As a small business owner you are always looking for the most efficient way to market your business. The aim of minimum resource and maximum return on investment will lead you into unfamiliar and uncharted territory.

Internet marketing is one of those new areas that we have come to understand as being essential for the survival of a business. Internet marketing can be very daunting to a business owner unsure of the ins and outs of the web. If you spend any time listening to internet marketing advice a lot of it centres in getting online. The advice starts with create a website, get a blog, be involved in social media, create viral content and so the list continues.

The problem with all this advice is that it can suck up your time and may leave you neglecting other important tasks. Much of the expert’s advice makes sense and promises to lift business and generate great internet return on investment.

But when have you spent enough time online? When is it time to change hats and do something else?

I have attempted a very basic internet diary as a guideline. It is only a starting point but like everything, internet marketing needs a plan. This plan does not consider time spent in learning or getting the knowledge required to market online effectively.

Creating an internet diary is important and will help manage your time spent online doing internet related marketing. Along with a diary an action plan should be created for each individual element that you include in your diary. This element action plan will outline objective, knowledge acquisition, tools required and the tasks that you will be doing during the allotted time slot in your internet diary.

INTERNET DIARY

Daily Tasks

Weekly Tasks

Monthly Tasks

Six Monthly Tasks

Driving your credibility up the trust curve is what clinches the deal when talking to prospective clients. Testimonials when done correctly are a quick sure fire way to drive your credibility up the trust curve. Being honest and true is one of the most important golden rules when using testimonials in our sales process. It is therefore important to understand how to use testimonials, to ask for them and use them when promoting ourselves or our business.

A testimonial from some one else is a very powerful endorsement of a person or a businesses worth. Testimonials have the ability to break down barriers that would normally be very difficult to overcome.

The school dating game understood the value of testimonials. A testimonial or recommendation was one of the first starting points when approaching a girl that you did not know but you would like to get to know better. Soliciting the help of your friends and her friends in a complex testimonial swapping procedure was a very good first step in the courting process. It did not always work, but instinctively it was easier getting a recommendation rather then trying the cold calling approach.

What testimonials do is promote you or your business up the trust curve. If someone else finds the business acceptable, then it may be OK. It always amazed me at the power of the unspoken testimonial. When I had a girl friend, there was no shortage of other possibilities. But when I was without a girl friend none of the other girls wanted to know my troubles.

It is very important to always be honest when using some one else’s name to endorse your credibility. Don’t use testimonials that are made up or only have an element of truth. Don’t drop names which are fabricated or use people’s names that you don’t have a relationship with.

I recently had a meeting with some who broke the testimonial rules. They referred to another business person as their business partner. The way they did it made me believe that they were credible. A few days later I ran into the person that was used as the testimonial giver and we talked about the business man that I had, had the meeting with. It turned out that the two of them hardly knew each other at all.

Here are a few suggestions to consider when using testimonials

• Don’t fabricate – don’t make up testimonials, if you need a testimonial ask someone that will give you a testimonial. If you don’t have testimonials then use a different approach to draw your perspective client’s attention.
• Ask properly – If at all possible ask for your testimonial face to face. When you have received your testimonial you may need to clarify something with the giver that will make the testimonial more useable for example get them to be specific.
• Use their words – at times it is appropriate to rewrite the testimonial. However as a general rule try and leave the testimonial in the givers words. If you are going to rewrite make the wording less “sales‎’y”
• Don’t be afraid to use testimonials – if they work on the school ground, then they will work in other situations. It is however important to make sure that the testimonial that is being used is genuine.

Testimonials are a great way to overcome difficult hurdles and drive up your credibility. If done properly and the testimonial is not cheesy you will find a wealth of use for a well placed testimonial.

• 2007 – 2008 The minimum amount earned before needing to register for GST has been raised to $75 000 from $50 000
• There seems to be a whole lot of new tax concessions for small Australian business which are earning less than $2 million
• A whole bunch of changes to superannuation

I heard a business owner share a similar experience to this the other day – he said that he had one girl on the front desk of his hotel. People would phone to book and she would analyse their situation and tell them what she thought would benefit them, often encouraging them to stay elsewhere (at a hotel closer to the event they were traveling for etc). She viewed the phone (the customers) as an intrusion on her day.

Out the back was another lady. She loved to talk on the phone, and organise work functions. Unfortunately she was officially in charge of keeping the books. The books were a mess and took a couple of days a month of the accountant’s time to sort out. Under the banner of multi skilling their staff, this business owner swapped the two ladies around and found that they worked much better.

Businesses run better when people with the right personality attributes are in the right jobs. Training is easy to acquire, you can teach someone how to use a spread sheet, but you cannot necessarily teach them to love being meticulous.

I had an interesting experience recently that caused me to think about the question of how suited we are to our jobs.

I had to go in for an unexpected medical visit and my specialist was away so I saw a different doctor. He had years of training and he was definitely professionally qualified to treat me.

I was very surprised when he walked and began to criticise me personally for the way I had been taking care of myself.

I was too shocked to say much back to him, but I spent much of the rest of the afternoon thinking about the incident.

The conclusion that I came to was that despite years of training and plenty of smarts, he was not actually suited to the job of treating people.

Why? Because a large part of successfully treating people is being able to have a good rapport with them.

I would also say that he misunderstood his basic responsibility, which was to be a resource for me. He felt that our difference of opinion on my treatment was a direct challenge to his authority, while I see it as a right to have an opinion.

This experience underscored for me that not everybody is suited to every job, and that although formal education and experience are important, so is personality.

Bringing this closer to home, what do we do if we suspect that we have staff who are square pegs in round holes, or what do we do if as business owners we feel that we do not have the personality attributes needed to make the business succeed?

Firstly let’s talk about some of the information on personality analysis that we can use to review our situations.

There are many different personality analysis systems out there, and while it is easy to go overboard in their use, they can be helpful, provided a few points are remembered.

• People can change over time. So although someone may look either suitable or unsuitable for a certain position now, that can change in the future.