Digital Marketing Insider | December 2013 by ROARlocal.com

December 2013 £ 2

Digital Marketing Insider SELLING YOUR HOUSE BY AUCTION Hint: Your Competitors Have No Idea What They’re Doing Either! How To Sell A Service Online Google AdWords – Enhanced Campaigns Entrepreneur Insights Stirling MURRAY

A Note From The Editor

First a warm welcome to December’s edition of the Digital Marketing Insider, produced by ROARlocal.com

If this is the first time you’ve received this a hearty welcome to you!

About Us

Contents

You’re receiving this because we want to show you what we’re all about and also give you some usable strategies to help your businesses grow.

We create great looking online advertising campaigns that enhance your brand, we use scientifically proven online advertising methods to drive visitors to your website and adverts and then we optimise your site to make sure those visitors become paying customers that tell all their friends and come back for more.

01 / A Note From The Editor

We’ve had a very interesting month here at ROARlocal. As I write this the helicopter that crashed in Glasgow is in the news… how sad for the families. Makes me want to maximize as much as my life as possible. Live life to the max is a catchy slogan but for me it holds true. As entrepreneurs we’re used to taking risks, living on the periphery of society, missed birthdays, long hours and lots of failures are the norm. So, I raise a glass to you, a glass of camaraderie and shared values. May we build the things that make us happy and live a life that few would choose so we may live a lifestyle that most would covett. I hope you’ll enjoy reading this months magazine it’s jam packed with our usual level of brilliant content and as always if we can help you in any way please get in touch

Our team is different, we focus on making you MONEY we couldn’t care less for winning awards for being “creative” our reward is money in your bank. We’re successful online entrepreneurs, world class copywriters, website optimisation specialists, online advertising mavericks and the geekiest SEO people!

02 / The Psychological Reason Why Selling Your House By Auction Usually Gets You A Higher Price 03 / Hint: Your Competitors Have No Idea What They’re Doing Either! 05 / How To Sell A Service Online 06 / Affiliate Marketing 07 / Google AdWords – Enhanced Campaigns 08 / The Miley Cyrus Guide To Online Marketing 09 / The Worlds Scammiest Online Ads 10 / Entrepreneur Insights

Neil Asher CEO ROARlocal

The Psychological Reason Why Selling Your House By Auction Usually Gets You A Higher Price

by Neil Asher

Have you ever bid on something on eBay? I have. We buy stuff all the time – I love it!

My buying strategy tends to be:

Six quirks of ownership

Establish I like the item that is for sale.

Dan Ariely, in his book Predictably Irrational argues that ownership has 6 strange effects on us:

Establish a top price that I will NOT go beyond to acquire said item. Start bidding low.

Ownership increases perceived value to us: As soon as we acquire something we start to develop an attachment to it. Just the sheer fact of ownership increases how much we value it – we seem to develop a relationship with objects.

We tend to focus on losses: When selling we tend to overlook the money we’ll be gaining and focus on the object we’ll be losing. Our natural aversion to feeling bad then motivates us to place a higher asking-price on the long-cherished house, car or record collection than the market will bear.

As soon as bidding hits my limit, instantly break it and continue to bid! This behaviour has the same psychological effects as buying a house at auction, and is the reason why sellers will usually get a higher price. It’s also the reason that money back guarantees work so well for retailers online. When shopping, we’re unnaturally drawn to special offers like 30-day money-back guarantees. We’ll happily buy a new digital SLR on the basis that we can always return it even though, more often than not, we keep it. On auction sites like eBay we will set ourselves a limit for an item one minute, then, the next, and with a rueful smile, we’ll break this limit when a higher bid comes in.

Digital marketers argue that ownership – whether it’s real, partial or virtual – has a strange effect on us. 4.

We assume others share our perspective: Surely potential buyers understand how strongly we feel about our dusty old vinyl records? No, they don’t care – in fact they’re far more likely to notice how badly we’ve stored them or what poor taste in music we have. Effort increases perceived value: A table I have bought and struggled to build myself has more value to me than the same table I bought, for the same price, ready assembled. Expending our own effort means we’ve invested ourselves in an object, so it has more perceived value to us. Other people don’t recognise this (and there’s no reason why they should). Virtual ownership: We can even start feeling we own something before we actually do. Dan Ariely argues that the prices people are prepared to pay on auction sites like eBay are often inflated

by people’s imagined ownership. Once we place our first bid we start to fantasise about ownership. Consequently when other bids come in we ignore our previously stated maximum because we’re now starting to value the item more, since we’ve been thinking about owning it. This is the BIG reason why selling your house at auction works so well. Once you’ve imagined yourself owning the house and placed a bid the “eBay effect” takes over. 6.

Partial ownership: Marketing executives know the power of ownership so they use all kinds of tricks to encourage partial ownership because it often leads on to full ownership. We don’t usually return our furniture within the 30-day moneyback guarantee period because we’ve grown attached to it – it’s ours.

How to use this Sell with a guarantee – they work. Let your customers get a free trial so they can take it home and use it Get your customers emotionally involved in your product by getting them to visualise and associate your product with their life (copy writing done well does this). Whenever possible show that other people want your product and that you have a limited amount of them to sell. Final thing, don’t make it too easy to take a free trial. Make your customers jump through a few hoops and they’ll keep your product for longer and value it more too. Want us to look after your online marketing for you? Then check out how we can help you here

Hint: Your Competitors Have No Idea What They’re Doing Either! Conversation on Friday with a new client who asked me to copy their competitors new wizz bang website.

Him “I want you to model what they do Neil and make ours do the same”

Your competitors are (usually) clueless and guessing at what will work

Me “Why, do you have access to the analytics and conversion results?”

I talk to a lot of people about their websites and conversion challenges – many of them large, well-known companies. I’m constantly surprised by how many of these companies’ actions are opinion-driven, and how little actual data is gathered and used. When I ask them questions about their customers and their website, most of what I hear is “I think that”, “it seems to me” and “in my opinion”. Sadly, opinions matter little; usually not at all.

Him “?…” I hear this all the time. “Our competitor, X, is doing Y, we should do that too” or “X is market leader and they have Y, we need to have Y“. There are 2 key things wrong with this reasoning: The reason they set up Y (menu, navigation, checkout, home page layout, etc) is probably random. In 50% of cases the layout is what their web designer came up with (he/she most likely did not perform a long, thorough analysis and testing), or they simply copied another competitor. What works for them won’t necessarily work for you. You’d be surprised by the number of people who actually know their shit. It’s (maybe!) 5% knowing (they have tested and have facts) and 95% opinions (they do no testing and have no facts). It’s the blind leading the blind! “Parrots mimic their owners. Their owners consider that a sign of intelligence.” ― Marty Rubin

So bear in mind, in most cases, your competitors themselves don’t really know which part of their website is working and which part is failing. Their whole site was probably put together by a committee of opinions. Their CEO and marketing team assembled a task force who looked at a bunch of competitor sites, picked pieces from here and there, and inserted a lot of opinions into the mix. In my experience, this is a common way to build a website. The other common way these companies setup a website is to hire a web design company. The designer, who didn’t use any data and looked at a bunch of websites for inspiration, basically slapped something together that makes sense and looks all right, or worse looks “nice”.

by Neil Asher

The whole point of data-driven design is to use the data to identify what’s working and what’s not, and to improve productivity. Improving your site by ripping off your competitor is like trying to win a lottery – it involves mostly hope and luck. And if you count on luck to grow your business, you’re doing it wrong. Of course, you have to know which data to use and how to use it. When I’m out networking (yes I occasionally go outside) I usually here people talking about their site metric. Oftentimes those metrics have no business value though. For instance, 46% of respondents indicated they used “time on site” as a key measure. Now that’s ridiculous. Time on site can go down (maybe because the navigation was improved, usability made better and site made faster) and sales can go up at the same time. Time on site and bounce rate can provide additional insight, but are not key metrics. It’s rare that somebody has a completely datadriven site. It’s rare that your competitor is a super genius. Keep that in mind the next time you want to copy them. You don’t know what’s working Trying to copy someone else’s formula for success can be very tempting. I get it, and I see it all the time. Newcomers enter the market with a website that’s basically a ripoff of the market leader’s website. An eCommerce site goes for a design makeover and copies their biggest competitor. That’s stupid. First of all, you don’t know what’s behind their success. It’s probably not their site layout, cool navigation, or the way they categorise products. It’s more often the workers that contribute to the company’s success. If you buy the best camera in the world and start taking pictures, your pics will still be crap; it’s not the tools that’s the problem. The problem is that copying a design style, information architecture, web copy, service claims, or sign up flow is not copying a formula for success. Even if you copy something that’s working for them, it doesn’t mean it will work for you.

client relationships. Your competitor’s success may have nothing to do with its website at all.

If you want to get ideas, great, but then test them

Also, your sales can go up, while the conversion rate goes down (e.g. you get 1 million untargeted visitors from StumbleUpon, and one of them buys something). So you should first and foremost optimise for revenue/ profit, not conversion rate. Want to increase your conversion rate 1000% right now? Lower all your prices to free.

I’m not saying your competitors are not getting some things right. You just don’t know which factors are correct. So instead of just blindly copying something, make sure that you don’t just change your site. Have the mindset that you’re running an experiment. The thing you copy is a hypothesis – and you need to test it.

So no, don’t copy your competitor if you hear their conversion rate is better. Data-driven approach drives growth. Data is not something abstract, and web design is not about creativity (in fact, the more constraints the designer adheres to, the more room there is for possible creativity). Web design should have a purpose in mind? Eventually we want people to buy our stuff, fill out our forms, sign up, and so on.

Want us to look after your website design, conversion optimisation and traffic creation for you? Want us to make you money? Then check out our outsourced marketing department here

How can we drive an increase in those numbers? Numbers increase by measuring and observing what’s happening and drawing conclusions from the data collected. We can measure everything

Know the conversion rate you should be going for? Better than what you had last month

You can measure what people do on your website. You can measure what they click, where they click (and if what they click on is actually something clickable), how long they stay for, if they scroll, which eCommerce category pages perform and which don’t, and where in the funnel people are dropping off.

If you somehow find out that your competitor has a better conversion rate, that doesn’t mean much. They might have better traffic sources, more targeted ads, and/or better

If it can be measured, it can be improved. And in the end it’s about helping your website visitors do something a little more successfully (and thereby driving revenue growth).

“But the conversion rate of my competitor is X%!”

Run it against your current site and see if it makes a difference. Then either implement or discard :)

How To Sell A Service Online

Buyers of services (as opposed to buyers of products) must take more risk—sellers of services need to understand this and address it. You’re competing against your buyers’ fear and inertia—not other offline marketers’. The market for Internet marketing services is not a competitive one In other words, your customers aren’t struggling to decide on marketing company A, B or C. They’re deciding whether to buy at all! Also, productise your services. Making them more tangible and real will help soothe your prospects’ natural worries and skepticism about buying services. (169) Simplify your service offering and be easy to work with

Over the weekend I re-read Harry Beckwith’s Selling the Invisible. What a great book! As someone who sells an outsourced marketing department service, with many our clients selling services online, I like to revisit great books and think about how to apply the ideas to our clients’ businesses. The book was written in the 90′s but the principles are solid no matter when you read this. That’s the kinda book I like to read, not fads. Anyway, here’s the list of notes I made from the book. I know you’ll enjoy them, and then I suggest you rush over to Amazon and order a copy for yourself! Your buyers are a fearful, irrational, and cynical bunch “You have nothing to fear but your client’s fear itself.” As a seller of marketing services, you must have a clear understanding “of that worried soul.” (XVIII) Alleviate fear: offer free trials. Instead of asking for their business, ask for a project. Buyers are more inclined to trust products than services “We implicitly trust most products. We trust that our new tyres won’t blow out, our brown sugar will taste sweet, and our aspirin will soothe our headaches without bad side effects. But we are far less trusting and certain about most services. We worry that our lawyers and car mechanics will do more than necessary, and charge more than necessary. We worry that the latest weight-loss service will fail, just like the three before it. We worry that our remodelers will exceed their budget and finish weeks after they promise.” (169)

“In an increasingly complex world, nothing works more powerfully than simplicity.” (XX) Be likeable Success in business is a lot like success in high school—popularity will get you far. “The competent and likeable solo consultant will attract far more business than the brilliant but socially deficient expert. … When many prospects choose a service firm, they are not buying the firm’s credentials, reputation, or industry stature. Instead, like the high schoolers we continue to be throughout our lives, these prospects buy the firm’s personality. ‘I just like them.’ ‘I had a good feel about them.’ ‘It just felt like a good fit.’ Notice carefully the prospect’s choice of verbs: ‘like,’ ‘feel,’ ‘felt.’ The words do not refer to logic and reason; they refer to feelings.” (53) Better services = easier marketing and selling “The core of service marketing is the service itself. … The first principle of service marketing is Guy Kawasaki’s first principle of computer marketing: ‘Get better reality.’ ’Better reality’ in your service will make marketing easier, cheaper, and more profitable.”

by Neil Asher

Positioning: fanatical focus Positioning is all about having a singular focus so that your messaging is simple and memorable. Good positioning means making sacrifices—you can’t be all things to all clients. Paradox: Narrowing your positioning broadens your appeal—because of the “halo effect”: “We tend to think, for example, that attractive people are smarter, friendlier, more honest, and more reliable than less attractive people. We associate one positive thing— attractiveness—with many other good things.” (108) Positioning a small service: don’t hide your smallness. (You can’t hide it anyway, and trying to will only make you look worse.) Instead, leverage it. Turn it into a strength. E.g. “You’ll get very personalised services.” Pricing pitfalls “Don’t assume that logical pricing is smart pricing. Maybe your price, which makes you look like a good value, actually makes you look second rate.” (132) “Setting your price is like setting a screw. A little resistance is a good sign.” “Beware of the deadly middle.” (134) It sends a signal that you think you’re mediocre, middle of the road. And beware of the deadly lowend … positioning on low prices is deadly, because there will ALWAYS be someone willing to charge less. “Value is not a position.” “If your primary selling position is good value, you have no position [because] value is not a competitive position. Value is what every service promises, implicitly or explicitly.” “If good value is the first thing you communicate, you won’t be effective.” Tell stories “One story beats a dozen adjectives.”

Ignore smart guys who tell you your ideas suck “Highly intelligent people are the world’s foremost experts at squashing good ideas. That’s because intelligent people have one absolute favorite use for their formidable intelligence: telling other people, with total conviction and logic, why other people’s ideas will not work.” (67)

Affiliate Marketing

by Neil Asher

When I worked full time as an affiliate marketer (an affiliate marketer sells other peoples products for them for a commission) I’d often show people what I was doing to get traffic to the offers I was promoting.

It was not uncommon to send 5000 clicks a day to a landing page or website and to make a very good income as a result. One consistent theme I heard from people who checked out the training I offered was “If it’s so good, why don’t you just do that all the time instead of teaching other people how to do it too”. With the implication being that the stuff I was teaching was not as lucrative as the selling of the “how to”.

So next time you see someone selling a “how to” guide it will pay you handsomely to think “what are the assets within my business that could be repackaged and sold?” Give it a try! Want us to take a look at your business and create additional revenue streams for you? Then checkout our complete done for you service here.

This always used to make me laugh :D First up, if you’re in business then chances are you’re sitting on under leveraged assets within your business that could be repackaged and sold and a new revenue stream, and indeed in some cases, a new business be created from it. For instance, a client of ours who is a Vet recently added $300K a year to their business by teaching other vets how to train and hire staff. That’s just smart business. In all businesses there are vast amounts of money sitting latent in these businesses. It often takes a fresh pair of eyes to see the marketable and sellable assets, but they’re there none-the-less. The other point is that it’s actually great fun to teach others. If you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs you’ll see contribution is one of our highest needs. I’ve seen this time and time again in (so called) burnt out entrepreneurs. A simple addition to their business can reenergise and invigorate the whole business for them, not only in adding new revenue streams to the business, but also lifting their existing sales channels too.

Google AdWords – Enhanced Campaigns

In February, Google announced a new AdWords update – Enhanced Campaigns – and described it as ‘a first step to help you more simply and smartly manage your ad campaigns in today’s multi-device world’. Earlier this week, they began the process of automatically upgrading all AdWords accounts with the Enhanced Campaign’s new features. What are these features? What benefits do they hold? And do you need to do anything? This straightforward blog has all the answers. Upgrading If you haven’t been upgraded yet, it’ll take you just a couple of minutes. Log in to your AdWords account & you’ll either be presented with a notification (below) or you’ll need to click on ‘Upgrade centre’ in the left hand navigation. If you’re greeted with a message saying ‘100% of your campaigns have been upgraded’, then bingo! If not, click on ‘Get started’ and follow the process.

New Feature No 1: Target Audiences Before: If you wanted to target customers depending on device, location & time of day previously, you might have set up different Campaigns focusing on each of those aspects & run multiple reports to determine what Return-on-Investment each one was generating. Today: With Enhanced Campaigns, you can target each of those audiences from a single Campaign, using bid adjustments. So, let’s say you’ve got a Pizzeria in central Bath and you know that your campaign performs really well on desktop computers on weekdays, with the lunchtime office crowd. You can now increase bids for PCs and Bath, and decrease bids on Saturdays and Sundays within one Campaign. What You Need to Do: Determine what’s working successfully for your business in terms of device, location & time of day. This may be fairly obvious (like the Pizzeria) or you may need to do some investigation. The best way to do this is to select the longest date range possible, then head to the Dimensions tab. Here you can look at location & time, and sort by conversions to see when and where the most valuable clicks are coming from. You can do this for the account overall, or per Campaign (by clicking in to each Campaign first).

by Libby Thomas

New Feature No 3: Sitelinks

To see what sort of results you’re getting from each device; go to the Keywords tab, then ‘Segment’, then ‘Device’. Again, sort by conversions to determine which devices are bringing you the converting clicks.

Then you can use the data gathered to inform your bid adjustments. To increase/decrease them, click in to each Campaign, then go to ‘Settings’, then click on each separate option, and ‘Set bid adjustment’. For the ‘Ad schedule’ one you’ll need to create an Ad Schedule before you can implement bid adjustments. Use your judgement to determine what increases or decreases to use, and check back frequently to make sure your choice is having a positive impact. If not, tweak it a little.

You might’ve used Sitelinks before. They’re additional links through to your website that sit below your ad (if it appears in the top position on the search results page). Well, Enhanced Campaigns have improved these. You can now include a short description of each link. Here’s Google’s example:

To update yours, go to the Ad Extensions tab, select ‘Sitelinks Extensions’ from the drop down, and then either edit your existing ones, or click on ‘New Extension’. These are a great place to include additional USPs, offers, testimonials etc.

New Feature No. 4: Conversions

New Feature No 2: Mobile Users 48.4% of UK residents own a Smartphone, according to eMarketer statistics from June 2013. That’s a massive amount of potential customers that Enhanced Campaigns are trying to help you target. They now have the option to create a mobile-optimised ad with a headline, text, display URL and destination URL tailored for customers viewing your ad on mobile devices. To do so, just select the ‘Mobile’ checkbox next to the ‘Device preference’ setting when editing or creating a new text ad & write your ad specifically for people using their Smartphones. Best practice is to have one ad with that box ticked, which will show to users on mobiles and one ad without that box ticked, which will show to users on desktops, laptops & tablets.

Enhanced Campaigns allow you to track new conversion types: phone calls & digital downloads (mainly apps). To track these, go to the Tools and Analysis tab and select ‘Conversions’ from the drop down. Click on the green ‘Conversion’ button and then tick the relevant button. Add the relevant coding generated, to the right place on your site, and watch those conversion numbers start adding up!

So that’s it! 4 enhanced features that should make your AdWords advertising even more effective. We’ve seen some fantastic results for our clients using these already. If you’d like us to help you achieve the same, please get in touch!

The Miley Cyrus Guide To Online Marketing

The most infamous example of Miley Cyrus’s attention getting ways is her latest stunt. Some may have thought it in bad taste (Like the Christian groups who condemned her behaviour), but it also caused enough attention that it now warrants its own Wikipedia entry.

Become Part of a Larger Movement

The fact that not everyone likes what Miley Cyrus does and says doesn’t stop her.

Miley Cyrus isn’t just trying to promote her music, she is also trying to change the world – Miley Cyrus views herself as an advocate for teenagers and other groups who may not have a voice.

She is focused on her own core fan base of young tween girls and she knows how to give them what they want. If you avoid taking a strong position, your marketing message will come across as bland and unappealing to everyone – when you are controversial, there will naturally be people who won’t like your message, and that is fine.

“People will always talk, so let’s give them somethin’ to talk about” – Miley Cyrus Miley Cyrus proved once again that she knows how to get attention when she twerked on stage at the VMA’s. But make no mistake – Miley isn’t just creating controversy for its own sake. Underneath her wild outfits and outrageous behavior is a great marketing mind. Read on and find out what you can learn from Miley Cyrus’s naked approach to gaining publicity. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Controversial “If you don’t have any shadows, you’re not in the light.” Miley Cyrus isn’t someone who avoids controversy. In fact, she actively seeks it out.

by Neil Asher

Instead of focusing on pleasing everyone, concentrate on the subset of people who are the closest match to your message – that’s the start of what Seth Godin refers to as a “tribe.” Create a Community Around Your Brand “My real fans understand what it is I do.” Most entrepreneurs and marketers understand the importance of building a social presence, but Miley Cyrus goes far beyond this when it comes to talking to her tribe. Although Miley Cyrus has over 39 million followers on Twitter, she direct tweets to individual fans. It’s this kind of investment into these relationships that has produced such a loyal following. Miley has gone as far as developing her own social network, where her fans can interact, post fan art, and get the latest Cyrus updates. Members of her tribe can identify one another using her signature greeting. While we may not have the resources to create our own social networking site, we can all invest more time in talking to our customers. Be Prepared To Change Miley Cyrus wasn’t always controversial. in fact 3 years ago this is how she looked… kinda wholesome. But Miley realised that her fan base was changing and quickly adapted her image and antics to suit. In business you have to move your marketing and products to suit the needs of your customers. If not, you’ll quickly end up like Blackberry’s maker, Research In Motion… dying a slow death.

“And now, I’m just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time.” Being able to associate with something larger than yourself can be a compelling mission statement.

Becoming part of something larger than you and your company can be very powerful. Vacation rental site Air BnB isn’t just trying to sell you are a room for the night. They are improving the world through the sharing economy. Or online shoe seller Toms, with its “One for One” movement that has transformed crass consumption into a noble act. For very shoe that you buy from Toms, one is given to a child in need. These companies make the consumer feel like they aren’t just buying, they are also giving something back. Deliver The Goods “When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time.” Controversy isn’t enough if you fail to deliver a quality product. The fact is, Miley Cyrus’s music is good. Unlike a lot of other musicians, she doesn’t put out a lot of material – but when she does deliver, it is good. Despite being arguably the most famous solo artist currently performing, she has only released two studio albums. It is this final point where some businesses lose their way. Massive hype and brilliant sales copy won’t, by themselves, create a successful long-term business. For that, you need to actually produce something exceptional. In fact massive hype and brilliant sales collateral is a very quick way to kill an average business, because more people get to know the product is crap faster. So next time you see a picture of Miley twerking, think to yourself how quickly she’s dominated that marketing space with 1 act of controversy.

The Worlds Scammiest Online Ads

by Neil Asher

“Lose 20 Pounds – No Diet or Exercise Required!” Yeah right!

The world of marketing doesn’t have the most sparkling reputation… Selfish businesses and shady practices have taught most of us to be skeptical – or even if we aren’t wary of every piece of marketing, we can certainly spot a scam a mile away: “Make $50,000 Without Lifting a Finger!” Most of us would recognise ads like that for exactly what they are – traps for the person gullible (or desperate) enough to click the link or offer up their credit card number. Beyond those super-obvious scams, though, we see plenty of ads with claims that look like this: “Only 7 Remaining!” “We’re so popular, our servers crashed!” “Regular Price $99.99 – now just $19!” “My boss is out of the office, so I’m going to do something I know I shouldn’t…” In many cases, there is a genuine reason or limitation that must be adhered to, and if so, the above claims would be accurate. However, for the above claims to work: Your customers must believe that you are authentically limited, or have a valid reason why you’re offering a discount. But the problem is, I get at least 3 emails a day with claims similar to those above, and the B.S. is so blatantly obvious, the stench makes me want to wretch! C’mon, you really mean to tell me you have a limited supply of digital eBooks? Give me more credit than that…

Can I really give you $97 for a trading robot that earned 11,000% last year? Stupid. Even though you might get away with it once, you’ve GOT to resist the urge to tell lies to your customers, no matter how small they might be. Once your customers and prospects begin to see you as inauthentic, the game is over. Customers are no fools, and most of them will see right through any false information you throw at them. And being labelled a liar isn’t exactly good for your business… In today’s economy, it’s not going to be the best marketing, the best product, or the fastest service that’s going to position you as the dominant player. It’s trust. Your customers need to trust you’re going to deliver what you say. They need to trust you’re going to be there if something goes wrong.scammy ads And they need to trust that you’re looking out for their best interests. As I’ve said before, customer loyalty starts with being loyal to your customers – and if you’re not being honest, you’re hardly being loyal to them. Those businesses that build a relationship based on trust will grow long term sustainable businesses. Start treating your prospects like they’re smart and they’ll thank you for it

You mean to tell me your boss is out of town, so you’re going to take the opportunity to offer me a discount? REALLY!?!

Entrepreneur Insights

Stirling is an inspirational mentor who after a highly successful international career building consumer global brands set up his own company, floated it on Aim and completed a multi-million £ acquisition. Highly enthusiast and a superb listener, Stirling delivers results by combining the experiences gained in both large corporates and small companies with a belief that people and the willingness to make things happen determine business success.

What one thing about your childhood, personality or upbringing do you think had the biggest influence on your becoming an entrepreneur? My Dad. His work ethic even now at 85 is incredible and his attitude is an inspiration both to me and my sons. I’ve been fortunate to have met and spent time with extremely successful people – I’ve sat next to Leonard Lauder, the son of the late Estee Lauder, had lunch with one of the family owners of Chanel, known others who have sold their business’s for 8 and 9 figure values - and always I’m struck by their 24/7 attitude, their focussed work ethic, their desire to ask questions and gather others opinion and their overriding passion for what they do. I have also meet people whose business have failed or after 3 years have got nowhere. There isn’t a common factor – sometimes people can be unlucky - but often the lack of a really focussed work ethic is apparent. The stark reality is that if you are running your own business you need to work hard and sharp very simply because no one else will if you don’t.. Floating my company on AIM was the most onerous and difficult experience I’ve ever had – what got me through it was very simply hard work. How did you do at school and what did you most love or hate about school? School was fine although I hated lessons that I felt had little or no relevance to me. But school also left me with a desire to learn and developed my natural curiosity. There is so much to learn from everything around us – business, art, music, books - and if you keep your mind open you can gather so much.

That’s what school does for you even if you don’t understand that at the time! What would you say was the ONE THING that made the difference in your professional success? Keeping everything in perspective. It is easy to panic when things go wrong, to believe that things will not be right again and that all is bad. Perspective provides distance and distance gives you time to think about how to resolve the issues your business faces. Perspective gives you the breathing space to consider the worse-case scenario and an understanding that even if that happens there will be opportunities that will present themselves. We hear often that tenacity and perseverance are essential attributes for an entrepreneur and without question they are. No-one else will go through the brick walls that your business will face, no-one else will keep pushing for solutions that others have given up on, no-on else will hold that uniquely driven sense of purpose of a business owner but perspective allows you to see the woods for the trees. It will help you understand that change is needed and will make you face up to the pragmatic reality of what needs to be done next no matter how tough that maybe. Without perspective, your business and your life is out of balance and that is not healthy for either. What ONE THING would you do differently, knowing what you know now? Started my own business much sooner. I was always fearful of doing so, that I would lose what I had gained in my career and end up destitute!!! I now realise fear was in my head and that to succeed you have to take some

degree of risk. I loved every day of my 25 year corporate career in the beauty business and count myself blessed that I never once had that awful Sunday night feeling of dreading going back to work. I worked for the best brands and people in the industry, travelled widely and worked internationally but always had that niggling feeling that I should be doing this for me. That came from my Dad who had worked for himself from his teenage years and so even though I was delightfully happy in corporate life I knew deep down that sooner or later I would take the decision to set up my own business. And when I did - wow what a shock that was!! Everything changed –some things for the better, many things for the worse – but with experience comes know how and the inner strength to keep a clear focus on what needs to be done. I learnt quickly that running your own business in the early years is like a roller coaster - up and down and often in the same hour. So on reflection maybe I couldn’t have started my business sooner because the inner steel to get through the turbulence of a start-up was there when needed and may not have been fully formed earlier. What really gets you buzzed NOW about being in business? What fulfills you most? The deal, the intellectual challenge and the realisation that you carve out your future. Nobody else will do that for you. I love meeting new people and networking. I love that if you have an open mind you learn something every day no matter how experienced you are. My business - www.theredtree.co.uk – works mostly within the beauty industry but through my mentoring with Rockstar I’ve worked with entrepreneurs in finance, property, hotels, and model agencies. I’ve learnt from all of those meetings and delight in the interaction that happens in mentoring.

Get in contact through: smurray@theredtree.co.uk twitter.com/stirlingmurray www.theredtree.co.uk www.rockstargroup.co.uk/stirlingmurray/

Get In Touch Contact ROARlocal UK

www.roarlocal.com/contact

☎

Fill in the form to contact us at any time.

Monday - Friday 0900 - 1800

We need your name, the domain name of your existing site (if you have one), your preferred method of contact (phone number or email address) and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Admin Office

01273 78 21 44

The Sussex Innovation Centre University of Sussex Science Park Square, Falmer Brighton BN1 9SB CEO / Neil Asher COO / Nicola Cairncross

www.ROARlocal.com/twitter www.ROARlocal.com/facebook www.ROARlocal.com/linkedin www.ROARlocal/google.com ROARlocal on RSS www.itunes.apple.com

ROAR Australia

☎

1300 66 43 07

www.ROARlocal.com.au Sydney Office: ROARlocal Sydney, 69 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills, New South Wales, 2010 Melbourne Office: ROARlocal Melbourne, St Kilda Rd Towers, 1 Queens Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 3004

www.ROARDigitaloz.com/twitter www.ROARDigitaloz.com/facebook

Photography Cover

- Dominic’s Pics / Flickr

Page 2 - Clinton Steeds / Flickr

Page 9 - RoarLocal Back - Humbert 15 / Flickr

Page 3 - RoarLocal Page 4 - RoarLocal Page 5 - RoarLocal Page 6 - RoarLocal Page 7 - Google

www.ROARlocal.com/linkedin www.ROARDigitaloz/google.com

With thanks to Matt Cox - Graphic Design mattcoxmail@yahoo.co.uk