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“Peter possesses a keen sense and insight for turning telecom services and products into customers and dollars. He is passionate about this industry, his work and the people he serves. Visit his site, read his blog and sign up for his newsletter at marketingideaguy.com and you will discover what makes Peter a sought after marketing consultant.”

Cynthia de Lorenzi, CEO, Patriot Computer Group
Sales Training Coming Up!
NSP Strategist
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 09:31
How to SELLECOM: Managed Serviceswebinar on August 13, 2010 at 3 PM Eastern Register here! How to SELLECOM Fat Pipewebinar on July 30, 2010 at 3 PM Estern Register here! How to SELLECOM Hosted VOIPWebinar on July 23, 2010 at Noon Eastern Register here!

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Should You Blog?
On Rad's Radar
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 09:16

A colleague asked me this morning about blogging. Here is some basic info.

  1. How does this tie to my website? Is it a separate domain or just a page on my site? You can add blogging software like Wordpress to your website as a sub-domain (blog.domain.com) or use a folder (domain.com/blog) to re-direct to an external blog like wordpress.org or blogger.
  2. How often do I need to blog? At least twice a week to get readers and noticed by search engine spiders.
  3. What do I blog about? Is it topic related? Pick 5 keywords that you want to be an expert in and blog about them (and only them).
  4. Do I need a special name for my blog? You can because headlines are important, but the coloring and logo should be similar to your website.
  5. How much time do I allocate weekly to do this?  A researched thought piece can take between 2-4 hours (like this post). I can write faster, shorter pieces that take about an hour.
  6. Do I need to link it to LinkedIn (or other social network)? You don't have to link anything. But you can use the LinkedIn status window to let people know when a new blog post was published.
  7. I don't have a Twitter account - do I need one? No. You don't need twitter unless you want more distractions and noise - and one more way for people to find you.
  8. How much time to I need to allow to set this up? You can set up blogger or wordpress.org in about an hour. It could take a day to add Wordpress to your domain.
  9. How do I know if people are following me? You can have people read the blog via feedburner (now owned by Google). That means they sign up to get each post as an email. People can read it via RSS in a reader or in something like Google Wave. You can add Google Analytics or a counter to see how many people hit your blog, but does the number really matter? As long as I get the occasional comment and email, I'm happy. For me, blogging is an outlet and a way to talk about the Industry. It's also an excellent source of leads and SEO on keywords I blog about.
  10. Will it cost me anything? Wordpress software is free. Having a Ninja set it up (like CR8 Marketing) will cost you a little money. The real cost is in time. Weekly time to write the content.
  11. Are there any risks? Yes, not blogging means that you are irrelevantsmile Joking. But content is king, so how will people find you if you don't create content? You can be the most promiscuous networker with thousands of contacts across the social netscape, but does anyone know what you are an expert in? As Seth Godin says, What's your superpower?
The other reason to blog is to be Generous. Giving away your knowledge helps people. Some will buy from you. Many will not but will use your info anyway. So what?
Read more... [Should You Blog?]
 
Listening
Marketing Idea Guy
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 08:35
Listening is a skill. Not just for salespeople. As a culture, we are losing the Art of Conversation. Listen as if you care what the other person is saying. Don’t just wait for your turn to say something or blather. Active Listening Is an Essential Sales Tool by Keith Rosen contains Eight Ways to Become the Most [...]

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Articles about Phone Bill for Customers
NSP Strategist
Monday, 12 July 2010 11:35
Here are 2 articles about phone bill issues for you to send to prospects and clients. Your customers probably don't have this issue with you, but it may remind them why they left.Phone tax problems can be fixed ... with patience.Be cautious of third-party phone chargesOne more reason not to play with the phone company: They treat the bill as a revenue stream!

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Never Vote Incumbent
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 12 July 2010 11:15

As long as I am ranting, I figured I would hit on Incumbents. I don't mean the ILEC's, although most of them don't care a wit about their customers. I'm talking about career politicians. We breed them in the US like a rare dog. 

Think about this: Why would someone spend $24 million to be governor? Rick Scott is using his own money to win the race in Florida. Where did Scott get that money? From founding and running HCA. WHo is HCA? The holder of the largest fine ever in Medicare fraud. Why would he spend so many of his own millions for a job that pays $133,000? 

Why raise and spend over $40M for a primary run for US Senator? Well, because if you win there is a very likely chance you will die in that office. (See Jessie Helms and Robert Byrd). A stat I saw said that there is only a 2% churn in Congress. Telcos wish for that kind of churn.

One reason you need all that money is so that you can bury your critics, shout down your opponents, and craft a story about how you are not a fraud or a quitter or a flip-flopper. 

There's no truth. There's only talking points. The media is either lazy or overworked (or both). So they take talking points for content. Hence, why we get the same buzz answer for everything in this country.

Social media helps to disseminate some information - like about the oil spill (and here). But a majority of people not only don't pay attention to government (which is a huge problem). 125M voted in the 2008 Presidential election. It sounds like a record to me. (121M in 2004.)  

The other issue is status quo. People say they want change, but really they fear it. That's why political marketing is all about FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). 

I say never vote for the incumbent. One term in office is plenty. Let them go get a job!
Read more... [Never Vote Incumbent]
 
Seriously, More iPhone
On Rad's Radar
Monday, 12 July 2010 11:05

This country has some major issues not the least of which the media gets bogged done in buzz marketing. Why else would there be a week's worth of "news" about LeBron leaving Cleveland for Miami. A week! That's almost more coverage than we give to any of the folloeing:

homelessness in America, either war in the MidEast, any DC scandal, certainly more face time than the problems injured soldiers are facing, hello? the oil that is still spilling, and in Tampa 2 police officers shot dead got less press than LeBron. WTH?

And then there's the flipping iPhone. I can't stand the amount of press this gadget gets. Seriously, is this ALL we have to talk about besides CLOUD? Maybe we should get more informed people in the media.

Again this week we are back to "When will VZW get the iPhone?" [Dallas BizJournal] And PC Mag says that exclusivity is hurting Apple. How? There are hundreds of articles a week about the exclusivity, the 4th version, the network, blah, blah, barf. How does that kind of press hurt Apple?

Will VZW sell more iPhones? Of course, but not why you think. The AT&T iPhone is GSM. That won't work on VZW's CDMA network. So everyone that wants to switch will need to buy a new one.

If people really hated AT&T's network, they would jail-break the phone and move to T-Mobile. And if this was a niche at all, there would be Google Ads for people doing this.

We are watching the fall of civilization live on twitter, RSS, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Read more... [Seriously, More iPhone]
 
IVR is Hot
NSP Strategist
Monday, 12 July 2010 06:35
Callfire is on twitter pimping "Try out pay as you go IVR to create custom appointment reminders or notifications! http://bit.ly/9Xnd6E"Ifbyphone is also on twitter pushing IVR-in-the-cloud. And XO has an IVR-in-the-cloud app.These are stand-alone, no contract services. Seems like the Hosted PBX folks should be pushing this feature too.

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