Call Source Data

Call Data

Data from Call Source has been collected for nearly four months and we are beginning to see some trends:

• One such golden nugget is that Mondays and Thursdays have the highest number of calls. This means that you should staff accordingly.
• Another nugget is that through mid-October, there have been nearly 50% as many calls as there were for the preceding three months and October isn’t over yet. Call volume is increasing.
• I think it is easy to make the assumption that the increase in calls is a direct reflection of the emphasis that has been devoted to ad placement and directory submissions. It is also important to note that 89% of all calls came directly from landing pages. This means that traffic should be pushed to landing pages!
• Finally, 43% of all calls last less than 30 seconds, which implies that nearly half of all calls which are sent to voicemail, or do not get an immediate answer, hang up.

As our campaign continues, more relevant data will be collected and new treads may emerge.

Keep up the good work!

New Classified Site

As you recall, we are using the www.craigslist.org classified ad posting strategy. It works when franchisees keep their postings current. You need to repost these ads once or twice a week.

Our SEO Specialist has located another classified website to post key word ads on. This site is www.bajohn.com. When you visit this site you will see that there is not a lot of traffic on the site. Traffic is nice, but not all that important for our purposes, which is to secure a link to your landing page. Linking is EXTREMELY important. The more websites linking to your landing page, the higher you are going to rank organically. It is worth your time to post ads on these classified advertising websites.

I have posted the instructions on how to post on Bajohn.com in the FranConnect Library under CAMPA-Western Region/Google AdWord Info/bajohn posting ad.

This posting, along with the other classified ad postings, will increase your organic search results.

Customer Reviews

A great way to boost your search engine ranking is to post customer reviews and ratings. Most major directories provide a place for customers to write a review or post a rating for a business. It is a good idea to ask customers who have had a great experience with your business, to share their experience through posting a review.

Posted reviews from customers not only provide potential clients with insight on what type of great service you provid, but they also increase your SEO rankings. A great place to get reviews posted is on Google Maps.

Test this out. Do a search for: Shoe Stores, New York, NY (a competitive arena) on Google Maps. The first 28 pages of business listings on Google Maps are packed with business reviews. It is interesting to note that you have to scroll down through a couple hundred ads before a business without a review is listed. Obviously, locations without reviews are at the end of the listings which validates the concept that reviews help SEO rankings.

Please don’t have your employees rate your business, because search engines are much too smart for blatant abuse. It is best to obtain your reviews and ratings honestly.

Now when a client asks, “How can I thank you?” you know what your answer should be!

Be Everywhere

Another place for your business to be seen is in Google 411. Google provides a service called Google 411 to all businesses that have a Google Business Listing and other business. Customers simply call 1-800-GOOG-411 and give the city,state, and type of business that they want to find. Call-in customers are connected with the business of their choice.

This is just another reason to create a polished Google Business Listing. This feature creates one more avenue for you to reach your customers.

To ensure you have a quality Google Business Listing and are listed on Google’s 411 service, follow these steps:

*In order to get familiar with this service, try it out by dialing 1-800-466-4411 (1-800-GOOG-411) and ask for your business.

*Try multiple searches under different key words (Drug Testing, DNA, etc) and see if you are on the service. You should be listed under the most frequently searched and popular categories.

*Go to Google Maps and search for your business; make sure you are making the most of the options there.

*If you don't come up in the Google Business Listings or Google’s 411 service, you may wish to develop a strategy to get listed and ranked.

*Also, check out the Google Video about this video option at Google 411. Including a video on your website is an easy way to increase your ranking on Google’s Business Listing Service.

You need to take advantage of these free programs offered to you. Your competitors are!

FAQs

Q: Is it possible to create a knowledge bank for training, product knowledge, procedures and best practices?

A: In a prior life, I created such a resource for franchisees to use. The knowledge bank was rich in every aspect of managing and growing a franchise. Over three thousand different topics, procedures, training information and best practices were posted online for franchisees to use. This made tackling problems very easy.

In most cases, when a question came up, no new research had to be done, since someone else had already crossed that bridge. The path to solving these problems was already laid out and easy to follow. In the worst case scenario, a specific issue may be slightly different, and additional research had to be done. Generally, in these situations, there was ample information in the answer to cut the research time by 50%-80%. This tool was a competitive advantage.

Currently, in FranConnect under the Support Tab, you will find FAQs. I have been posting questions online for the month. Every time a question is raised on a particular topic that I feel is relevant for the group, I create a Q: Question and then a corresponding A: Answer and post it in the FAQ section of FranConnect. Currently there are ten categories:

1. Advertising: Ad Words
2. Advertising: Yellow Pages
3. Background Screening Services
4. CAMPA
5. DOT Testing
6. Drug Pak
7. Insurance
8. Legal Issues
9. Operations
10. Real Estate

There are currently 41 questions posted in these categories.

This is only a start.

Ideally, everyone in the system would submit questions and answers for posting. When someone has to do research on a specific topic, it usually does not take long to create a question and share how the issue was resolved and incorporate this information into the form of an FAQ outlining the resources used and the main issues to be aware of. Over time, the collaborative effort of the group will create an enormously powerful resource for everyone to draw upon. This is just one more tool we have as a group of like-minded entrepreneurs, working together to dominate the competition.

Networking Pays Off

ACCUDIAGNOSTICS SACRAMENTO HONORED BY THE ASIAN PACIFIC CHAMBER

Member of the Week: Carol & Jeff Hastings from AccuDiagnostics

AccuDiagnostics helps provide Drug-Free environments for Companies, Schools, and Government Agencies such as Sacramento's Police and Fire Departments. Their services include Same Day Drug, Alcohol, and Background Screening. Medical offerings include physicals, innoculations, and TB Tests. LiveScan service is also available.

The Chamber has helped us with introductions to key members of the Sacramento Government and business community that are helping us build our business. Their territories cover the range from Davis up to Nevada City.

Carol and Jeff also provide FREE seminars on Drug Abuse, its costs to employers, and how to implement a Drug-Free Workplace Policy. Many employers don't realize that:

• 75% of Drug Abusers are Full-Time Employees
• Employee Drug Abusers are involved in 50% of all Worker's Comp Claims
• They are 4 Times more likely to steal from their employers or co-workers
• Their medical claims are 300% higher
• They use 3 Times more Sick Day benefits
  

If you have questions about AccuDiagnostics, please call (916)739-1718.

PR and Networking is like small streams that feed tribuataries which eventually become the "Mississippi River" of business.

Great Job!

Following Up On Missed Calls

You are at your desk, on the phone with a client, when a customer walks in the front door. To make sure you’re not rude to the client you are talking to on the phone, you spin your chair around in the opposite direction and continue with your call. The customer in your lobby waits for a few minutes and then leaves. You just lost a future client because you ignored him or her.

Of course, you wouldn’t really turn your back on a customer who walked in the front door - would you? If you aren’t making it a practice to follow up with customer calls on your Call Source Reports, that is exactly what you are doing – ignoring them. A phone call is a red flag that someone is looking for help!

Every day you receive two Call Source Reports. You should make it a practice to follow up with each call on these reports. Creating and utilizing a tracking log is helpful in systematizing this process.

If you can’t make contact with a missed caller or you want to know what type of caller phoned in, you may wish to use these FREE reverse lookup tactics.

Perform a Google, MSN, or Yahoo Search on a phone number:

1. Select the number that you missed, right click on it, and copy it to your clipboard.

2. Go to Google and paste the number from your clipboard into Google’s search bar.

3. If the number appears in the results, you can usually get an idea if the number belongs to a residential or business customer who called your Call Source phone number. You may find the call was from a salesperson or other vendor who you can call back when you have time.

4. If no search results are found, try changing the way the number is displayed in the search bar. Try all of the following formats. Quotations bring up EXACT results.

“925-555-5555”, “(925) 555-5555”, (925) 555-5555, or 925-555-5555

Trying every possible combination may help, depending on how the number is listed on the Internet.

5. If the number is a business, you may decide to call them or make a personal sales call. Showing up in person goes a long way in proving that you want their business.

Each franchise location has two virtual phone numbers; one on the landing page and another in each Key Words AdWord description. We are tracking each of the types of calls – which is a subject for another time.

You have worked hard for those phone calls; don’t allow a lack of follow-up result in wasting these potential leads.

Copy Cats

As discussed on our last CAMPA conference call, our competitors are keeping an eye on us and, in fact, are copying our SEO strategy. As they say, “stealing your ideas is the best form of flattery.”

To review what one of our competitors did: Kylee figured out that posting on classified sites would improve SEO rankings. A suggestion was made for all franchisees to post an ad on www.craigslist.org in their areas and let the spiders find these ads, check it for relevance and begin to rank the key word. It works.

In her daily monitoring of the SEO results, Kylee found a classified site called www.oodle.com and suggest that the www.craigslist.org strategy be repeated with www.oodle.com. While monitoring the SEO activity for the week, she noticed a new organic listing and clicked on it thinking it was an ad posted on www.oodle.com by one of you. To her amazement it was a competitor’s ad and the franchisee had not posted an ad on www.oodle.com.

Now we have the situation where a competitor is out foxing us, at least on this single key word in organic search, by stealing an idea from us and using it effectively against us.

If you have NOT posted your www.craigslist.org or www.oodle.com ad for a couple of key words including drug testing, DNA testing, etc., you need to do it NOW or allow our competitors to grab business from us.

Linking

The brain of a newborn infant has over 100 billion neurons. This represents more brain cells than there are stars in the Milky Way. These brain cells grow and die in the first few decades, but the brain retains roughly the same number of cells. Without these cells, the brain is not a brain.

In the formative years of a child’s life, intelligence is formed by the number of connections or links between the cells. These links are called the synapses – synaptic connections.

The first fifteen years are critical for the development of the brain. From the first breath of an infant, these neurons send out thousands of signals which are trying to talk to each other. When there is communication between these synaptic connections, a link is formed.

By a child’s third birthday, about 15,000 links have been formed for EACH of the 100 billion neurons. During the next 5-10 years, the brain refines and focuses these connections on the most frequently used links. These strong synaptic connections increase in strength and the weaker ones wither away. This is very similar to our highway system. In essence, the stronger links become freeways. The least traveled links become country roads with weeds springing up through the cracks in the roads, and eventually these country roads disappear because there is no traffic.

In humans, links that receive continuous stimulation become the core of a person’s talents and strengths.

10 Reasons to Post an Ad

The goal is to have search engines rank AccuDiagnostics as the #1 site for any related key word search. To accomplish this you must saturate the Internet with information about all aspects of your business.

Posting ads on popular classified advertising websites is a quick and easy way to do this.

Using classified advertising websites has two objectives:

1. One obvious objective is for viewers of a classified advertising website to view the advertisements placed.
2. Even more importantly, search engine spiders crawl these advertisements and rank them. Ultimately your advertisements need to be posted on as many of these classified advertising websites as possible. The more your advertisements are crawled by the spiders, the higher the ranking will be on the search engines.
   
   Craigslist is by far the most popular classified advertising website. We have seen a lot of success with ads being posted on Craigslist. It is IMPORTANT to optimize your visibility and to continually repost your advertisements at once, or even twice a week. An easy way of doing this is to schedule postings on Mondays and Thursdays of each week.
   
   Another website we are seeing results from is Oodle.
   
   Here are your 10 reasons to post an ad on Oodle: google.com , military.com , lycos.com , washingtonpost.com , myspace.com , backpage.com , efind.com , newsondeals.com , thecorner.com, and a large number of other local classified listings.
   
   All of these websites are partners with Oodle. If an advertisement is posted on Oodle , other sites will pick up your postings and display these ads as if these were posted on their own websites.
   
   Use the templates provided to you and make sure you to keep your user IDs handy. Post multiple ads in different categories on each website and update, edit, and repost your ads routinely.
   
   If you haven’t updated your ads with the new landing page URL (as in this example: AccuDiagnostics Local Drug Testing of Martinez), now is a good time to get it done!

It Happens on the Front Lines.....

Sacramento, Jeff:

I love braggin’ on my ladies ...

Marie, our lab tech, opened 3 accounts in the past two days: two trucking companies and a healthcare staffing company. Sources were Yellow Pages, a prospect referral, and believe it or not, the online Datia directory (editorial note: most of our competitors are not Datia members).

Lancaster, Doug:

Doug is following a very specific regime of “Steady Eddie” day after day sales calls. Recently he had the following experience. Click on the link to listen to what Doug is doing to generate business:

Doug's Business Tips

What Competitors Will Say and Do

During a recent sales call, Jeff Hastings, the Sacramento franchisee, had a competitor tell a non-DOT prospective client that hair drug testing was not admissible in CA courts. To confirm that hair drug testing was indeed admissible in the court in CA, our Drug Policy Legal Council, Mr. Bill Judge, was summoned.

Here is his response via a recorded telephone conversation. Please follow this link to listen to this audio transcript: Hair Testing Response by Mr. Bill Judge

There is also a posted FAQ on our FranConnect Intranet at: Support/FAQ/Legal

As I have said before, it is nice to know that when you need technical information and support, that it is available.

Hijacked

Claim Your Google Local Business Listing Before Someone Else Does!

Imagine going to the Post Office to check your post office box, only to discover that all of your mail and receipts for the past few weeks have been forwarded to an unknown party. The Post Office informs you that there is no chance of getting your receipts back and if you want to start receiving your mail at your PO box once again, you need to go over to their new business center and fill out some forms to claim your box. Just notifying the Post Office that it was your box is not enough to protect it in the future. Due to normal delays in processing, it would be 2 weeks before you start receiving your mail & money again.

If you’re a small business with a local listing in one of the major search engines, you need to beware: the same scenario described above could happen to your local search result info if you’re not careful.

The apparent hijacking of a large number of independent florists in Google Maps several weeks back is just such a story. Google, in the role of Post Office, allowed someone to hijack listings in the Florist industry using the Community Edit feature.

For those of you unfamiliar with the incident, here is a brief recap. The technique, apparently in widespread use in the locksmith, pay day loan, and other industries, exploited weaknesses in Google’s Community Edit capability. In this newly reported case in the Florist industry, affiliate map-spammers targeted high ranking florists in major markets who had not claimed their business listings in the Local Business Center, which would enable them to benefit from existing business ranking and reviews.

The spammers, using these Community Edit tools, would change the phone number to another local number, change the location of the business slightly and then proceed to add a category, a new URL and ultimately change the name of the business. Apparently the small move in location convinced Google’s system that all subsequent changes were legitimate. The listing would retain the ranking and reviews of the original business, but redirect to a Canadian florist fulfillment house via the affiliate’s website. The listings displayed prominently in the Local 10 Pack on searches for florists in major markets across the U.S.

Here are some screen captures (from Real Florist) that illustrate the sequence of events:

Clearly every small business needs to claim its listing in Google’s Local Business Center to be sure that the information that is presented to the public is accurate. But as we have seen, not every small business is aware that they need to do this and even if they are, there is anecdotal evidence that they still can’t figure out how to do so. Clearly more has to be done, and responsibility for making sure that local business data is secure falls directly onto Google.

There have been a number of suggestions for Google on procedures and practices in getting user generated content. Certainly those or something similar needs to be implemented.

More importantly, Google needs to put the full weight of their commitment behind local searches. From the top down, Google needs to commit the resources and integrity to local searches that they deserve. We know that Google’s role in local has been critical in moving local marketing front and center with Universal search. Their efforts at providing deep local information via Google Earth and their Google Vote are impressive.

But as Google’s dominance of search transfers to local, there is an accompanying rise in their responsibility. They need to play in the local space like these businesses were their neighbors, not just pieces of data. The standard for success in local needs to move from relevance to truthfulness and when there is a mistake, there needs to be openness and speed in correcting it.

We are in the early days of local search and we are just getting a glimpse of its incredible power to influence. If we are to ever hope that it will be more than the snake oil salesman of the new millennium, than now is the time for Google to step up and guarantee that there is integrity and accuracy in the results.

Idea: Cooperative Marketing

You walk into the XYZ Corp. They are friendly and you request to see the HR Director; within a few minutes, you are ushered into her office. After a few pleasantries, you ask about their drug testing policy. She smiles and says, “Oh, that is handled out of our Southern CA office.”

Sound familiar?

In a discussion with Jill Chioino the other day, she had this idea.

Discover AccuDiagnostics - JC's Idea

I thought this was an interesting idea. I have added this to the CAMPA Conference Call scheduled for Thursday, October 16th, at 12:00 noon. The call information will be sent in a separate email.

How the World Finds You

You are going on a long trek through the mountains. Before you start on your trip, you stop at the ranger station and inform the rangers of your planned route and schedule. A few days later, your family reports you are missing. If you had not checked in with the ranger station, it could have taken days or perhaps even a week before the searchers would find you – if at all. But...you were prepared. You started out with a plan and followed it to increase the probability that you could be found. Your searchers were able to find you quickly because you had informed them where you were most likely to be located.

Right now your business is lost on the World Wide Web. Anyone looking for you can find you, but they will have to cover a lot of ground to do it – finding you is literally similar to looking for a needle in a haystack.

To make things simpler for those information seekers, you need to register with major search engines (or ranger stations, if you will) to make yourself easier to find. Registering with every search engine (such as: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and the Internet Yellow Pages) will make it a heck of a lot easier for your customers to find you.

Guerrilla Marketing

I was thinking about marketing, selling and promotions today. My thoughts were focused around my constant stump speech of “in the trenches marketing” vs. the “home run or big idea.” Both are essential to building successful businesses, but not everyone can come up with that one big idea every week. The “in the trenches” mantra is meant to focus on the “Steady Eddie” process of doing consistent sales and marketing activities on a day to day basis. The big idea will eventually show up.

Creativity is also essential. I came across this article in the WSJ online that I thought would be of interest to you: How To Launch A Successful Guerrilla Marketing Campaign


“Big ideas” and “Steady Eddie” are both effective. Put another way: “Big Ideas” accelerate from 0-60 mph in 4.3 seconds, while “Steady Eddie” winds up from 0-60 mph in 22.3 seconds -- but the "Steady Eddies" usually win marathon races.

Never, Never Give Up

Here is an email I was copied on, from Jeff Hastings in Sacramento, sent to Scott Jenkins:

Scott:

Remember the staffing agency that is one block away from our lab?

They threw you out in March.
They threw me out in April.
They threw Roger out in May.
They threw Nick out in August.

Last Friday I met the manager at a Metro Chamber lunch.

Today Carol and I took her to lunch at a restaurant with utensils (not Mr. Pickle).

She is now our newest client.

Everybody who does drug testing is our client. Some just come to that realization more quickly than others.

Cheers!

Jeff Hastings

Three notable points to learn from this experience:

1. Never Give Up.
2. Meeting the same individual in a social environment makes all the difference.
3. Having the ability to get up each day and do it again pays dividends.

Good Job Jeff.

Call Source Reporting

Are your Call Source Reports one of your first priorities? If not, think about including this in your daily routine. Use your Call Source Reports as a market tool for future clients. If a potential customer has taken the time to call to inquire about your business, that customer needs to be your top priority.

Call Source Reports are not only a way for you to contact and follow up with customers; they are a way for you to gauge your internet popularity. How relevant are you? Are you putting enough information in the ads you are posting on Craigslist or Oogle, etc.? Are you consistently updating these ads and keeping them current? These simple things will keep your organic ranking high.

The Call Source Reports are showing a correlation between the number of calls received and your organic ranking. The higher a location ranks organically, the more calls they are receiving.

Use your Call Source Reports to provide a tool for follow-up and gauge your internet popularity. Again, locations that are posting ads and keeping these current are generating much more Call Source traffic than those that are not. By keeping up with the posting of ads and keeping these current, you can have customers contacting you instead of you hunting for them.

Weekly SEO Ranking Update

There are many elements that contribute to changes in organic rankings. These include:

1. Existing competitor activity
2. New entrants to the market
3. Change in search engine algorithms
4. Submissions by competitors of articles
5. Enhanced linking by other websites
6. Aging of websites
7. Greatly improved websites of competitors
8. Ebb and flow of search terms

There is one thing that is a fore gone conclusion in organic search ranking – nothing ever stays the same. It takes diligence in checking search terms, submission of articles, updating directory submissions, improving linking and looking for new ways to promote and link or landing page and website.

You SEO and AD Word specialists recently began working with AccuDiagnostics in Greenville to enhance their website and the number of pages they have for our locations in our region. Once there are some improvements on the infrastructure of the main website, we will see improvements in our ranking throughout our region. In the meantime, your SEO Specialist is working to monitor and improve your rankings.

This attached report displays the rise, fall, or steadiness for our landing page rankings this week as compared to the previous week. The postings on Craigslist and other directories do have an impact and do contribute to the success of the organic results.

To view the organic search summary, click on the following link:

http://www.discoveraccu.com/audio/seo-rank-100308.xls

Taking Risks

I read an article recently on Richard Branson, the flamboyant billionaire who has a knack for making money. In this article he addressed risk-taking.

Click to view the article or paste it in your browser:

http://www.discoveraccu.com/audio/risks.doc

The reason for sharing this article with you is for you to consider “risk taking” in the day to day management of your business. Let me clarify this statement.

Too often we get too focused on the donut vs. the hole and lose our entrepreneurial energy. I have a formula for how to create entrepreneurial energy:

R(s≠b)(P+E) = EE

EE = Entrepreneurial Energy
R = Risk
P = Planning
E = Execution
s = small risk
b = big risk

If small risks are taken in your business on a daily basis, Entrepreneurial Energy is created, is infectious, and is a key ingredient to building momentum in your business. Momentum builds confidence. Confidence is perceived in your demeanor and has a magical effect on people around you, including your potential clients. People and companies do business with people they like and trust and confidence builds trust.

Don’t worry about failing. You will fail with many of these small experiments. Don’t look back. Learn from them and move on - just like our billionaire friend, Mr. Branson.

Moral of the story: Taking small risks leads to growth in your business.

Multi-Location Bids

Q: I have a company that has offices throughout CA and several other states and they would like one drug testing company to service all their locations and have centralized billing services.

A: The process you would follow to quote this business is the following:

1. Go to the DATIA.ORG site and attempt to find a member TPA in the markets where testing is needed.

2. If there are no members of DATIA in these markets, go to the Internet and find companies that are in these areas.

3. You should talk to several companies to compare prices and services offered.

4. After making a selection of the companies that fit your needs and pricing, negotiate the terms of billing and payment.

5. Keep all records of your discussions with the various companies because you may need to revisit the competition at some time in the future.

6. In selling your services, be sure to emphasize the one-stop-shop concept and stress that you will manage their account vs. having each location deal with issues they do not understand.

This Q&A will be posted in Support/Q&A Section of FranConnect.