Online Marketing Tips for the Entrepreneur

Over the years I have compiled a wide and varied list of marketing tips. Online marketing is a challenging and ever changing business that can often feel overwhelming for the lone entrepreneur. For this reason alone I usually recommend that you outsource much of this work. Being a serial entrepreneur myself, I know that even with this advice most of you won’t listen With that knowledge I will now divulge some of the most important online marketing tips you need to know and implement if you want to have any chance at success via the internet.

Here are a few of my favorite Marketing Tips

Online Marketing Tip 1) Social media is your “friend”. Never forget that Social Media is about person-to-person activity. You are not speaking as “the company”, but as a person. In any conversation it is important to pay attention in Social Media it is equally important to be a good listener. All companies say they listen to their customers, most actually don’t. Let people know that you are listening by engaging them in conversation and responding.  Be patient. It takes a long time to develop strong relationships transforming your company, one person at a time. Be opportunistic. Start small with the people who are most passionate about your business by building relationships with existing customers. Be flexible. You never know what’s going to happen so you have to constantly adjust. Be collaborative. Most importantly, be humble. Remember that you are not as powerful as the community at large. If you ever forget this, they will let you know. This sounds more like PR than a marketing tip, and in a sense it is, but online these two things are closely related.

Online Marketing Tip 2) SEO is not just one and done, it is a long term commitment. Search Engine Journal has a great article with 55 SEO tips, read this article now. Here are a few of the easy to remember SEO tips. Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty. Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page. Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. One of the greatest marketing tips I ever received was to SEO every page as if it was your only one.

Online Marketing Tip 3) Article Marketing is free PR with the potential to create thousands of inbound links to your website. Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on your site with a link back to their site. They publish your article on their site, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. As simple as this sounds it is one of the more powerful online marketing tips you will find, but it can also be very time consuming to create all of the content for the articles. Article marketing as a concept is quite simple; You write articles. Your articles include a link to your website or to an affiliate page. You submit articles to free online article directories. Other site owners publish YOUR article on their site. People read your articles online and click the link to visit your website.

Online Marketing Tip 4) Give away value with no strings attached. Giving something of value away for free is a great way to attract website visitors. Thanks to the web, distributing freebies is in itself, free. You don’t have to spend a dime to pass out freebies left and right. By creating value and giving it away freely you give your audience a reason to share you with their friends and colleagues. Go “viral” with your freebies. Viral strategies allow you to multiply your marketing efforts without actually doing more work. Take that example above. You offer a great freebie like an ebook or tutorial. Now, let others give it away for free at their site too, as an incentive, bonus or just for the heck of it. Why not? It adds value to their offering and it creates more visitors to your site as your freebie spreads. This site is a venue for Innovocus to give away tremendous value with articles and podcasts like this one with all these great Online Marketing tips.

Online Marketing Tip 5) Offer an affiliate program. If the product or service you are promoting is your own, adding an affiliate program to your site is a great “pay for performance only” method of increasing website traffic and in turn sales. It’s no wonder that thousands of websites now offer to “share the profits” with their customers. Having a generous affiliate program is one of the fastest ways to increase your online sales with very little or no upfront costs. It is like getting a whole slew of sales people and endorsements without spending a dime. This one marketing tip alone can be the basis for your entire online sales strategy.

I could probably write an entire book full of nothing but online marketing tips. It is a wide and varied topic, much like any other media. In my experience spending you energy on any one area is energy well spent, and will pay off in the end but there is a base from which you must start. No tricks or marketing tips will guarantee success, and some rely on others to work. For example using affiliate marketing or article marketing will matter not in the least if you do not take the time to SEO your landing pages and site thoroughly first. Take the time to research and plan your online marketing endeavours.

Other Online Marketing Tips and Resources

Marketing Tip – Knowing Your Ideal Client
Unique Positioning – Standing out From the Competition – Marketing Tips

25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips

Weekly Online Marketing Tips

“Website or Blog: 10 Fast and Easy Tips & Tricks That Massively Increase Sales and Profits…”

Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves

Social Media 101: Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online

Hopefully you find these online marketing tips useful, and please, if you have your own tips or advice to share, leave a comment.

• Common Myths About SEO To Watch Out For SEO is considered to be one of the most reliable and oldest methods to drive traffic to your site. Due to your site properly targeting its audience, visitors will come to your website and take action. The fact that it doesn't cost you even a dollar to send this traffic......
• Mobile Marketing Tips To Gain The Upper Hand Mobile marketing is the hot new trend these days and many Internet marketers are realizing its potential. The IM marketer who pays attention and realizes the chance to expand business into this industry is the one who will reap the greatest rewards. Plus the ever-growing numbers of people who love......
• Search Engine Optimization - SEO All You Need to Know SEO All You Need to Know In part one of this Online Marketing series I touched briefly on SEO. I actually touched briefly on a great many subjects, and most of them are directly related to Search Engine Optimization. In this article I am going to try and explain the......
• Marketing Tip - Knowing Your Ideal Clients... Where are They? Another top Marketing Tip In this Success U podcast we discuss another very important marketing tip, or more specifically part of the marketing process that Murray Smith decided to share with us. One of the biggest mistakes many of us entrepreneurs and online marketers make is misunderstanding our clients.......
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• What You Should Know About Social Bookmarking Traffic Social bookmarking are a valuable traffic generating tool used by Internet marketers. It is valuable for finding a large variety of visitors from all over the web. Now you can’t just do this piecemeal. Mapping out your strategy before you begin is essential to attracting the most targeted traffic. You......
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Entrepreneur, Success can be Hard

Success as an Entrepreneur can be it’s own challenge, and we are hitting those challenges today. We are working on a great many new things for Success U, tools that will help you succeed. But using these tools ourselves, we have been flooded with, opportunity and this has taken our eyes and time away from you. It has been so busy around here that I have been unable to even get out another podcast, that is already recorded. I am taking a half hour break for the first time in two weeks, just to give everyone an update.

Innovocus and Success U have had many irons in the fire for some time. You need to have a constantly full pipeline with new opportunities, because not all deals will close. So we have had many, many projects lined up.

Several of them came through at the same time. I am currently sitting in a fortune 100 clients conference room at their World HQ, where I will be for several months, Ben has taken up residence in another clients office for the foreseeable future. After the normal 9-5 we both go to our home offices and work on other client projects… Then there are all of the internal projects, such as IplayedThat.com and several others in the skunk works that we work on over the weekends. Right now things would be chaotic if not for our shared understanding and experience with these types of situations.

Entrepreneur Marketing Tips Podcast

The Success U Entrepreneur podcast will resume next week, but will only be once a week on Wednesday’s for the next few months and the format will change a bit. We are going to focus on online marketing in all forms, and open up the opportunity for our listeners to ask questions or talk about their product in our podcast. With these changes we we will also be adding new features and a few products to Success U that should help you in your quest to succeed as an Entrepreneur.

Tools for the Entrepreneur

I am creating a series of daily tasks and tutorials that should allow you to radically increase the traffic to your website, legally, ethically and sustainably. Each day will take a couple of hours, and after 90 days you should sit on top of your keywords in google, long term. Most of these tasks you can outsource for about $5 a day but they are easy enough that you can do it yourself.

We are creating how-to video’s and daily tips and tricks tutorials that will get the traffic flowing to your website. We are starting to heavily focus on mobile and location based advertising and will show you how to maximize your results for the least cost. We are creating a traffic exchange system that will help all of our members gain a huge amount if inbound links. We are creating a referral network for all our members to raise all ships on a rising tide of success. Our goal is to create a huge, valuable resource for the Entrepreneur who wants to make money online and doesn’t want to spend every waking moment doing SEO. We want to make it simple for you to find your success, and allow you to focus on your business.

Books for the Serious Entrepreneur

The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition

Remember the difference between a successful entrepreneur and a failure is often only determination and focus.

• Entrepreneur - Tapping into your Hidden Reserves You the Entrepreneur The life of an entrepreneur, is the tale of many triumphs and long hard work. Knowing how to push past the negativity and find your hidden reserve of strength is a valuable tool in your struggles for success. We as entrepreneurs are a unique breed. We......
• Unique Positioning - Standing out From the Competition - Marketing Tips Marketing Tips - Unique Positioning One of the best marketing tips, is the concept of developing unique positioning for your product or service. In this podcast Murray Smith and I talk about the creation of your corporate marketing plan by defining your unique positioning in the marketplace. Defining your......
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• Entrepreneur, Work Smart, with Murray Smith How to Work Smart as an Entrepreneur Serial entrepreneur Murray Smith co-author of "The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life" shares the secrets to his success in this Success U podcast. His book is a best seller and  Stephen R. Covey says it......
• Building a Strong Customer Relationship Strong Customer Relationship Determining who is your ideal client is the first step on the long road to developing a strong customer relationship. Murray Smith, best selling author ("The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life") and super successful Serial Entrepreneur joins us on......

• Developing a Budget that is Successful In general there is no way to overcome major financial problems without going to a budget. Even if you do not like the idea of budgeting, a good budget is like a trail boss who knows the entire forest like the back of his hand. Your budget will also prove......
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• Popular Beginner Woodworking Tips There are a number of woodworking tips, that when they are followed correctly, can really and truly enhance the quality of all of the finished woodwork that you create. These woodworking tips are designed to benefit not only novices but also expert woodworkers as well. Here are some of the......

Thinking Like a Successful Entrepreneur

Murray Smith joins me on another Success U podcast, and shares with us some of the life lessons this very successful entrepreneur has found the hard way. These lessons are hard learned, and often painful and expensive to experience.

One of the simplest to understand is that by thinking positively, positive things begin to happen, though many entrepreneurs struggle with this their whole careers. It takes a subconscious shift and restructuring of your thought patterns to succeed in this simple act. As an entrepreneur things fail, problems arise, and disasters occur. Spending time and thought dwelling on the negative aspects will not get you closer to solving the problem, and in fact will make you less likely to notice the solution, even if it is staring you in the face. It is your subconscious mind that will hear the conversation in a crowded room, with the answers to your problems and it is the subcopnscious that will work to make complex connections, but only if you train yourself, and it starts by always looking for the positive out of anything. But Murray goes into great depth about this in his book The Answer.

Find a Mentor Entrepreneur

Having someone you trust, that has been down the long road of being an entrepreneur, is more valuable than you think. Not only can this person be a great resource in helping you avoid mistakes, and connecting you to the right people, they also help keep you motivated, and on the path, if for no other reason than you can see their success.

Surround Yourself with Positive Thinkers

I like to surround myself with people who challenge me, and who look for solutions not problems. If all they can see is sorrow, trouble and heartache, then how will they help me find the solution? I look for people who like to build up, not tear down. The best place to find people like that is in other entrepreneurs.

Additional Entrepreneur resources

Here are some of the direct links that Murray has referenced during the many podcasts we recorded with him; The free PDF’s downloads (see below), links to the business growth makeover contest with millions in prizes, and Get the Answer site that references more about Murray and the business growth system he built called Attract more Clients. This system is the summation of 30 years of his life’s work and everything he learned about growing business put together in a simple, user friendly format.

- http://gettheanswer.com

- http://www.businessgrowthmakeover.com

- http://accessmainstreet.com

- The Test your EQ button on the Mainstreet website has the following Free PDF Downloads for all Success U listeners:

• Unique Selling Proposition Examples from many industries
• Client Profile – Match what you want with what your clients want
• 3 Ways to make money in business
• Map the Gap – Helping business owners map the distance from where they are to where they want to be
• How to think like a Business Millionaire – Vision, Focus and Action

The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life

Remember to be a successful Entrepreneur it helps to think like one.

• Marketing Tip - Knowing Your Ideal Clients... Where are They? Another top Marketing Tip In this Success U podcast we discuss another very important marketing tip, or more specifically part of the marketing process that Murray Smith decided to share with us. One of the biggest mistakes many of us entrepreneurs and online marketers make is misunderstanding our clients.......
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Marketing Tips – Unique Positioning

One of the best marketing tips, is the concept of developing unique positioning for your product or service. In this podcast Murray Smith and I talk about the creation of your corporate marketing plan by defining your unique positioning in the marketplace. Defining your unique aspects is a very important part of the sales process, and is a great online marketing tip.

Marketing Tip – Differentiate

Without the ability to easily and quickly differentiate yourself from the competition you diminish the ability of the prospective customer to understand your value.

Here are some of the direct links that Murray had referenced during the many podcasts we recorded with him;  The free PDF’s downloads (see below), links to the business growth makeover contest with millions in prizes, and Get the Answer site that references more about Murray and the business growth system he built called Attract more Clients. This system is the summation of 30 years of his life’s work and everything he learned about growing business put together in a simple, user friendly format.

-       http://gettheanswer.com

-       http://www.businessgrowthmakeover.com

-       http://accessmainstreet.com

-       The Test your EQ button on the Mainstreet website has the following Free PDF Downloads for all Success U listeners:

• Unique Selling Proposition Examples from many industries
• Client Profile – Match what you want with what your clients want
• 3 Ways to make money in business
• Map the Gap – Helping business owners map the distance from where they are to where they want to be
• How to think like a Business Millionaire – Vision, Focus and Action

Additional Marketing tips resources

ADVANCE DIRECT MARKETING: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Do-It-Yourself Secrets for Creating a Profitable Website or Blog

55 Twitter Tips – How to Maximize the Benefits of Using Twitter!

Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day

25 tips For Marketing Your Blog

Online Marketing Blog Tips

• Entrepreneur Beware Your Own Success Entrepreneur, Success can be Hard Success as an Entrepreneur can be it's own challenge, and we are hitting those challenges today. We are working on a great many new things for Success U, tools that will help you succeed. But using these tools ourselves, we have been flooded with,......
• Marketing Tip - Knowing Your Ideal Clients... Where are They? Another top Marketing Tip In this Success U podcast we discuss another very important marketing tip, or more specifically part of the marketing process that Murray Smith decided to share with us. One of the biggest mistakes many of us entrepreneurs and online marketers make is misunderstanding our clients.......
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Strong Customer Relationship

Determining who is your ideal client is the first step on the long road to developing a strong customer relationship. Murray Smith, best selling author (“The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life“) and super successful Serial Entrepreneur joins us on this podcast to explain how he identifies your ideal customer. Murray gives us a great example of how the perception of who our clientele is, and who they really are might not coincide.

If you are struggling to find your clients, or marketing with poor results this podcast will likely give you some insight into the problems you currently face. The biggest mistake we entrepreneurs make is often overconfidence in our understanding of the market, and a need to compete that stops us from asking for help when we need it. This also tends to sometimes we neglect to develop a strong customer relationship with our ideal clients, who are more than willing to help us improve our business.

Throughout our lives we have had parents, teachers, bosses and friends who gladly mentor us. But the moment we enter into a new enterprise we stop asking for that advice.Ask your customers how they found you, ask them what they are looking for, ask them if they found it. Ask, ask ask questions. Have a friend who is a gifted artist, ask for help with design. We do not stand alone and the myth of the self made man is just a myth. Every great success is a team effort.

Strengthening Our Customer Relationship

Recently Innovocus has made a focus on this aspect. When we approach a new client the first thing we do is contact their customers with a survey. But there is more to understanding your clients wants than just asking questions.

Here is the link to Murray’s book on Amazon.com:

The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life

Here are some of the direct links that Murray had referenced during the many podcasts we recorded with him;  The free PDF’s downloads (see below), links to the business growth makeover contest with millions in prizes, and Get the Answer site that references more about Murray and the business growth system he built called Attract more Clients. This system is the summation of 30 years of his life’s work and everything he learned about growing business put together in a simple, user friendly format.

-       http://gettheanswer.com

-       http://www.businessgrowthmakeover.com

-       http://accessmainstreet.com

-       The Test your EQ button on the Mainstreet website has the following Free PDF Downloads for all Success U listeners:

• Unique Selling Proposition Examples from many industries
• Client Profile – Match what you want with what your clients want
• 3 Ways to make money in business
• Map the Gap – Helping business owners map the distance from where they are to where they want to be
• How to think like a Business Millionaire – Vision, Focus and Action

Resources for Building a Strong Customer Relationship

Building Customer Relationships – Successful Selling [VHS]

Recipe for Disaster

Creating Customers for Life – Relationship Management and Sales Training DVD Video

Model Sales & Marketing Letters

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers

The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage

• Entrepreneur - Tapping into your Hidden Reserves You the Entrepreneur The life of an entrepreneur, is the tale of many triumphs and long hard work. Knowing how to push past the negativity and find your hidden reserve of strength is a valuable tool in your struggles for success. We as entrepreneurs are a unique breed. We......
• Unique Positioning - Standing out From the Competition - Marketing Tips Marketing Tips - Unique Positioning One of the best marketing tips, is the concept of developing unique positioning for your product or service. In this podcast Murray Smith and I talk about the creation of your corporate marketing plan by defining your unique positioning in the marketplace. Defining your......
• Social Media Marketing Sucks Tools such as Twitter, Digg, and Facebook are Horrible sales vehicles. In fact using them poorly can do more to hurt your brand than help it. Social Media as a tool for business is much more useful to your PR group than it is to your sales team. At best......
• Marketing Tip - Knowing Your Ideal Clients... Where are They? Another top Marketing Tip In this Success U podcast we discuss another very important marketing tip, or more specifically part of the marketing process that Murray Smith decided to share with us. One of the biggest mistakes many of us entrepreneurs and online marketers make is misunderstanding our clients.......
• Read, Listen or Die! I'm back, home after spending the last week out of town and away from "the studio". During that week I had a chance to catch up on my reading and listening list. While going through all of the vast array of articles, podcasts and books it struck me that......

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• The Best Way to Make the Most of Relationship Advertising~} Not all businesses depend on solid relationships, but many do - and that is the key to harnessing relationship marketing. Of course all businesses can derive benefits from having good relationships with customers. Of course, light moment here, we're not talking about personal relationships in any sense. So with customers,......
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You the Entrepreneur

The life of an entrepreneur, is the tale of many triumphs and long hard work. Knowing how to push past the negativity and find your hidden reserve of strength is a valuable tool in your struggles for success.

We as entrepreneurs are a unique breed. We thrive in challenging situations and we seek out the difficult. This can often put us in a place seemingly impossible to succeed. Pushing past your own limits to find greater heights is often the only way out, well that or giving up, but you wouldn’t be a true entrepreneur if you seriously considered that.

In this podcast I talk with serial entrepreneur Murray Smith. This is Part 2 of the Podcasts series with Murray Smith co-author of “the Answer”. Which you can win a copy of my joining Success U for free:

The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life

Here are some of the direct links that Murray had referenced during the many podcasts we recorded with him;  The free PDF’s downloads (see below), links to the business growth makeover contest with millions in prizes, and Get the Answer site that references more about Murray and the business growth system he built called Attract more Clients. This system is the summation of 30 years of his life’s work and everything he learned about growing business put together in a simple, user friendly format.

-       http://gettheanswer.com

-       http://www.businessgrowthmakeover.com

-       http://accessmainstreet.com

-       The Test your EQ button on the Mainstreet website will have the following Free PDF Downloads for your listeners:

• Unique Selling Proposition Examples from many industries
• Client Profile – Match what you want with what your clients want
• 3 Ways to make money in business
• Map the Gap – Helping business owners map the distance from where they are to where they want to be
• How to think like a Business Millionaire – Vision, Focus and Action

More Resources for you the entrepreneur

Small Business For Dummies

The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

More Entrepreneur Podcasts

Entrepreneur.com Podcast Directory

• First Success U Podcast Our first in what will hopefully become a long line of podcasts, in which we discuss and explain all the myriad of tools and techniques to get your business noticed online.We will also discuss starting a business and how to be successful. If you have a question you'd like......
• Know Your Faults Tanah Lot from Crestock Photos I hate to be put into a box. Being categorized, labeled and predefined , not my thing. Which is precisely what every personality profile I have ever taken says. I thrive on change, and solving problems. I love to look at products and try......
• What Would Apple Do? We started the conversation discussing how to determine the best price point for your product and then went into a wide variety of tools you can use to drive sales online in the first part of this podcast. In this podcast we continue the conversation by looking at one......
• Entrepreneur, Work Smart, with Murray Smith How to Work Smart as an Entrepreneur Serial entrepreneur Murray Smith co-author of "The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life" shares the secrets to his success in this Success U podcast. His book is a best seller and  Stephen R. Covey says it......
• Life Lessons of a Successful Entrepreneur Thinking Like a Successful Entrepreneur Murray Smith joins me on another Success U podcast, and shares with us some of the life lessons this very successful entrepreneur has found the hard way. These lessons are hard learned, and often painful and expensive to experience. One of the simplest to......

• Some Good Corporate Blogs It has become popular for businesses and companies of all types to express interest in creating a business blog so that they can better communicate with other companies, their customers, and a variety of other target markets out there. By looking at what corporate blogs are doing it right, and......
• Massive List of Web Design Resources   There are TONS of resources online for Web Design, but many of these resources are scattered all around the Internet. Here I've made an effort to combine and list all of the resources, tutorials, and tips I've used, stumbled via StumbleUpon, or found on twitter or various other sites.......
• How to Relocate your Wordpress Blog to a New Domain Name Making the decision to move my blog from http://www.courseladder.com to http://www.golfballdriver.com was a big one, and a good one, and it taught me a lot about learning how to relocate your Wordpress blog to a new domain name under the same hosting provider. Course Ladder suited me for a while,......
• Home Based Business - 2011 predictions Home Based Business - A New Year Approaches Image via Wikipedia As we get ready to celebrate the new year, it is also a time to reflect on what has happened the previous year.  The economy is still less than stellar. This opens up a world of opportunity for home......
• ScanShell Store - Business Card Scanner document.write(''); Stop typing customer info into your computer. Start scanning their business cards and documents for a speedy data entry and database creation. We sell all manner of scanning solutions including Business Card scanner, ID scanner, Medical card scanner, Driver License scanner, portable scanner and much more. We offer......

How to Build Trust as an Entrepreneur

As an Entrepreneur it is imperative that we build trust. We need team members, clients, investors and colleagues to believe in us. Trust is more than a soft, unknown, feel good, fuzzy thing. It is a measurable and quantifiable asset that is one of the most important to you the Entrepreneur regarding the speed of your business and the overall success of your enterprise. In this Success U Podcast we discuss how taking the time to build trust actually saves time and in the end increases profit.

We started discussing this topic thanks to Steven Covey’s Book “The Speed of Trust”. This is a must read book for an Entrepreneur. It is not a topic I would normally have sought out, but it came recommended highly from those I trust… So I read it, and now I think every entrepreneur, manager, marketer or sales professional should also read it.

If You are an Entrepreneur You Should Read These Books:

The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything

Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

Related Entrepreneur articles you should read:

• Building Trust in Today’s Online World (socialmediatoday.com)
• Trust Agents: Using The Web To Build Influence, Improve Reputation, And Earn Trust (lockergnome.com)
• Integrity is the Sales Guys Only Asset (thecustomercollective.com)
• FranklinCovey’s New, Online Learning Suite Launches at Training 2010: World Renowned Content Now Available in a Unique, Online Format (eon.businesswire.com)
• In the Post-Crisis World, Restoring Trust is Not Enough (blogs.hbr.org)

Tell us your story as an Entrepreneur in the comments and maybe we will have you on a future podcast!

• Know Your Faults Tanah Lot from Crestock Photos I hate to be put into a box. Being categorized, labeled and predefined , not my thing. Which is precisely what every personality profile I have ever taken says. I thrive on change, and solving problems. I love to look at products and try......
• Life Lessons of a Successful Entrepreneur Thinking Like a Successful Entrepreneur Murray Smith joins me on another Success U podcast, and shares with us some of the life lessons this very successful entrepreneur has found the hard way. These lessons are hard learned, and often painful and expensive to experience. One of the simplest to......
• Read, Listen or Die! I'm back, home after spending the last week out of town and away from "the studio". During that week I had a chance to catch up on my reading and listening list. While going through all of the vast array of articles, podcasts and books it struck me that......
• Entrepreneur - Tapping into your Hidden Reserves You the Entrepreneur The life of an entrepreneur, is the tale of many triumphs and long hard work. Knowing how to push past the negativity and find your hidden reserve of strength is a valuable tool in your struggles for success. We as entrepreneurs are a unique breed. We......
• How To Benefit From Social Networking Social networking has revolutionized the way we use the internet over the past few years. Originally just a few networks, these have grown into hundreds of social sites. All of those networks are dedicated to helping you make connections with other people. You can join networks that allow you to......

• Things to Learn Before I'm Another Year Older Today, October 27th, is my birthday.  Once again, another year managed to come and go without me being able to stop it.  Oh, well, I suppose that this is the natural order of things for us mortals.  I had a nice visit with my family a few weeks ago, and......
• Review: Realty Blogging by Richard Nacht and Paul Chaney As corporate blogging gets a bigger foothold in the business world, more niche instructional books are starting to pop up. One of these that is actually well worth the read no matter what niche you are in is Realty Blogging. Designed to assist realtors in taking advantage of the benefits......
• Groupon: 1 Year Subscription to 'The Economist' for $1/Issue For those who like to get their financial media the old fashioned way -- in print via snail mail -- here's some good news for ya... It's hard to beat a $1 per issue offer in this day and age, especially if you're the type that likes to hold a......
• Become Successful as an Internet Entrepreneur With constantly changing innovations and ideas generated through the Internet, it is easy for anybody to start up a business online. It is also easy for anybody to find their specific niche that they can cater to, and build their business upon, as well as create a website and......
• Learning More about the Paper Money World of Collecting Whenever you are looking to collect currency, there are many different forms that your collecting can take. One of the main forms that you will be able to collect through is paper money world currencies. These are the currencies which have been generated around the world over time. While there......

Entrepreneur Disorder?

As an Entrepreneur, how do you stay ahead of the market when the only constant is change, and that is accelerating? Trying to keep up is a dizzying task. And as an Entrepreneur it is our role to look ahead, while trying to keep your business out front. In my opinion this is the most difficult part of being a successful Entrepreneur.

In this podcast we try to come to grips with where technology is heading. With this information how will you keep your business on track? or more importantly, how will you the Entrepreneur make the next big thing, knowing that you cannot predict what tomorrow brings. Many of the technologies we think of as just around the corner, are already here. Are you ready for today, little alone the future?

Mobile Entrepreneur

I will give you a big hint, read the book: Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are. You should also consider reading; Mobile Design and Development: Practical Concepts and Techniques for Creating Mobile Sites and Web Apps (Animal Guide), Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World and Mobile Web Design. Do you notice a theme? The future Internet Entrepreneur is in mobile. In fact I would say the current Internet Entrepreneur is already doing mobile, are you? So what does tomorrow bring?

More Entrepreneur articles

• Making Money with Cloud Computing (Video Podcast) (elasticvapor.com)
• Podcast: Innovations and Game Changers (growvc.com)
• The Year of the Mobile? 4imprint’s Latest Blue Paper and Podcast Explores Mobile Marketing (eon.businesswire.com)
• Developing & Designing for Mobile (librarywebhead.blogspot.com)

You might also want to take a listen to our other Entrepreneur related podcasts.

• Using Facebook To Promote Your Business An integral part of any business's online marketing strategy today must include Facebook. There are so many benefits of which you can take advantage when it comes to using the world's largest social network. How you leverage this brilliant network is what matters the most when it comes to the......
• Becoming Viral Podcast Last week we talked about Viral Marketing from a stratospheric level, this time we go a little more in depth and give a great example of a company building a program that will definitely create a viral effect. What it all boils down to is understanding the value you offer......
• Entrepreneur, Work Smart, with Murray Smith How to Work Smart as an Entrepreneur Serial entrepreneur Murray Smith co-author of "The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life" shares the secrets to his success in this Success U podcast. His book is a best seller and  Stephen R. Covey says it......
• First Success U Podcast Our first in what will hopefully become a long line of podcasts, in which we discuss and explain all the myriad of tools and techniques to get your business noticed online.We will also discuss starting a business and how to be successful. If you have a question you'd like......
• Building Trust as an Entrepreneur How to Build Trust as an Entrepreneur As an Entrepreneur it is imperative that we build trust. We need team members, clients, investors and colleagues to believe in us. Trust is more than a soft, unknown, feel good, fuzzy thing. It is a measurable and quantifiable asset that is......

• Marketing Online - Find Out More Features About When you deal with internet marketing you do not have to stop and to be in fear in case there are some troubles and problems. I want to show you that every online business has got its fans and workers and even if you are in a dump – you......
• Proper Diversification for Increasing Your Income If you're already leveraging your debt to produce more than one stream of income, you're pretty familiar with how the process works. However, it's really easy to get complacent when you're leveraging debt and you may be missing out on other opportunities if you're not looking outside your current comfort......
• Management vs Marketing: This is How to Run a Small Business I caught a very impressive interview on CNBC today with small business owner Bill Dieruf of Dieruf Hardware. His message was fairly simple, but highly effective: Know the difference between management, and marketing. You might have noticed over the last year that many major brand names are advertising for the......
• Internet Affiliate Network Marketing Image by Fuzzytek via Flickr There are systems today that claim it will be easy to make money in network marketing if you just do XYZ.  Wise marketers have learned that you can make more money faster by not worrying about what network marketing business they belong to and......
• What Is The Best Thing A New Home Business Owner Can Do? There are a lot of different tips and tricks that a new Internet home business owner can follow. For example you can read guides, buy learning aids, and scour the internet for the latest trends, but there is one thing that can prove to be more useful than anything else......

I’m back, home after spending the last week out of town and away from “the studio”. During that week I had a chance to catch up on my reading and listening list. While going through all of the vast array of articles, podcasts and books it struck me that I have not shared with you my Read, Listen or Die list. It’s not quite as serious as that, but in terms of the success of your business these blogs, podcasts and books should be considered mandatory.

As a favor to us, we’d ask that you please fill out this listener survey. You will help promote our podcast, and help us to improve.

Blogs:

1. Master of 500 Hats - Dave is a  flat out stud. He has been involved in just about all of the noteworthy Silicon Valley Start-ups. He is a geek, angel investor and generally a really smart guy. He does not update the blog very often, but when he does the insights he provides are, well valuable.
2. Danny Asling- A fairly new blog, but has already made two top 100 lists, Danny focuses on Social Media.
   
3. An Extension of the Net- This is a community blog for developers, but I have found it extraordinarily valuable in keeping tabs on emerging trends. They consider themselves an online design magazine focused on all things Web Design.
4. Entreprenuer.com’s Blog - A wide range of contributors and a diverse array of topics all relevant to entrepreneurs, this site is one of my daily stops. They cover pretty much everything.
5. Ben Horowitz’s Blog - Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of the VC firm, Andreesen Horowitz and co founder of LoudCloud. He has some great insights from both the entrepreneur and the investor point of view. I read his posts as often as he provides them.
6. Joel on Software – Explaining development

43 Folders - Merlin Mann’s website devoted to setting your priorities and arranging your time and life to fit. He has several great video podcasts and always makes great poignant points.

Podcasts:

1. Business Innovators – Adrian Bye interviews CEO’s from top Internet businesses. These podcasts offer great insight into the minds of some of the hottest companies.
2. Success U - How could I not mention my podcasts, I really do try to make it a valuable tool for the entrepreneur, and I honestly, regularly send customers to listen to old podcasts…
3. Marketing Over Coffee - Recorded in a local coffee shop, John Wall and Christopher Penn cover both classic and new media marketing in this weekly podcast. They have done some great interviews with people like Seth Godin and James Connor.
4. The Passionate Entrepreneur- Kenneth Brown hosts this podcast where he covers everything from best practices for sales to becoming more productive, efficient and profitable.
5. The Small Business Brain- Every week David Wolf interviews a small business leaders to bring you their insights and unique perspectives.

Books:

1. 4 Hour Work Week - I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Every successful entrepreneur I know has read this book, and we all talk about it quite often. Many great tips on leveraging outside vendors to increase your small teams productivity and profit, cheap.
2. Crush It! - Why Now is the time to cash in on your passion. Gary Vaynerchuk shows how anyone can build a career around the things they are passionate about.
3. Rework - How to break the rules and make a fortune, this book made me uncomfortable, and challenged my assumptions. This turned out to be a good thing. Short, and direct, you NEED to read this book.
4. Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress Free Productivity. This book is a kind-of whole life organizing self help book, without the annoying preachy nature of most in the genre. Great book for helping you organize your life.
5. Social Media Marketing: An Hour A Day- This book is a fantastic introduction into the use of Social Media to market your product or service. This should be considered a must read for anyone planning on using online media.
6. The E-Myth Revisited - Anyone who is looking to start a new business should read this book. Voted #1 by the Inc 500 CEO’s. You should read this first.
7. Change Your Brain Change Your Life – Question your assumptions and challenge your comfort zones.

More Related posts and podcasts

• Four Things Some VCs Do That I Don’t Like [Voices] (voices.allthingsd.com)
• Lessons Learned from Seth Godin (e1evation.com)
• The Entrepreneur (businessangelblog.com)
• Changes… my transition & new plans (leehower.com)
• Lessons Learned: April Post Roundup for Startups (readwriteweb.com)
• Top Branding Podcasts for Business (socialmediatoday.com)
• How to Win the Hearts of Investors (caterpillarcowboy.com)
• This Week in Venture Capital: Jason Calacanis’ Latest Podcast Creation (readwriteweb.com)
• Tim “The 4-Hour Workweek” Ferriss On Angel Investing (Video) (techcrunch.com)
• Summary and Review of Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It! (bizcovering.com)
• Weekend Reading: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk (readwriteweb.com)

• Get The Most Out Of Your Internet Marketing Campaign With These Strategies If you're willing to work hard and be dedicated, you can make a great deal of money on the web. Below you'll find some proven strategies that can help you get to where you want to be in IM. The majority of people do not have any concept about what......
• How To Write SEO Focused Articles The reason you write; blog posts, website content, or promotional reasons, isn't necessarily important. The bottom line is that if you don't optimize your writing for search engines then you're missing out on a lot of free traffic. There is a lot of money left on the table every day......
• Social Media Marketing Sucks Tools such as Twitter, Digg, and Facebook are Horrible sales vehicles. In fact using them poorly can do more to hurt your brand than help it. Social Media as a tool for business is much more useful to your PR group than it is to your sales team. At best......
• Life Lessons - Example of a Success Plan Life Lessons - Develop a Success Plan One of the more important life lessons I have discovered as an entrepreneur is to develop a success plan. Rich Harshaw from MyMEssentials.com gives a great example of a Success Plan in his post World's Greatest Car Salesman. The steps he identifies,......
• Online Marketing Tips for the Entrepreneur Online Marketing Tips for the Entrepreneur Over the years I have compiled a wide and varied list of marketing tips. Online marketing is a challenging and ever changing business that can often feel overwhelming for the lone entrepreneur. For this reason alone I usually recommend that you outsource much......

• Benefiting from Golfing Lessons We all have to get started somewhere when it comes to playing golf. Even the greatest players started off needing coaching and lessons when they hit the fairways for the first time. If you are serious about learning golf, then there are a wide variety of different resources that you......
• Book Reivew: "Going Rogue" by Sarah Palin [/caption] I bought this book right after it came out, but I just finished it up last night.  (Those who follow me on Twitter know I was pretty late reading the last few chapters.)  Upon finishing, I felt reminded again why Sarah Palin is so popular among conservatives:  She comes......
• The Conservative Journal Library: Must Read Books & Magazines I am please to announce the newest branch of The Conservative Journal, The Conservative Journal Library!  This one's going to be slowly built up, but will work similarly to the Top Sites feature.  After I read a good book, magazine, or other publication, I will write up a post about......
• Why Would You Like To Join An Affiliate Internet Marketing Network? Affiliate internet marketing is the latest trend internet. With so many products to offer and services available, sometimes featuring it upon one internet site isn’t enough. Thus, publishers or stores need affiliate marketers, some sites which are going to display ads for your particular cost. On other hand, this can......
• Middleman Beware: The Internet is Making You Obsolete I'm not an expert in business trends by any means, but it really seems like the disintermediation opportunities the Internet provides is beginning to replace, well... almost everything. Think about this for a moment. Where do you check the morning news? Where do you get your music? Manage your money?......

We started the conversation discussing how to determine the best price point for your product and then went into a wide variety of tools you can use to drive sales online in the first part of this podcast. In this podcast we continue the conversation by looking at one particular company that has done it right… Apple.

There are many ways to look at driving your sales and a plethora of tools to use in doing so. Apple is the prime example of a company who has used many of these tools to develop a unique and profitable brand identity with an almost cult like following. How have they done this? We talk about some of the techniques they use, and we found this great post “What Would Apple Do?”.

Here are several more resources for developing your brand:

First Steps to Developing a Brand Identity

Personal Branding 101

Creating a Brand

Creating the Brand: Halo Effect

Creating a Brand on a Budget

In our next podcast we will put the pieces together for you and walk through the process of developing a unique Brand ID and how to drive sales using this new brand.

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• Life Lessons - Example of a Success Plan Life Lessons - Develop a Success Plan One of the more important life lessons I have discovered as an entrepreneur is to develop a success plan. Rich Harshaw from MyMEssentials.com gives a great example of a Success Plan in his post World's Greatest Car Salesman. The steps he identifies,......
• Driving Online Sales Part one in a two part series on generating sales by using several simple and effective tactics. In this podcast Ben and Christian debate how pricing will effect your online sales and how several other factors such as affiliate marketers can radically increase your sales. Creating exclusivity for your......
• Marketing Tip - Knowing Your Ideal Clients... Where are They? Another top Marketing Tip In this Success U podcast we discuss another very important marketing tip, or more specifically part of the marketing process that Murray Smith decided to share with us. One of the biggest mistakes many of us entrepreneurs and online marketers make is misunderstanding our clients.......
• Building a Strong Customer Relationship Strong Customer Relationship Determining who is your ideal client is the first step on the long road to developing a strong customer relationship. Murray Smith, best selling author ("The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life") and super successful Serial Entrepreneur joins us on......
• Read, Listen or Die! I'm back, home after spending the last week out of town and away from "the studio". During that week I had a chance to catch up on my reading and listening list. While going through all of the vast array of articles, podcasts and books it struck me that......

• Why Can I Not Find Mobility Aids on The Internet Disability products play a major role in boosting a disabled person’s confidence levels and making them feel that they are like a normal person. With the help of scientifically developed disability products, for example wheelchairs, a disabled person can feel independent. Do you know that a disabled person’s best friend......
• Hard Truth Week in Review - Blame it on Business School Edition I am a frequent critic of MBA programs. There are too many of them and most don't teach what our economy needs. (I also come down hard on lawyers, even though I am one.) This week the retired boss of GM tossed in his own negative reviews of  business schools......
• How To Create Your Personal Brand By Utilizing Social Media Social media has finally arrived and it's here to stay. A distinct method for reaching out to your target audience involves marketing your products and creating a personal brand. This article will help you to discover that social media can be put to good use as a tool to create......
• Which Woodworking Power Tools you Need It can become extremely easy for someone like you to get confused by the incredible number of different tools that are out there for a myriad of purposes, including woodworking power tools which are designed to specifically suit the needs of people that work with wood. If you are brand......
• Prosper IRR Lender "Game" Prosper IRR is a tricky calculation.  The concept is very simple.  The problem lies in how to treat delinquent and late loans prior to the debt sale.   Before loans are late and after the debt sale treating one's account balance is whole.  While a loan is late the loan's value......