it took me along time to realize it.

In my opinion, a true friend wants to see you succeed. They encourage you to become great. They want to see you become more. It took me a while to see that my duds didn’t want this for me. They didn’t want to see me succeed. They wanted me to stay the same or worse, fail (some even attempted to sabotage my results). Hugh Macleod puts it this way, “Great ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That’s why great ideas are initially resisted.” You will become like the people you spend the most time with. Do you want what they have? If you don’t, then you need to surround yourself with people that have what you want. Do your friends encourage you to be the best you can be? Or give you permission to stay the same? I don’t spend time with those people anymore. I surround myself with folks that want to see me become great. They encourage me to become more than I am. And I do the same for them. It has made a huge difference in my life and my results. Do this: Write down everyone you spend the most time with. Are they positive towards your goals, or negative? It’s time to dump your duds.

There are two types of people, anchors and motors. You want to lose the anchors and get with the motors because the motors are going somewhere and are having more fun. The anchors just pull you down. – Wyland

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. – Jim Rohn

Time Management Is The Key To Your Success.

On June 10, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, opportunity, Success, by admin

Time is one of our most precious assets. It’s a limited resource that no matter what we do, you can never get lost time back. Once a minute has passed, it’s gone forever. Time is what can determine your success or failure. Just about everyone I know claims they don’t have enough time in the day. Yet how is it that high achievers with ten thousand times more stress and responsibilities are able to get more accomplished in a single hour with the same amount of time as a homeless person with no responsibility? We all have the same amount of time. We each get 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. Your results in life are dependent on what you do with your time. Do you spend your time watching countless hours of television? Or do you read a book that can better yourself? Do you spend all of your time going out on the town and being hungover the next day, or do you put in the time to accomplish a step towards your dreams? One of my mentors, Dan Kennedy has a great quote:

The degree to which you achieve peak productivity – will determine your success.

You can never buy more time. Time is a priceless commodity. You only get 24 hours in a day, but you can reallocate your time. You can change your habits to gain more time for what you need to accomplish. The other day I was talking with a man that claimed he had no time to do anything different. I asked him to walk me through his day. He got up at 5 and watched the news, drank coffee, read the newspaper then went to work until 5ish, then had to eat supper. By then, he was so tired from work from earlier he had to rest a bit and usually watched the news again. Then he would visit with the family, work a little on projects, watch TV and take care of what the kids had going on like sports and homework. By that time the day was gone. He had no free time he claimed. I noticed two problems with his theory. His watching the news and television was sabotaging his results. 3 plus hours a day to be exact. Better yet, he watched the same news broadcast twice in one day! If he only paid attention to the news once a day for no more than one hour, he would free up 2 hours a day. That adds up to 730 hours a year equally a total of 30 full days. A whole month over the course of a year was spent watching the news that he had already seen earlier that morning. Wow. A full month he was missing out on by simply watching less news and reallocating that time towards his goals. If you want to get where you want to go, you have to audit your time. Make a list each day and write down exactly what you did. I’m sure you can find things to cut out or make more productive. If you audit your time and become more productive, you have a much higher chance of success.

It Takes More Than A Dream

On June 4, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Success, by admin

If you want to achieve something great, it is going to take a whole lot more than just a dream. It takes hard work. It takes an unshakable determination to succeed. I believe you must start with a dream, but most importantly, you must have action to move towards your dream. You cannot wait around for your dreams to somehow materialize. Hate to break it to you, but they never will without action from you. Without it, they are simply thoughts and pipe dreams. You must be willing to step up and put in the work that it is going to take to actually get there. I think that is why so few actually get where they want to go. They wait around for something to happen to them as if someone is just going to one day pop out of nowhere by and say: “Here you go!” then hand them their dream on a silver platter. It doesn’t work that way, yet that is the plan of so many. Average people dream of great accomplishments. Extraordinary people stay awake and do them. Dreams of bettering your world are just the beginning to your adventure. You have to learn to make progress and TAKE ACTION to accomplish your dreams.

“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them NOW. Not tomorrow. Not Next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” – Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s

Are You One Of The Unconquered?

On June 4, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, Success, by admin

I read an interesting poem today, thought you all might enjoy it too.

Invictus By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The author, William Ernest Henley contracted tuberculosis of the bone when he was only 12 years of age and had a foot amputated. Despite his illness and disability, he managed to live an active life for over 30 years. This poem entitled Invictus, which means “unconquered” in Latin, was written from a hospital bed during a rough time. I have found that whatever life throws at us, it is us who allows ourselves to accept it and determine how we handle the outcome. We can play victim, blame others all we want or we can choose to move forward and not accept our circumstances. We are either the masters of our environment or the victims. You can be either the lock on or the key to your life.

Which one do you want to be?

Whatever it takes

On May 24, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, Success, by admin

I spoke with an interesting man today on the phone that gave me a powerful lesson. You must do whatever it takes in order to get where you want to go even if it means doing things you don’t want to do. This man wanted to get started with his own business, but didn’t have the start up cost he needed to get it up and running. Now, he could have whined, cried and blamed his situation. He could have asked for a handout. He could have blamed everything else in his world for him not having what he needed. But he didn’t. He wanted it bad enough to find a way. So he decided to go sell blood (among other things) in order to get what he needed to get started. This guy was deathly afraid of needles, yet he still went through with it. Now that is determination. That is the drive you need. I have no doubt that with a fire inside that heavy, he will succeed in life in whatever he does.

People will give you hundreds of excuses for not following their passions. They don’t have the time. They don’t have the money. They can’t sell. They don’t have the education. Their excuses hold them back. Most simply won’t do what it takes to succeed. I am a firm believer that if you have the drive to do what it takes, anything is possible. There is always an option. There is always a way to move forward. You just have to have the drive.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

You Are The Best There Is

On May 11, 2010, In Critics, Entrepreneurship, Success, by admin

intimidation I will never forget the day I started my first business, Urge Marketing. I was working as a server for a restaurant while finishing college. While my guests were happy and during my breaks, I would read business and success books. One day my boss, Dale came up to me and picked up the book I was reading (Inc and Grow Rich… great book about incorporation by the way), and said “Whose book is this?” I told him it was mine. He laughed at me and said, “You’ll never be a business owner, you are a nothing but a server, you idiot. What makes you think that you can run a business?” Due to this and a few other factors, I never went back there to work. That night with nothing but a whopping $100 in my pocket and a dream I started Urge Marketing and have been doing it ever since.

In your path to success, you must realize that you are just as good, worthy and valuable as anyone else. Never let anyone intimidate you into not going further with your goals. Not the Dales or even the biggest successes out there. No matter what kind of car they drive, what their business card says, how much money they make or how big their house is. No one is better than you. You are the best there is.

You have all the ammunition you need to create something massive right inside that head of yours. You have the potential to do, be, or have anything you desire. No one has more than that. Some may have progressed farther down the path at this moment, but that doesn’t make them any better than you. If you start to take action right now, you will be working your way down that same path to greatness. No matter what anyone says, or does, no  matter what your situation is -personal, financial, social or otherwise- you can create your life in your own way. And there is no greater success than that. But you must be the one to achieve your success. Though no one can hold you back if you’re determined enough, but by the same token no one can do it for you. If you want to build your house of success, you’ll have to pick up the hammer and start swinging. You’ve got to step up to the challenge, believe in yourself, and do what it takes. Right now is a great time to start. You deserve the best that life has to offer. Do whatever needs to be done to make it happen. 

Do Your Worst, For I Shall Do Mine…

On May 11, 2010, In Entrepreneurship, Interesting, by admin

count I’m a pretty big fan of the movie the Count of Monte Cristo. Entertaining flick. One quote has stuck with me from it:

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you: as Albert Mondego, the man!” — Alexandre Dumas

As we go through life we face many storms or obstacles. Many choose to fall from their powerful blows, when they could stand and face them head on. We could all cower, become bitter or angry from what life throws at us, or we could learn to pick ourselves up and move forward. Life will never cease throwing problems at us. There is nothing we can do about it. You do however have a choice in whether you will stand to face them or crumble. Stare into the storm, ready to take it on.