Who’se looking forward to face CTI dace meetups, BnI meetings and BBGFORUMs?

 By Roger Amir - www.Mitronics.com.au

Currently most of us are networking remotely through zoom or team meetings.

With the announcement of opening businesses up again in NSW, it is expected that from December 1st networking face to face will be back on track, compliant to regulations.

So here are 5 benefits to help to grow our networks to help grow our net worth.

 

1) Raises your business profile and builds on your business brand. 

2) Keeps you front of mind which creates recognition and awareness.

3) Exchange of leads and being a source to help others.

4) Develops long lasting relationships with key people across various industries.

5) Creates introductions to other networks which become referral sources.

 

We are all looking forward to meeting new people, along with catching up with some familiar faces in the near future

Unpacking the BBG LinkedInforum Thinktank with Ronan Leanard

The power of the BBG Thinktank - the mastermind after the BBG knowledgeshare often provides more insights than the presenter.

Ronan Leonard provided a brilliant knowledgeshare on the power of masterminds and LinkedIn - and shared his tips and tricks on how to increase your authority and centre of influence. 

The following were our members and guests unpacking the BBG Thinktank 

Office Evolution ranked #2 franchise in Entrepreneurs 2018

Office evolution is not a workspace with Ping-Pong tables and kombucha on tap, like WeWork and Regus, which tout Silicon Valley.

Office Evolution founder and CEO Mark Hemmeter saw a marketplace of entrepreneurs - many of them professionals that have managed small businesses such as accounting or legal firms, and are already plugged into a more traditional community. Many have known each other for many years - and since 2012 have opened more than 50 locations - each of which has its finger on the pulse of what its particular community needs.

BBG www.bbg.business provides these firms an opportunity to collaborate learn and grow with each other through a process enabling members to build know like and trust with each other. As CEO Geoff Hirsh says “if I sit with you for 3 hours a month with a mindset of “ how can I help you” what’s the chances of us doing business together ?”

Best

Ivan

Ps feel free to download my business card https://members.referron.com/bsivc. 

Digital Marketing Insights at BBG Eastern Suburbs”knowledge share” with Marc Ennis

Marc Enners - A digital marketing guru from Agent 6 gave a brilliant “bbg knowledge share” at our Eastern Suburbs forum last week .

When Google first started,  a Google guy showed Marc what digital marketing could do - and predicted that half of the Adscene would go through google .... did he call it or what!!

Marc focuses on helping clients develop strategies and building blocks on how to get into googles brain. 

It’s an outsourced world - and he works with a whole bunch of people around the world to help his clients who are in a range of industries and professions 

Seo is the free bit 

google makes information from the world accessible freely using organic search - Google rewards you for writing and sharing great content. There are a bunch of strategies to “optimise your company being searched “SEO””

SEM - is paid ads

This where google makes its money! 

The increasing use of mobile is making SEO disappear - as only SEM is appearing! You “pay per word” or “pay per click” using “AdWords”.... and you pay! 

Google has become “a money sucking machine” - you want to be on google on mobile - you pay! 

The key is to know your numbers, and work out your ROI.

The secret is not to worry how much you spend, but how much revenue you can generate from those campaigns.

The beauty about the campaigns is that they can be targeted, specific and measurable. You can work out exactly what campaigns work and what doesn’t ! 

Some AdWords can get very expensive - for example “life insurance” and “mortgages” are auctioned for $100 per click - highly competitive .

The larger companies will spend bucketloads with key AdWords that will drown you ..... but you can beat them by being very niche and specific and “have a long tail” up to “8 word phrase”- so when people search something specific - your search comes first. 

Marc shared with us how when he was working with Webjet (which was a start up with limited funding at the time ) they were beating Flightcentre at every turn. 

As a small travel agent - you can’t compete against a webjet or flight centre - but you 

can go niche - there are specific opportunities. You need to find those little niches.

Digital Marketing is Like Poker - where you squeeze people out!!

SMM - Social Media marketing

Facebook advertising is the bomb! 

Facebook is free - because “we are the product” We’ve given up our privacy through - terms and conditions - we’ve give up our contacts and Privacy is gone - 

Facebook ads are very powerful and very easy to create. 

You can granualise your ad and be very specific! 

Eg - target people in Woollahra 50-55 , earning 50-80k per annum and have one leg “ - Facebook will find those people and share your ad through triangulating big data.

Facebook may have a problem (Cambridge Analytica) with privacy issues but they have a pile of money - and can acquire or buy themselves out of problems.

EDM - Email Marketing 

 Is highly profitable compared to others - and you are marketing to customers and lists you already have 

Your Roi can potentially be  $40-1 or higher! 

 Your Website 

A key start in your digital marketing strategy is to build a great website that 

• Is Search Engine optimised, 
• Has local content
• Has clean code
• Site speed fast and responsive - on a local server 
• Https 
• You need to have great landing pages which have specific call to actions.

Your website needs to have “remarketing” widgets working

Other Gems gleaned from the knowledge share 

• LinkedIn’s Machine learning is being built by Microsoft 
• Facebook and google - target exactly 
• Messaging is key - the way you put your message out 
• Organic traffic hard 
• Bot to burn competitions budget - google have ways to pick up false advertising 
• Be the long tail - longer and more specific search queries - 8 word queries Eg Cheap flights for rosebay - think local and think longer 
• Build website - on your blog and pages - answer questions that are local issues 
• Get your architecture and indexing right . If you are in Insurance and risk - define your industries on your site at the top 
• Google reads left to right and top to bottom 
• Indexing your site is key 

1. Insurance and risk
2. Industry
3. Organise information architecture

• Put your details on all pages and ensure you have privacy policies on your website 
• Competitors doing bad reviews - can be an issue 
• Make it load fast 
• People who are pissed off with you and Assasinate your reputation - respond - call person in and fix the problem. Turn the lemon into lemonade!! Outstanding Customer service  is key (Virgin’s Richard Branson is brilliant at this) 
• No spelling mistakes 
• Make sure your website is bolted down and secure 

Know the jargon 

In summary 

• Know your niche 
• Use the Long tail
• Build your list and Emarket
• Use all 4 mediums 
• Fast and Current Will beat old and lazy every day of the week 

BBG Brisbane Breakfast forum with Bill Cates

Bill Cates was inspirational and Brisbane BBG members were priviliged to have Bill talk at our Breakfast

How important is the customer experience?

'Twas a rainy Wednesday this morning ..... and yet 21 BBGers attended the March 2017 HNI forum in Martin Place, Sydney at 7am. From the get go, with the support and guidance by our excellent facilitator, the legendary Geoff Hirsh, the room was charged with a feeling of collaboration and community, and by the end of the session, referrals were flowing.
 

 

The thinktank on customer service and customer experience generated the following list of Dos and Don'ts

Dos

1. Set expectations - Preframe what's going to happen 
2. Systemise and document processes , measure and record activity - using latest technology
3. Build Trust 
4. Obsess on the little things
5. Know your customer - what are their values , preferences, behaviours, lifestyle and attitudes
6. Relationship - making the customer feel needed and important and valued - Be warm, make it an awesome experience , be nice, don't make customer feel that they are just a number serviced by a machine 
7. Think outside the box - find different solutions 
8. Take responsibility - own the problem until it is solved 
9. 24/7 service 
10. Be accessible 
11. Regular contact - frequency is good
12. Demonstrate value upfront 
13. Human to human - but automate well
14. Don't avoid complaints - tackling it - a well handled complaint - a force for your business 
15. Have a partnership approach to business - not a transactional approach 

Don'ts

1. Over promise under deliver - be true to your world 
2. Lack of follow up
3. Lack of respect 
4. Be late 
5. Be arrogant 
6. Take too long 
7. Be smartest person in room 

What is your top do and don't ?

If you share this, I will send you a strategy guide on "how to deliver a wow customer  service experience" and "how to run a client advisory board" 

How Kicking Angels Help You and Your Business Grow

 

You've heard of a guardian angel, haven't you - but what on earth is a kicking angel ?

Well, it's exactly what it sounds like - it's an angel that does the job of giving you a swiftie on your rear to get you moving to actually DO the important things you say you are trying to do or going to do for yourself or the business but just don’t ever seem to get around to finally putting them in place  eg like -

• Formally putting written goals in place
• Having regular team / management meetings
• Terminating those unproductive workers who are costing you heaps of money
• Employing better people to grow your business
• Developing some new marketing strategies to increase new business enquiries
• Delegating out all those tasks that you are currently doing that belong to other team members (that you pay) as part of their position
• Engaging a book keeper to maintain your financial records every month in one tenth the time it presently takes you
• Updating and improving your website
• Getting those important written testimonials from happy customers
• Send out that annual survey form to your valued customers to get their feedback about you / your business performance
• Arranging a holiday with the family
• Permanently reducing your weekly working hours to get a healthier work / life balance
• Committing to a regular weekly exercise program

…….surely you know what I mean, don’t some of these things ring true for you ? 
Basically you have been giving lip service to these things and generally doing diddly-squat about them for some time even though you have AGREED that they are important to get done / be put in place.
Then along comes the 'kicking angel.'

This kicking angel in the case of Ted and Pam from the Main Town Home Improvement Centre happened to be a Business Builders Group (BBG) of 20 like-minded business owners and leaders - and in the spirit of generosity they promised to help them.

"But here's what you have to do first," the Chairperson of the Group said.

"We will assist and guide you for the next 90 days (just like for each of the members of our Group) to ensure that you get in place everything on your list of important outstanding things (as outlined above) and then we’ll develop the next 3 month stage in your business growth plan.

So you know what Ted and Pam did next, don't you ?

Yes, in 3 months they did everything they had been waffling about for well over 9 months and then they asked for ongoing assistance (as a new member) from the Business Builders Group for the next stage.

What Ted and Pam didn't realise was that this Business Builders Group wasn't a guardian angel at all - they were a guiding and kicking angel and they got them moving in the right direction and fast.

And that's when it dawned on Ted and Pam. A kicking angel isn't supposed to be there all the time to do the work for them. What they're there for is to make them ACCOUNTABLE to do the important things that they needed to ACHIEVEgood results for their business (just like every member was doing for each other) – and then give a kick when required.

It took Ted and Pan a little while to realise the role of the kicking angel – one of the main functions was to get them off their butts so they could get the important things done and done well.

The kicking angel is not a guardian angel by a long shot - the key thing is to land that swiftie at the right times.
And the funny thing is that they'll keep at it, until you listen .- Are you listening ?

So if in any way you and / or your business need guidance, support and assistance from a Kicking Angel to achieve your personal and business goals – please call Business Builders Group (www.bbg.business) – I promise they will be gentle or NOT !

Greg Kay
Executive Director
Business Builders Group Australia
To view my profile and connect with me click here 

The #1 Marketing thing to do in 2017

When a prospect is referred to us, we get a “trust transference” – I klt bob, bob says jane is good…. I will then likely klt jane. And give her a go.

When there is a referral from a trusted source…. There is a type of magic that makes your business boom and will take you to another level. WE are looking forward TO THIS HAPPENNING FOR BBG.

An example…  I have known SARAH for 8 years and have helped her with her business. One of the areas we have assisted is in accessing export grants for Australian Businesses…. Whereby a business can potentially get 50c in the $ for every marketing $ that is spent. SO if an Australian business spends $50,000 on an eligible marketing activity – they can get back $25k … if they spend $300k they can potentially get back $150k 

Her business is to take Australian designers to the USA and find agents and customers for them. As part of her service, she refers the designers to us, so we can maximise their grants, and therefore minimise their risks.

A win for SARAH a win for her client and a win for BSI 

Sonya knows likes and trusts us, and the designer knows likes and trustsSarah – Sarah refers designer to us… Designer KLTs us….

One of the key non – negotiables… is that we provide a professional service with a WOW factor, and do what it takes to maximise the grant for the client and make the process as painless as possible.

The #1 thing that I recommend you do in 2017, s to develop your referral relationships…

Proactively plan to identify, communicate with and seek to uncover business opportunities with people who can provide you with referral business.

• identify your referral partners – and get them to join your BBG Chapter
• communicate monthly – by coming to the BBG Forum (meeting and identifying opportunities for 3 hours per month) .
• BE sure to call them and correspond with them , so that you are top of mind
• ACTIVELY THINK ABOUT REFERRAL OPPORTUNITIES … who can you refer them to Track, Measure and reward your referrals

Steps

• Download Referron and update your profile
• Make the time to refer and ask for referrals
• Follow up the referrals made
• Provide an awesome service

If there is one activity that you will do to help your business grow…

Focus on referrals.

The ingredient of influence "RLS sauce"

• Reciprocity 
• Likability 
• Scarcity 

• Social proof 
• Authority
• Unity 
• Consistency
• Excellence

Get your pitch right

Gemma ManningEntrepreneur and strategic marketing expert helping leaders & business owners to transform businesses.

Whether you’re managing a large corporation, a medium-scale business, or a small start-up, pitching to influencers, partners, investors and customers requires a strategic and tailored approach. Get your pitch right to distinguish your business angle from other market players and disrupters. 

In Australia, we have a tendency to be humble about our successes, relying upon the quality of the product or service to ‘sell itself’. However, this isn't enough. To make your pitch stand out from the rest, you need to communicate your ideas with passion and confidence. 

Research shows that the first 20 seconds of a pitch will make or break the audience’s interest. This is the ‘elevator pitch’ — the crucial moment where you distinguish your business from the rest. Here are my top 5 tips for getting your pitch right: 

1. Articulate your vision with confidence

When you stand in front of people you are selling to, you need to articulate your vision and approach clearly, confidently and concisely. Use succinct, simple language; avoid obscuring your message beneath unnecessary jargon or complex technical terms.

2. Tell an unforgettable story

From the written word to the spoken word, you need to tell an unforgettable story that captures the listener’s attention and holds it. Think about what makes your approach distinct and different. To tell a story that stands out from the crowd, leverage originality and flair, and align your story to the key outcomes and strategies of your organisation.

3. Know your audience

Tailor your material and presentation to the requirements and expectations of your audience. This will ensure that people understand who you are, what you’re trying to achieve, and how your business specifically can help to solve a problem. A personalised approach will drive an emotional connection and deeper engagement with your audience.

4. Step up and differentiate yourself

Australian leaders have a tendency to be modest — but to successfully ‘sell’ your ideas, you need to talk confidently about your achievements. You need to explain exactly how and why your business is relevant to the market. Don’t be shy about your successes; present them with confidence.

5. Be genuine, engaging and enthusiastic

It all boils down to this: you can’t fake passion. To create an outstanding pitch, you need to be passionately and wholeheartedly dedicated to your cause. Self-belief, passion and drive are fundamental to this. If you truly believe in yourself and your ability to bring others on board with your business, they will believe in it, too. 

Read the full article in The CEO Magazine.

Written by

Gemma ManningEntrepreneur and strategic marketing expert helping leaders & business owners to transform businesses.

Can you create a business you love…on your terms?

September 30, 2016Posted by Clare White

https://blogs.business.microsoft.com/en-au/2016/09/30/sarah-denby-jones/?platform=hootsuite

It’s every entrepreneur’s dream: identify a market niche and have the business idea to mesh perfectly with that opportunity. Start a business with people you trust. Grow it from three people to over 50 in 10 years, in a market that is booming and vibrant. Then sell to a global behemoth.

What next?

For small business marketing mentor Sarah Denby-Jones, exhaustion (understandable). A young family (exciting). An opportunity to assess what she wanted next for her career and her lifestyle (enviable). “I’d proved what I could do, and didn’t feel the need to repeat the same experience,” she explains. “I was ready for a change, with the focus very much on my family and on rebalancing my life.”

#SurfaceLife - Sarah Denby-Jones Small Business Marketing Mentor https://youtu.be/5nX2MR3yWDE via @YouTube

Her decision was to move to from London to Sydney, with a clear initial objective built on her recent success in the UK: regroup, re-energize, recalibrate. It was only after she had fulfilled these personal objectives that she started to consider what the next entrepreneurial move might even be. “I knew I wanted to share my own experiences with people starting their journeys for the first time. I’d walked the path they were on or were about to start, and my experiences meant I could help them. In particular, I wanted to develop the idea of having the freedom to strike that balance, and to help others in business do the same.”

As she notes, businesses change fast, and disruption and innovation can appear at any moment. Small business owners especially can struggle to decide what’s important and relevant whilst staying true to their purpose. That’s where Sarah comes in, working as a mentor and strategic advisor to her clients.

“It’s sobering to remind ourselves that around 30% of startups or small businesses fail to survive beyond two years, often as a result of the initial idea being unsustainable in the medium term.

“At the same time that figure improves markedly for startups with mentors – 70% of these companies last beyond five years. There are few things in a startup’s life that can double your chances of success, but having a mentor is one of them!

“So I challenge my clients’ thinking and strategies, I take them back a few steps, work with them to help them identify the core of their businesses, and what drives them. We focus on these foundations, and on getting them right. It’s too easy to focus on the tactics and the tasks of the moment, but if you’re operating on foundations that are weak or wrong, you are bound to fail.

“And no business owner deserves to fail.”

Marketing is Sarah’s passion. “It’s my fundamental position and belief that marketing is about everything that you do. Once you’ve found your space the magic is in the details of the experience you create, and in how you connect on a human level. It’s about the culture, systems and structures that you put in place that pulls everything together to support your growth. These are your foundations, and they support the proposition you take to your customers.”

Sarah now works with disruptors. “Successful companies are now ‘fast’ rather than ‘big’ or ‘small’, size matters little if you can scale, and it’s technology that lets you scale,” she says.  “When I started in London in the early-eighties, accessible technology was still in its infancy. We were anchored to desks with large PCs if we were lucky, we had secretaries if we were really lucky, and phones connected to walls with cables! So you actually had to have an office in a building. It was inevitable that our clients then were large companies, many leaders in their segments by definition. Much of our work was around changing strategy and the way they went to market. It was like turning proverbial tankers mid-ocean. We did it, but it took time.

“Technology has changed everything. I’m still in awe about what I can do because I can remember what it used to be liked!

“So being able to run a business from something as compact and as powerful as my Surface Pro 4 is just so cool! I can operate my business with clients from home or on the move. Its mobility is important because it lets me run my business on my terms, and means I strike the balance I seek in my life. I can work at home on product development, and meet with and engage with clients, with everything to hand.

“One thing about the Surface that I do love is the note-taking. I think and express myself with diagrams and hand-drawn schematics. Being able to do so with the stylus on the screen, and then to share and discuss new ideas with clients, is very powerful and very important and fundamental to how I work.”

Working with small businesses, and successfully growing and selling one of her own, gives Sarah Denby-Jones first-hand insights into what creating a business actually means. “It’s difficult to turn dreams into reality, and every business starts with a dream. Each entrepreneur’s path to success is different and you move along your path by learning as you go. I work with entrepreneurs who seek to create purposeful and profitable businesses. The passion and purpose will sustain you through the tough times and define your success, the profit is your reward.

Her one message for entrepreneurs is, “Leaning into your strengths is one of the most powerful things you can do, not least because you end up doing what you love, as well as playing to your skills.”

As to the future, Sarah sums it up this way: “I want to work with extraordinary people who want to put a dent in the universe, who believe they can do something different, however big or small.”

Contact Sarah Denby-Jones at online or find out more about Surface for SMB’s.

 

gnore this at your peril! Sixty-six percent of respondents are willing to pay more for sustainable goods - up from 2014 (55%) and 2013 (50%)...

Ivan SchwartzDeveloping sustainable loyalty/retention programs and building vibrant online communities. Social Exchange advocate.

The recent 2015 Nielsen Global Sustainability Report found that 43% of consumers say that a company’s commitment to social value “very heavily” or “heavily” influenced their purchase decisions. And according to a Cone Communications/Ebiquity survey from the same year, 90% of global consumers would switch brands to one that is associated with a good cause, provided price and quality are equal. Worth a read - and a chat if you'd like to learn more about our currency of change. www.imagineif.net.au  

Do you have a cause that you are aligned with? 

An evening of Inspiration with Allen Pathmarajah and Chuan Tan

Inspirational Evening with Chuan Tan , Allen Pathmarajah and Advisors Alliance Group!

What can be achieved by a company inspired by the value of service and a "spirit of generosity" and learning

Advisors Alliance Group and BBG from Ivan Kaye on Vimeo.

Allen Pathmarajah exciting, energising and enthusing life insurance agents from Ivan Kaye on Vimeo.

Keynote at BBG launch - using Referron

 Using Referron  with regular systemised face to face meetings and coaching - 

 BBG will be creating that "virtual village" - that group of people that you will know, like and trust - creating an enviable intelligence network.... For the benefit of  BBG members.

Over the past 3 years, based on researching 10x , interviewing 100s of accounting firms and professional services firms  and working with countless coaches and SMEs - 

We identified What SMEs most want are leads - and of course a methodology to close them....  And what we found is that the best leads come from referrals - from people that know like and trust you - 

So I figure , if we give people what they want - we will get what we want ....

So BBG is simply about generating you warm leads - and we have a kpi of a minimum of 100 leads per annum - and 3600 referrals for each BBG group of 30.

Using Referron 

• Members will be able to know who is referrable - who are the guys that are recieving the most leads - what is there X factor.

• Who are the mavens - the people who love to refer - those are the ones that people will warm to.... You will have that data... And have the opportunity to get them to know like and trust you. 

• As the BBG network grows - we will list the top referrers and the top people being referred. 

• By members referring on a regular basis - the strength of the group will grow - as will the expansion of the BBG influence, directly benefitting you, our members, who will have access to that data . 

So - 

Update your profiles and pictures - so that you become more referrable - so that when someone refers a person to you - the potential client will know who you are! 

Be sure to use Referron to refer someone to a person you know like and trust within 3 taps of the phone - the law of reciprocation works! And they will refer to you! 

That is what Referron and BBG can do for you,

I will be holding a webinar  - giving a detailed rundown of Referron features and how to use the app and system.

We have a number of new features that will soon be released - such as card scanning - if you are interested - we would be delighted if you would be interested to be one of our testers - if you are interested - let me know and I will refer you to our developer Keith Hutchison .

For more information - go to www.bbg.business

Become a founding member of our business builders group

If you'd like to attract a lot more referrals in your business, here's something that may be just the ticket.

Maybe you have been to networking events or referral groups before and found them to be less than effective for attracting leads and customers..

BBG, co-founded by Geoff Hirsh, is completely different. 

The BBG Process is specifically designed to overcome the key challenges that small business owners face when attracting referrals ... through their community, unique BBG Structure, Professional Mentoring and Best of Breed Tools.

We are hosting a briefing, with drinks and nibbles,  where you will find out how BBG can help you achieve your growth objectives

When:- on Thursday 18 February 4:30am - 6pm 

Where:-  at the BBG Meeting Venue, Level 7, 14 Martin Place, Sydney, 2000

and I would be delighted if you could join us to learn how you can be a founding member of this community. 

This briefing is limited to 40 guests so make sure you click here to register your interest today.

We look forward to seeing you there.

About Geoff Hirsh 

Geoff is one of Australia's top marketing consultants, with 8 years corporate marketing experience with Cadbury Schweppes and Duracell and 25 years running his own Marketing Agency – AdMail

Over that 25 years he has worked with literally hundreds of businesses from Top 100 Companies all the way down to owner-operated SME's, helping his clients win awards for new product launches, loyalty programs, website design, promotions and event management, and others achieve successful share market floats and trade sales.

In the 25 years he has run his own business Geoff estimates that over 80% of his new business has come through referrals.Geoff is currently a member of BNI and The Network Collective and is a past member of The Executive Connection. In putting the Business Builders Group together, Geoff has applied his considerable knowledge and expertise in Referral Marketing to building a model that – I have no doubt – is simply the best available in Australia today.