Need to make an impression with your blog?

Yes I have a somewhat plain blog but that will shortly change as we continue our 2016 re-brand! You can look at our new web site at www.rossini.com  Now we sell specialized blogs! Want to make money blogging? You can take a look at one of our new blogs that our customer http://www.fifthaveinternetgarage.com/  uses. We are proud to have him as a customer and take a look at his blog! You can have one tailored to your needs too! http://fifthaveinternetgarage.blogspot.com/ .

If you are interested, e mail me or call me at 913-244-6132.

More to come soon!

Plan your work and work your plan....

I continue to push this idea or saying because it applies in all walks of life. I use a Franklin planner and have since 1989! I can tell you almost every day since 1989 what I was doing that day! I planned my work for that day and went about doing it. Now many use their phones to plan their work and that is OK as long as you can stick to the plan and it guides you. We had plans for January here, make at least two to four sales, release a new web site, work on a brochure, switch accounting to on line and of course there was more but we accomplished most and worked on finishing the rest. I now am looking at February.  So I plan for success. You should plan for your own success. If you are in sales, plan on the number of calls that you will make a day, a week, a month.  Oh yes do not forget to follow up on leads and do it no more than 48 hours after getting those leads. Ask for referrals, often time people will give them! Give those people a gift if you sell the referral or if you are in a store buy a product in that store as a thank you. Remember your existing customers! as a rule I always touched base with the existing customers in my territory and introduced myself as their new representative. I listened to their concerns and then tried to act upon any that they may have. I once worked for a company that said never go back to an old or existing customer, they will usually be upset or as I also later found out the service people were up selling them and getting the commission! That company will fail, you should be very proud of your customers and take good care of them. Remember the old saying that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your leads and from your old customers! Well just a few more lines about sales...more to come and remember, if you need sales help, call me I am available to be contracted out to teach or to sell!

Until next time...Joe

SEO and key words and how best to use them

The old way of doing things with key words in a web site has changed. In the past people would stuff fifty keywords about your company or products on the first page and then also on every other page. This is called cramming or stuffing the keywords and it is no longer an accepted practice.
What do you do you ask? Focus on key words that are specific for the page that it services. For example, if you decide to target “software development” on your services page, than you should not use it again on the homepage. Instead, target a keyword like “software development company”, or another keyword that describes what your company does, on the home page and save keywords like “software development”, which describes your specific services,  for your services page. If your business is locally based, consider using descriptive keywords such as “software development Boston” on your home page to ensure that potential customers will find your site.

Depending on the products/services you offer, some of your pages might be targeting incredibly long-tail keywords to avoid double targeting. For instance, “mobile app development services” only gets 110 searches a month, but it’s still worth incorporating into the “app development” service page on your site—it’s exactly what you offer! Many site owners get so hung up on search volume that they forgo the best keywords for ones with a higher search volume or ones they wanted to target on another page but couldn’t squeeze in. Remember, you can tell the search engines whatever keywords you like for your page, but if your site doesn’t back it up with the content you’ll never do well. You might list “banana” as a priority keyword for your site, but if you don’t sell bananas don’t expect to do well. I tell customers to think about what they would search for specifically. If you do solar electrical work in Franklin County Kansas put that in because you would potentially get a lead from someone from Franklin County Kansas.

Once you know which keywords you’ll be using on your site, there are some guidelines you need to follow in order to make sure that your site is optimized well. Here’s an overview of what you should do:

• Relevant keywords. Make your keywords relevant to the page. Only place keywords on that page if it has something to do with the overall content. If the keyword doesn’t exactly match the content, leave it off that page.
• Placement. You also need to understand where to place the keywords. Select a strong, relevant keyword to go into the title of your page and in the meta description. Next, you’ll want to incorporate that keyword when/if it sounds natural.
• Don’t over optimize. Resist the urge to stuff the relevant keywords into the content. More isn’t better. In fact, doing so can give you a penalty! Place the keyword one or two times into the body copy, but only if it reads naturally. Otherwise, you’re better off taking a conservative approach.

I have been using key words for a long time and yes the use of them has changed but as I have told many that have told me that keywords are dead, I say they resurrected and shine again in the area of SEO.

More late.......

More Google Tidbits.....

Want to get more sales from your web site? Google says this: Google will index the right pages of your site. The number of indexed pages is not as important as the quality of the indexed pages. If the right web pages can be found for the right keywords, you will get many more sales.

The right content is important as I have said many times! The right key words still work and are looked at or searched on! What would you search on if you were looking for a plumber? Would you type in  plumber? NO, no no  you should be more specific such as plumber Miami County Kansas. Most people are starting to get more specific and less general and thus your keywords and content should be created in such a way.

The Google Penguin update that was expected in 2015, that was then delayed due to the holidays and now was expected this month should launch within weeks. It has been 15 months since the last official Penguin update, which was Penguin 3.0. I believe we are in for anohter shakeup once this new update comes out!

More to come soon.....

I give good phone...

Yes I do give you good phone:) OK no jokes, the bottom line is that using the phone takes time and effort. The phone can be a great sales weapon.I start by setting a goal, remember plan your work and work your plan. I like to set a goal, a reachable one like making twenty telephone calls and then I find a niche to go after and there are so many then you set up a script to use.  A script like you were going to give a speech. Practice the phone call then sit down at your desk and begin to make your calls. You would be surprised that the more you call, the better your pitch gets.  All you need is a couple suspects say yes and then all of a sudden, you have hit your twenty calls and then you need to log them, put them in a database so you do not lose them and then, write them a thank you note...yes I said write them a thank you note.  Now you send them information but it is that thank you note that those suspects will remember and that may turn them into prospects.

So let us review:

• Set a reachable goal of people to call
• Make up a call script
• Practice your script
• Sit down and make those calls
• Update your database
• Send out a Thank You note

OK, much more to come and trust me there is so much more to learn.

More to come and remember practice makes perfect and soon you too will give good phone:)

Joe R

New customer

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Plan your work and work your plan!

This segment will be a bit about the good old fashioned device called the telephone! Yes the telephone. I have been using one for sales since 1978 and it has never let me down. Yes even with all of the magical devices now available to man and women, the telephone is still one of the most powerful communications mediums. With the phone, you  can talk to existing customers (imagine that). You can still set up your appointments with the phone. You can prospect with this old friend. In short, you can sit at your desk, save time and money and wear and tear on your body and just make call after call. Ok yes it can be boring but you can really see and get positive feedback by using the phone.  Many a salesman have laughed at me sitting there calling away while they joked and took trips to the water cooler while I set up appointments and out sold them ten to one! Eventually those salespeople started to follow my lead and guess what, their sales increased too.

Using the phone is an squired skill and it takes time and can be frustrating. Rejection becomes your constant friend but occasionally you hit one and wow it really makes your day feel better and gives you the spark to continue on.....

Want to learn more on how I do it? I can consult for you or your team and you will see an immediate impact in discipline and sales increases.

More to come....

Joe

Plan your work work your plan

More about sales and planning. it is important that you set reasonable goals for yourself. Remember that Rome was not built in a day and either will your business or sales success.  I made a call on a couple building a business basically from scratch and of course they were excited. The couple had products, they had a targeted area to attack and now they were working on a web site to sell their products.  The problem was potentially initial unrealistic expectation,. the thought that you might make tens of thousands of sales immediately can happen but I have rarely seen it. Set reasonable goals, go after those goals then attack it wisely. Slow steady growth is attainable and it will allow you to adapt to the curve balls thrown at you.  If you can find a mentor to talk to to bounce ideas off of and then weigh the advice and if you like it use that advice it can be useful. Listen to those who have already travled the hard road and know that you too will learn and sometimes not so nicely. But if  you listen and plan and execute the plan you might just be surprised at what life will send you.


More to come soon...

Joe

More tidbits:

If your website contains pages with 'thin' content, it's better to remove these pages from your website. Here are a few common examples of pages that often have thin content with little or no added value:

• Automatically generated content
• Thin affiliate pages
• Content from other sources. For example: Scraped content or low-quality guest blog posts
• Doorway pages

If the vast majority of your web pages have good quality, a few low quality pages won't hurt your rankings. That said, it's usually better to remove these low quality pages from your website.

More.......

Google tests “What’s Hot” & “What’s Nearby” as Android search options

"Artem Russakovskii found an interesting Google search options test for Android. In addition to recent searches, Google inserted a 'What’s Hot' and 'Nearby' option in the pull-down menu. [...]

Given that Google does numerous tests, it’s not clear this will get a broad rollout. In testing this functionality, Google is likely responding to the growth of 'nearby' or 'near me' queries.

 More hacked content showing up in Google Search now?

"It was just a few months ago when Google updated their hacked content algorithm to remove hacked content from showing up in the search results. But it may not be working as well as they liked.

A WebmasterWorld thread has several webmasters saying that they are seeing more and more hacked content show up in the Google search results, especially when you filter the results to show content in the past 24 hours."

 

 

More info to come. Google continues to make changes. I am going to see what Bing is doing so as to get some comparisons.

 

Until next time

 

Joe

Our new web page....

Please go look at our new web page www.rossini.com.   The web site is responsive...it has an CMS internally, and much more!!!

Plan your work...

Ok we keep harping on plan your work and work your plan but another facet of this is that you should target an SIC code and attack it. I usually go after chambers of commerce because they have a bunch of member names on them, easy to get to and call or e mail to. Maybe you know restaurants so why not go after them in an area and put your knowledge to use that way. Any SIC code will do but pick an area you are familiar with first then plan your area of attack and go after them.

How you go after them is up to you. I use the old fashioned telephone call:) I use e-mails, I use cold calls and more. You choose what you feel most comfortable with and go do it.  Where do you get an SIC code list? Go to the library, they have them and you dont have to pay for them.

More to come.......

More on how to sell

Another piece of the sales puzzle how to sell :work your plan and plan your work"

Another way to plan your work comes from the old days of extremely high gas prices ala $4.00 per gallon and it was extremely important as a salespeople to plan your day and where you were going to make calls that day. In other times, you just went out and made calls or followed up on a lead and then you headed back to the office (wrong). If you have spent time to go to an area, take just a bit of time to research that area and see if there are other potential suspects there. One sales call can turn in to five or more sales calls.; I usually drew a big circle around an area on the map or using Google maps an area and see the streets, find the businesses that are there and then plan to start at the center (your original lead) then spread out from there. What I found that often if let us say you sell to small business people that you will have a strip mall near your first lead so you can park your car (save gas) and drop your card off. I will almost assuredly tell you that you will find another suspect or too as you cold call. 

So what started as a quick go attack a single lead turned into two, three maybe more leads and thus you begin to build your pipeline to sales. Remember to bring cards, brochures, and be prepared to enter your lead into your database right there on the fly or when you do get back to the office to follow up. Remember that as you make calls do not forget to ask the call if they knew anyone else that might be looking for a product you have and you might be surprised how many extra leads you might find.

Remember plan your work and constantly work your plan and that plan will lead you to success!

More to come...................................

The new www.rossini.com

I am proud to announce the release of our new web site www.rossini.com

New responsive web site published

Take a look at our latest responsive web site http://www.keatingmudjacking.com/index.php

Do you need to know the basics of sales?

The basics in sales, I am often asked how Joe did you find that lead? How Joe did you sell that lead? What Joe can I do so I too can make sales? Well after thirty plus years of sales, I tell a rookie only so much as their brain can take in because honestly it is a lot. Where do I start:

First an old saying plan your work and work your plan. You can not get somewhere unless you know where you intend to go. Let us say you have a goal of selling $100,000.00 in calendar year 2016 and that is a nice goal but not one that is overwhelming to achieve. Often young rookies will put a goal like one million dollars in sales which is one that is just not achievable.  So the smaller goal is the best goal to go after. Lets see, if you use math you will see to reach this goal you will need to sell $8333.33 per month for twelve months.  Lets look closer and you will see that if you can make sales of $2083.00 per week it does not seem as such an insurmountable figure. For me it is just one $2000 sale a week and that is definitely possible.  Make small achievable goals and then achieve them and keep your blinders on, keep looking at that end goal but never forget the weekly and monthly goal for it is what adds up.

OK more to come, I am thinking about writing a white paper on this, would you have an interest in it if I did it? E-mail me at jrossini@rossini.com and let me know.

Until next time......

Is a big SEO company really in your best interest?

Yesterday, I was working on potential customers and I came across a person who owned a small business like you and me and what our conversation centered on was using a big SEO company.  This owner said he had spent over $10,000.00 on a large SEO company that promised the world to him such as top Google rankings, leads out the wazoo and support support support. This owner proceeded to bend my ear for about thirty minutes about how he had spent so much money with a big out of state SEO provider. He went on to say that they did not return his calls, they did not do the marketing he had paid over $10,000 for and more. He was furious and even spent the time to fly across the country to complain to the owner of this large company.  Needless to say he did not get to talk to the big company cigar smoking big shot, what he got was a security escort to the door.  What I was told he would now only work with a local company someone he could meet with and talk to. What this leads me to is to say that sometime you can think that just because you are dealing with a large company in a big town, you are going to be totally taken care of.  Well this story is true, he spent a lot of money and got took to the cleaners. Sometime a small local company just like a small local brick and mortar store in your city gives more service, tries hard to make you happy and is worth just a penny or two more.  The moral is, check around and give a local person a shot and many times you will feel better and not being taken care of a foreign speaking person that does not know where you live or have any care.

More to come...........................................

You have to wonder.....,

You have to wonder what drives a company to continue to use a webpage that is not responsive design. Most people do not know the benefit of having a responsive design web page and you are one, you are not alone. I have seen many changes to the web over the last twenty five years like the use of flash being the thing to now you don't see it hardly at all. Programming of web sites use to use tables internally now you see CSS. The search engines use to be a piece of cake to get into now you have to do this and that and stand on your head! What I wonder about are people trying to be web page creators because it is free to do instead of worry about running their business. Save maybe six hundred dollars perhaps more but wow we saved it and now the web page well it is done don't have to worry about it now.  Remember you are an expert in your field but do you really have the time to learn as much as what is going on in the web world? If yu do have the time to learn as much as there is to learn only means to me you really have too much time on your hands and maybe you are in the wrong business!

More to come....

Tidbits......

2016 Google tracker: everything Google is working on for the new year

"Google recently announced it was condensing its cloud businesses into a single unit led by Diane Greene, co-founder and CEO of VMWare. Is this a new division inside of Google or Alphabet? Does it have a name? We have no idea. Starting a new division with a superstar CEO definitely seems like the same model that created Calico, Sidewalk Labs, Replicant, and Verily, but we haven't heard of a name or anything official."

 

Google: decimal points in URLs are a bad idea 

"Google's John Mueller answered a question on Twitter asking if it is okay to use a decimal point in your URLs, such as mysite.com/page.goes.here/. John Mueller said you surely can but he said it was a "bad idea."

 

Google: still no release date for Penguin 4.0

"We know Google decided to halt the release of Penguin 4.0 until after the holidays. We also know that Google is confident Penguin is good to be released this month, in January but Gary Illyes from Google is reiterating that Google won't release it until it is a 100% ready."

 

New privacy-focused search engine Oscobo promises to never sell or store your data

"Oscobo, founded by Fred Cornell (ex-Yahoo) and Rob Perin (ex-BlackBerry), aims to capitalize on these growing concerns around how data is shared between services, particularly by advertisers.

 

More to come soon.................................. These facts courtesy of Axandra.....

 

 

Did you know

Did you know that most new web sites should be made responsive and that means that the web site will adjust to the device viewing it like an Android or I phone. Why is this important you ask? It is important because Google wants you to have it that way. If you are not responsive then your rankings might just suffer.

Did you know that now a majority of web surfers are using their phones to look at web sites or to shop. This is important to you because if yu are not on the web or your web site does not show up well then the potential customer might just move on.

Have you ever used an app on your phone? Well if you have a business then this is a neat way to push your business and to sell to them in a new and very neat new way. These apps usually start at around $500.00 to create a simple one and a bit more for more complex applications. This is the future so if you are interested just let me know.

Did you know that you can use Facebook to really market to an area around your business. Sometimes you can reach over 100,000 potential customers to get your message out.  I can do that for you.

Enough for now more to come soon.

Joe