The Creation of the Fanatical Marketing Energizer Bunny

We have all seen the Eveready Energizer Bunny that just keeps on going and going and going. We all like that commercial. Why? Because nothing seems to stop the bunny. It always has a little more energy to just keep on truckin’.

Over the years I have seen a lot of entrepreneurs in various roles as they build businesses. Some entrepreneurs love the thrill of the hunt and are always out looking for new prey (business leads). They never seem to get tired of being out there. They cannot stand paper work, being in the office and dealing with the routine of the day to day business. They love the hunt/closing of the sale. They leave the cleaning of the fruits of their hunt to others. After the kill/closing of the sale, they are off to the next hunt. These entrepreneurs rarely fail. If they do, it is due to events beyond their control. Even after failing, they just get ready for the next hunt and are back in the game in no time at all.

Other entrepreneurial types love operations, designing strategies or working with customers. We are all different but there is one eternal truth. If you do not have a hunter, everyone goes hungry.

The hunt is another metaphor for that ol’ energizer bunny. As I see our locations maturing, each of you is solving the hunt in different ways. Jeff, Bob, Jimmy and Mike have hunters. Jill, Bill and Doug are their own hunters. Regardless of what you do, you have to spend more time hunting, especially in this famine-like economic environment.

One thing is for sure, the more clients you sign up now, the better tomorrow is going to be when it begins to rain. When it is raining, the people that will talk to now will not have the time to talk to you when they are busy (because they have downsized much of their staff) and they will be overloaded and have little time to think about moving to a new drug testing company. They will most likely go to their existing vendor. You might as well be that vendor.

The best time to hunt is NOW.

Radar Will Find Business

Here is an email sent from the Lieutenant Commander Jeff Hastings in Charge of Radar Observation. The Lieutenant Commander is continually scanning his new business radar screen for leads. The radar scans local news stories, Chamber of Commerce meetings and Internet RSS feeds re: local business stories for leads to feed his Star Fighter Pilot Salesperson Ken.

Once a new target has been identified, an email dispatch is sent alerting Ken of this new target. Fighter Pilot Ken upon receiving this dispatch immediately races to his plane and is off to bag yet another client.

The Email Dispatch send August 27, 2009:

McKesson in West Sac is hiring 500 employees in the next 30 days to make and distribute swine flu vaccine….first job fairs were held this week.
Paul Julian is a spokesperson for McKesson……may be in West Sac…or San Fran HQ….or other…

West Sac bureaucrats quoted in the Sac BizJournal article…..Diane Richards, West Sac
City Economics Director…….Ernesto Lucero, an analyst in the West Sac Economic Development Dept.

Neither McKesson nor Mainstay appears to be West Sac members.

Jeff Hastings
President aka Lieutenant Commander Hastings

Organic Ranking #2 Finding Local Listings

Free business listings are an excellent way to boost not only your organic ranking but your website traffic as well. We are always asked "Where do I list my business?"

List your business in any free business listing directory you can find. No need to pay for a listing, there are plenty of free ones out there that are just as good as the ones you pay for. Take your time and include all the information you can, along with images. Always keep a document somewhere with log in information and passwords, you may need to update those listings in the future.

Here are a handful of sites you could start listing your business with;
http://www.bizhwy.com/
http://www.switchboard.com/
http://list.infousa.com/dbupdate.htm
http://www.listyoursite.us/

Here is a short video explaining how we would go about finding listings. Very simple, there is no science to it. Please contact Kylee at kmunn@blackstonehathaway.com with any questions or comments.

When ‘Ugly Wins’ Become ‘Ugly Losses’

Losing or failing is a part of becoming successful. It is not if you are going to fail when starting or operating a business, but when. Every entrepreneur fails at something. The question is, “Are your failures going to be pretty or ugly?” In determining if your failures are going to be beneficial or not, the key issue is “how to minimize, reboot and learn from failures.”

Some of the most valuable insights an entrepreneur can gain are from failures. There is not a single successful entrepreneur, franchisee or billionaire that has not failed. In fact, some of the most successful have failed multiple times. The difference between ugly failures and failures that catapult entrepreneurs to better and more meaningful successes is the process used to create future successes.

Next Blog Posting: The Failure to Success Model

AccuDiagnostics Blog Update

Marvin wanted an update on the AccuDiagnostic's blog inquiring frequency of postings, back linking, strategy, tactics, etc. (I'm Kelli, the new Blackstone Hathaway content provider) My update stated that the AccuDiagnostic blogs are posted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week. Posting blogs often, this will generate traffic to the blogs and websites. Also, Social Networking would aide in increasing traffic to the blogs and websites.

I put links in each blog linking back to one of the seven AccuDiagnostics locations. For example, one blog will have a link to the Los Angeles website, the next blog will have a link to the Lancaster website and so on. Putting all seven links in one blog is not possible, because Google would just think it was a link farm. But putting one or two links in a blog is fine. By putting links in the blogs, this allows the readers to access the websites from the blogs.

The topics that are covered in the blogs are to educate the readers about AccuDiagnostics and what they offer. Plus, the blogs help to promote AccuDiagnostics and their services.

Good News Moments - August 19

Life can get really crazy sometimes and we tend to focus on the moments when things are not going so well. That is one of the reasons why we are going to have a post every other week focused just on the good things/moments that are happening in our business adventures.

In the spotlight today:

Jimmy from Las Vegas was finally able to open his new location and was able to sign his first customer. He’s also enjoying meeting many interesting people with whom he hopes to have a long business relationship.

Jeff and Carol in Sacramento are enjoying good health and have added a terrific new sales person to their team. They have also noted that economic indicators are starting to shift in a positive direction.

Bob in Los Angeles received his first order from Magic Broadcasting LLC, and in his second month of business he exceeded his target.

Someone once said: “We don’t remember days, we remember moments”. If you have one of those good moments, shoot me an email at mblood@blackstonehathaway.com so I can include it in the next ‘Good News Moments’ post and we can all enjoy the moment with you.

Thanks for sharing your good news with us Jimmy, Jeff, Carol and Bob.

CAMPA Meeting Officially Cancelled

The regional meeting for the Fall 2009 CAMPA meeting has been cancelled in order to allow franchisees to attend the National Convention later in October 2009. The next regional meeting will be in March of 2010.

If you have any questions, please give me a call.