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“post to your place page” - Google Local Business Center turning into a small business blog dashboard

So as far as I can tell Google just rolled this update out.

The Google Local Business Center (the dashboard where businesses can edit their local business listings) has added a new feature:

“post to your place page”

It seems to be a some sort of blogging functionality for creating posts about your business which then show up on your place page.

Here is what the post editor looks like inside of the Local Business Center dashboard -

"post to your place page" google lbc-to-small-business-weblog

Once you post a message expect 5-10 minutes before it shows on the place page. When it shows on the place page it looks like this:

post on place page - on google local listing

This is an interesting development.

I recently was discussing with a colleague the idea of small upstart businesses forgoing websites altogether (in there initial startup phase) and using their Google Local Listing instead. (Of course, other bootstrapped internet marketing -and offline marketing- would accompany that)

The idea came to me as I notice (as every local SEO notices) the number of small businesses ranking well locally on Google without websites.

The question that arises now is, with the inevitable convergence of Google’s site creation / blogging software and Google Local Listings will small local businesses even need a website at all?

As a web developer that worries me a bit (and it ought to worry web designers who make useless flash-heavy websites a lot). As a small business marketing consultant (and a lover of small business) it excites me because it fits into what I teach about bootstrapping.

I think small businesses should have their own website and take a hands-on approach to their own internet marketing, but having a website at the early stages is not a necessity (clever bootstrapped marketing is).

So, what will this new development mean for the world of small business and local SEO?

I wonder what the usual suspects, the Local SEO experts, will have to say on the subject. Mike Blumenthal just posted about the major local seo developments of 2009 and how they point the direction for 2010. I wonder how this effects that direction.

Posted 14 January 2010 † taiyo johnson § local § seo ‡ Comments (5) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Monday Morning Motivational - Find your “Acres of Diamonds!”

Today’s M3 (Monday Morning Motivational)TM is a short clip and harange about self-exploration.

The idea of self-exploration comes up again and again in success literature. The book First Things First by Stephen Covey is an excellent example (I used it to create my personal mission statement).

Another clear exhortation to examine oneself is found in the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau. And, of course, there is the “Art of Virtue” from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (a life-changing discipline of self-examination).

Today, though, we are looking at Lead The Field by Earl Nightengale (an amazing book I found through personal MBA) and the story “Acres of Diamonds”

Google Books - that wonderful playground for digital bookworms - has the full text of Conwell’s Acre’s of Diamonds, for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Have a great day,
TaiyoJ

Posted 07 December 2009 † taiyo johnson § Benjamin Franklin § Monday Morning Motivationals § inside the mind of businesspeople § stephen covey ‡ Comments (0) °

Monday Morning Motivationals - A test run

Today I am posting a test run of what will hopefully become a series here on Tenacious Frog… M3 (Monday Morning Motivationals)TM

Monday Morning Motivationals will be short podcasts or videos to inspire you as you go about your business week. Today’s Motivational is a quick commentary on a section of The Sticking Point, a book by marketing expert Jay Abraham, that really struck me as noteworthy.

Enjoy!

Posted 02 November 2009 † taiyo johnson § Monday Morning Motivationals ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , , ,

My recent projects, focus, and a refresher course

Taiyo Johnson - Full Steam Ahead

Taiyo Johnson - Full Steam Ahead

I have been quite busy lately with various projects for myself and clients.

I have a large online project that I currently maintain and I am launching an online marketing campaign for a new client.

I have three personal online marketing projects that I am working on. And I have two local marketing campaigns I am maintaining for clients with local service businesses. Whew!

For the benefit of you, the reader, and for my own clarity of thought I mused that I might put down in writting some of what I am doing to maximise my “production capacity” for handling all of that work.

On my personal blog I have discussed production vs consumption before and intend to post at length about “intake” vs “production capacity” vs “production.” I will try not to delve too deep into a definition and explanation of my theories here. I just want to mention them as they relate to what I am currently doing.

My current projects require that I produce; that I produce results.

In order to produce however I have to have intake and I have to build, or rely upon already built, production capacity.

I deal in the realm of knowledge work. The intricate details of how I produce my results are my greatest assets.

So my intake is mostly in the form of ideas (books, courses, etc.) and money.

My production capacity is in the form of the systems I have put inplace that run my business.

1080691_engine

It is a bit (or a lot) like an engine. The engine is my production capacity. The intake is like fuel, air, etc. that the engine needs in order to run. And production is the results the engine turns out when I operate it.

Fortunately I have at present a fairly good engine.

Through the ideas and money I have acquired and inputted into my business over the years I have built up the and am building up the production capacity necessary to run it well.

The ideas have helped me to fine-tune the business engine.

An engine can alway be worked on to improve it and to keep it at its peek perfomance. And so today I am tweaking my business’ production capacity by reviewing and building systems/methods based on the following books:

(these are some of my favourite marketing books and particularly relevant for my current projects. They are all remarkable inter-related. In fact, the more I read the more inter-related everything becomes.)

1) The Starfish and the Spider

  • The power of decentralised organisations (/marketing power)
  • The mechanics of the decentralised organisation (ideology, catalyst, champion) and how to launch one

2) The Tipping Point

  • Viral marketing
  • Mavens, connectors, salespeople
  • Starting epidemics
  • 150, the law of the few
  • Stickiness

3) Made to Stick

  • A guide to creating the stickiness that The Tipping Point mentions

4) Web Copy That Sells

  • Turns “stickiness” into action

5) Unleashing the Ideavirus

  • Gives the mechanics of starting a marketing epidemic (making your idea/product go viral).

6) Tribes

  • How to form the people you “infect” with your ideavirus into loyal followers and subscribers to your decentralised ideological “tribe.” (In other words, create repeat and referral business)

For the local marketing campaigns…

7) The 10-minute Marketer’s Secret Formula

  • The best advice on local marketing (”neighborhood marketing”) available
  • Defines the concept of  “4 wall marketing”
  • Gives brilliant tips for marketing whether it is local or global

(Book kernal: If you are doing any marketing outside of a 10-minute drive from your business, STOP! That is some radical advice. Mind you that it is coming from the guru of McDonalds, Tom Feltenstein. So you just might want to listen :-) )

8) 401 Killer Marketing Tactics

  • Also by Tom Feltenstein. This book is packed with absolutely must-read tips for marketing a business and getting publicity.
  • Get publicity; create loyal customers,  employees, suppliers, community members who love your business and make sure it succeeds.

And for my own business and projects AND JUST FOR FUN….

9) iCon (the biography of Steve Jobs’ return to Apple)

(I am reading this one for the first time)

Steve Jobs is one of my favourite business leaders. His dogged focus on vision is inspiring. And the startup history of Apple is amazing.

Posted 06 October 2009 † taiyo johnson § inside the mind of businesspeople § local § marketing § projects § seo § systems ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why I like working for myself

hard at work...

hard at work...

7 reasons why I like working for myself:

  1. Since my boss is crazy I can be crazy too (see above)
  2. He lets me wear this “suit” to work
  3. He wears funny costumes to work too!
  4. Sometimes Taiyo speaks in the third person and I like it
  5. I could wear this to my next client meeting and I wouldn’t be fired (at least not by my boss)
  6. This is a very typical Monday morning
  7. ?

:-)

I bought this dinosaur suit in Tokyo when I was attending uni over there. I used to put it on and walk around Tokyo for fun. Ahhh, the memories…

Business can be tiring. Hard work can create burnout even in the most energetic among us. I encourage you to work with your passion clear in mind. Find that thing in your work that you can be passionate about and do not let it go. And, whenever you need to, take a moment to do something a little silly, just for fun.

Especially for the marketers it is important to remind yourself to be unconventional. That’s my reason (*excuse*) for wearing a dinosaur suit to work. If you want boring results be boring like everyone else, if you want people to remember you be remarkable!

Posted 07 September 2009 † taiyo johnson § about the frog § inside the mind of businesspeople ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Zoho for your business organisation

Zoho.com the India-based Software as a Service provider for businesses large and small is a phenomenal company.
Their services are absolutely amazing when you consider the robust features; feature that giant competitors (such as Google) lack.

Posted 29 August 2009 † taiyo johnson § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

How a simple checklist can save your life… and your business

731545_check_it_2

So, if I had to come in from the outside as a consultant to organise your business, what would I do?

  • Start at the top.
    • observe the bosses
      • attitude/outlook/employee interaction
      • organisational skills/planning !
      • delegation / (more importantly) enabling workers to do good
    • What do they do?
      • what do they do right?
      • what can they improve? how?
  • Next look at the bottom
    • talk to the ground-level
      • what do they think of the leadership/management?
      • what are their problems? concerns?
      • what solutions do they long for?

These are things that should be asked regularly. This is the basis for a checklist for evaluating how well your company is organised.

Quick tip for the clueless :
Owners/Managers
If your organisation is having problems… no matter “who is to blame” for the immediate problem…. THE PROBLEM IS YOURS.

You are the owner/manager and supposedly the leader.
EVERYTHING is your fault!
That is the wonderful thing about being an owner or in some other position of responsibility, you and you alone are the one responsible.

Terrible employee? Didn’t you hire her/him? And if not, didn’t you hire someone who did hire her/him?
So it IS your fault!
EVERYTHING is your fault.

The sooner you realise that the sooner you can stop your complaining and realise the monumental responsibility you have accepted.
YOU are responsible for EVERYTHING in your business. WOW, isn’t that scary?!
Yes, yes it is.
So, how can you be a truly responsible owner and take responsibility for your whole business without cloning yourself or going crazy.

One word. Starts with an “S.”

SYSTEMS

Systems are the answer.
Many people chafe at the idea of systems.
“We’re not monkeys/idiots/[etc.]“  (actually that is debatable but, I’ll be nice this time and agree with you :- )  )

LISTEN carefully because I am only going to say this once…

Systems are absolutely necessary whether you are a total newbie or a seasoned veteran superstar.

How can I make this claim? Is there any shred of proof for this claim?

Is your doctor stupid?
How about the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital?

Obviously not. They are extremely intelligent. So intelligent in fact that one of those Johns Hopkins doctors improved upon the already excellent hospital creating a change that (in that one hospital in 2001 alone) prevented forty-three infections, eight deaths, and saved two million dollars in costs! Not to mention the fact that his creation is revolutionising medical treatment in general.

What did this genius create? A new drug? Some new break-through medical equipment?
NO!
He made a checklist.
Let me say that again, [all he made was] a checklist!

A simple checklist, and yet according to The NewYorker, “[Peter Pronovost's] work has already saved more lives than that of any laboratory scientist in the past decade!” IN THE PAST DECADE!

If Peter Pronovost, a John Hopkins doctor, can be humble enough to use a system… you would be an idiot not to.

If you finish reading this and you go off and do nothing to create systems for your business, I am calling you an idiot to your face.

I know that is rude, and if you knew me you’d know I am not usually a rude little frog. But if you only knew and understood all the trouble and hardship your refusal to use systems creates for your employees, customers, vendors, even your family you would probably call yourself an idiot too.

Be wise. be humble. USE A SYSTEM.

Posted 15 July 2009 † taiyo johnson § lists § productivity § systems ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Using Wordpress + Feedburner (”WordBurner”) to create a muli-newsletter system - and wordburner vs. other newsletters solutions (like phplist)

So, Paul Burgess wrote a great article for Net Tuts about how wordpress and feedburner can be used together to create a basic and free (as in beer) newsletter manager. In the final notes he made the quote below:

“If you wanted to go a newsletter crazy, you could go as far as setting up a Wordpress blog just for newsletters, but that’s another story.”

Well, my friends, here is that story.

What Paul was talking about in that quote was exactly what I wanted to do and did. But before we look at how it is done let’s talk about why.

What is “wordburner,” why should I care about it, and how does it stack up to the other solutions available?

Using a simple wordpress blog and feedburner you can create a newsletter manager. Following the instructions Paul gives in his post you can create a wordburner on your existing wordpress site.

But why would you?

Here are (in my opinion) the pros and cons of wordburner versus other newsletter solutions:

Pros

  • you can easily offer info as a newsletter and as a blog
  • (related to the above) you can easily offer back issues of your newsletter online (they will be in the category you create for the newsletter
  • easy setup (compared to installing something like phplist)
  • a familiar interface. If you are used to blogging in wordpress then you are ready to go. so easy newsletter creation
  • you can create multiple newsletters by creating multiple categories (see the details of my install below)
  • you can send the same email simultaneously to multiple mailing lists by selecting your multiple newsletter categories
  • many things wordpress can do so can your newsletter
    • if you use the wp affiliate link manager plugin you can use it in your newsletter mailings to tidy up affiliate links
    • can pre-date mailings. that means you can set a future date for a letter you want to send and on that day it will publish it and send it to your mailing list! Can you say vacation? :)
Cons

  • poor user management (cannot transfer users from one list to another)
  • no auto responders
  • cannot send to specific users (only sends to all users)

While the wordburner workaround is extremely useful it is not really a replacement if you need a robust email marketing system that let’s you target and easily manage mailing list users.

The only free full featured newsletter management systems I am aware of are mailchimp (which is SaaS) and phplist (open source). Phplist is a bit much for non-techies. You have to be familiar with installing CMS and editing settings in code to install it.

MailChimp is a good (and entertaining) service. They have a chart where you can see how it compares to other services.

How I used Paul’s wordburner hack to create a multi-newsletter manager.

I have a main website about myself at TaiyoJohnson.com and several other related websites. Since the sites are all related I wanted to make one central newsletter manager rather than a separate one for each site.

I setup a subdomain called “newsletters” where my wordburner would go. So, you can see my newsletter manager at
http://newsletters.taiyojohnson.com. It doesn’t have to be in a subdomain, I just wanted to do it that way.

I setup a new wordpress blog in that subdomain. Then I followed Paul’s instructions, creating a separate category (newsletter) for each
of my websites. This is actually an easier setup because you can skip steps 2-4. You can skip them because you have no need to hide posts.

To me this system is so much easier than anything else I’ve worked with (since I love wordpress).

So you can see the multi-newsletter system at work at http://newsletters.taiyojohnson.com and you can see the subscribe box at work on the right hand side of this blog.

Was that understandable?

If you have questions feel free to leave a comment.

Have a great day,

Taiyo

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Posted 02 July 2009 † taiyo johnson § feedburner § mashups § newsletters § wordpress ‡ Comments (2) °

Postcard Marketing with Vistaprint

A direct mail postcard marketing service -

Thanks to Vistaprint.com’s new direct mail postcard service sending postcards to prospects is now highly automated and quick.

However there are two areas where a small business might want some help: on the design on the card and on targeting the prospects.

Whether you Do-It-Yourself or use a service (like ours) we encourage you to do it!

You can find out more about why this type of marketing is so highly recommended below.

 

 

Here are the details of our design and targeting service:

Targeting-

We will send the cards to mailing lists of New Homeowners (those having moved-in in the last 6 months) in affluent local communities. Our methods are proprietary but here are some statistics about new homeowners’ spending habits: (source 1) (source 2). As these show new homeowners are looking for you!

Vistaprint allows marketers to target prospects by location and demographics. So if you want to target high-income prospects (for example) you can restrict your mailing list to certain high-income neighborhoods. And if your ideal prospects are female senior citizens you can target them too.

Design-

We will use your existing postcard design or you can have our experienced graphic designer create a postcard for you using your logos, etc. Only when it meets your satisfaction will we mail it.

To Get Started:

- Contact me and schedule a meeting

Or

- Email your postcard design (or logo), and any questions you have, to
ty(at)tenaciousfrog.com

Any questions? Ask them using the comment box below (or email us).

Posted 21 April 2009 † admin § marketing ‡ Comments (0) °

How To Leverage Free Business Listings To Boost Your Rank In Google

On Google Local, citations (the links to your listings in other business listing services) are key.

The following is a list of (mostly) free business listings:

  1. superpages.com
  2. yahoo local listings
  3. insiderpages.com
  4. InfoUSA.com
  5. citysearch.com
  6. merchantcircle.com
  7. hotfrog.com
  8. magicyellow.com
  9. openlist.com
  10. localsearch.com
  11. akama.com
  12. cityvoter.com
  13. IBeginSource.com
  14. addresses.com
  15. getfave.com
  16. yellowusa.com
  17. Yelp.com
  18. localeze.com
  19. yellowpages.com
  20. allpages.com
  21. kudzu.com
  22. zvents.com
  23. manta.com
  24. topix.com
  25. yellowpages.iaf.net
  26. citywaboo.com

And if that is not enough for you….

Here is a very comprehensive list of internet yellow pages

Posted 16 April 2009 † taiyo johnson § local § marketing § seo ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: