“Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it.” – Meg Cabot

During the nicer weather, have you noticed dozens or hundreds of people outside your business, all looking down at their smartphones, smiling, and enjoying something? They aren’t your customers, they are clogging up the sidewalk, and you are tempted to go outside and yell at them all to “Go away and earn a paycheckisaur and start a careerachu!” It’s that darn Pokemon Go thing. Oh wait, there’s a little mark above the “e” so it’s officially that “Pokémon Go” thing. Whoever thought of this dumb game doesn’t understand how the world works! …or do they?

Let’s say that again. Some business owners complain about the crowds hanging around their businesses! Crowds! Potential customers! Additional revenue! #AreYouKiddingMe

As Niantic’s Pokémon GO hit record downloads upon release in the Apple Store and Google Play, the people who don’t understand the game are left scratching their heads and hurling sarcastic insults at the game players. Businesses who are near some of the game PokeStops or Gyms, sometimes gripe and complain about the sudden crowds of players that are hanging around outside their stores, or even inside their stores.

Poke-Who?

Who are these Pokemon players? They are mostly teens but there are also a ton of collegiate students, parents playing with their children, and adults of all ages. For most businesses, that’s a wide variety of their potential target customers.

Without this game, where would these players be? Many would be at home, probably playing some other video game. Instead, they are out of the house, walking all over your city and interacting with each other and the community.

Many parents are finding a renewed bond with their child as they play the game together while exploring areas of their city they’ve never seen before. In fact, the game travels all around the world so it’s an activity that keeps on providing discovery to the players. The biggest drawback is potential accidents while walking around with their heads down, or worse, riding a bike or driving a car while trying to glance at the game. With that aside, you are witnessing a miracle. Nothing else in the last decade has caused more people to leave the confines of their home to go explore their community!

Take the Poke Chill Pill

First of all, you need to take a chill pill, educate yourself, and realize that you are seeing something amazing and revolutionary. What these close-minded businesses owners are really saying is that they don’t understand the game and they don’t know how to take advantage of these crowds. Let’s explain some basics first.

Financial Statistics

Pokemon GO is big. It’s more than big, it’s huge. No other smartphone app game has been downloaded as frequently. The game is free to play, but because of optional in-app purchases, Apple estimates the game’s revenue between $1 million to $2.3 million A DAY. It’s estimated that out of every $1 earned at the Apple App Store, 30% would go to Apple (it’s standard cut from app sales), 30% to Niantic, 30% to Pokemon, and 10% to Nintendo. The game has double the engagement of Snapchat and is approaching Twitter in its percentage of daily active users.

Niantic raked in almost a BILLION dollars in the first year of Poke game operation! Even today, it’s on more cell phones than almost any other downloaded app. It launched in the summer of 2016 and was a world-wide phenomenon. Like all great games, it started on a slow decline and lost about 1/3 of its players over the first winter season. However, it is still one of the strongest players in the market…and it’s setup to possibly bring you extra business!

Niantic has updated the game with a few enhancements but has mostly worked on bugs, but they are expected to use some of their new wealth to come out with some huge enhancements that draw more players.

Game Concept

The game concept is brilliant and it has done something that no other game has been able to do on such a mass level: It is getting players off their rear ends and out into the community as they journey around looking for Pokemon. It’s a geocaching game that players spend hours on end walking, driving, skateboarding, and biking to various locations.

The game runs off an augmented reality HUD (Heads-up Display) of the real world around them. It shows streets and building structures, but intertwines it with Pokemon stuff here and there. Throughout the map, there are fixed PokeStops and Gyms. If your business is lucky enough to be near one of these, you’ll notice crowds of players hanging out, sometimes around the clock.

A PokeStop is a place where players can get free items that they use in game play. A Gym is a battle arena where they fight Pokemon to gain control of the Gym.

Every player ends up joining one of three teams: Mystic, Valor, or Instinct. Whichever team wins the battles, controls the Gym. You’ll find that Gyms change owners frequently so teams of players constantly battle at the Gyms to regain control of the Gym.

As players roam their cities, they will occasionally find Pokemon, little creatures that they can capture and use in battles. There are many common Pokemon but players really want to find and capture rare Pokemon, that have the novelty of being rare, but also have the potential of being more powerful.

So What?

So what? Why should you care? If your business happens to be in the path of these explorers or if you have been blessed by the gods to have a business that is the destination of these explorers, you may be standing at the end of a rainbow and don’t realize the pot of gold is right in front of you!

Do you realize how much expensive advertising it would take to get these people to come near your business? Yet here they are. Many have the ability to purchase too!

Your Game Plan

Now that you’ve got the basics, you need to find out if your business is near a PokeStop or a Gym. You can load the game onto your phone and check it out yourself. If you’d like to find an official map of all PokeStops and Gym locations, you are not alone. There currently is no map for Pokémon GO. However, there is a pretty cool workaround. Niantic developed a game called “Ingress” which has an online map of portals. These portals map almost perfectly to PokeStops and Gyms!

So how do you get Pokémon GO players to interact with your business? Below we explore several creative ideas, but these are far from an exhaustive list. You are only limited by your creativity.

The first thing you need to understand is that these players like the following: Being around PokeStops and Gyms, finding rare Pokemon, having a relaxing place to sit and play near other players, having a place to recharge their smartphones, food/snacks, drinks, air conditioning or heating depending on the weather. If you can provide some of these amenities, you’re on your way to being considered a fun business to hang out at. Let’s go through these in more detail.

Is your business near a PokeStop or Gym? If so, you’re in luck. Really, you are lucky. Players will come to you.

If you are not near such a location, all is not lost yet. Niantic’s CEO, John Hanke, says they offer “sponsored locations” which provide a new revenue stream for the game. These sponsored locations allow businesses to get Pokemon players to patronize their brick-and-mortar facilities. They also allow brands to be incorporated into the game. These location businesses pay a “cost per visit” charge, similar to a cost-per-click concept of Google and Facebook.

Finding Rare Pokemon. Pokemon are scarce to start with. You can walk for miles before you find one. When one does appear, it just randomly pops up nearby and you have to go catch it. Players want to catch all kinds of different Pokemon to fill out their PokeDeck. Collecting them is part of the fun. The more Pokemon you catch, the better chance you have of capturing a rare one. There is a very cool feature of Pokemon GO that significantly increases the number of Pokemon that appear in a certain location. It’s an in-app purchase called a Lure. When you drop a Lure inside your business, players will start showing up in droves. Prices can change but at one point, $100 bought 14,500 Pokecoins. An eight-pack of Lures cost 680 PokeCoins. That’s 84 hours of Lure time which is $1.19 per hour. If you drop the Lures during business hours, or slow periods, you’re making wonderful things happen.

Hopefully your mind is racing with new ideas. By the way, you might want to consider going back and re-reading the top of this section. Having a comfortable place to play and being invited into your business to recharge phones and relax, can make you a real magnet. Now that you’ve got the players at your business, can you figure out how to sell them stuff?

If you’re not a retail outlet, do you have a service you can impress them with when they need it later? How about starting a contest and rewarding someone for promoting your business in some way. For example, take a photo by your sign and post it with a hashtag of #YourBusinessName

Like mentioned above, your success is only limited by your creativity. Put those business marketing skills to work and earn some Pikacash from those players!

Products to Consider

Bamboo Charging Station $39.99 on sale.

X8 Power Station Cell Phone Charging $495

ChargeTech Tower Floor Stand Cell Phone Charging $550

Umirro 10-Outlet Power Strip with 4 USB Charging Ports $24.99

Wall Mounted Cell Phone Charging Station w-8 Universal Charging Tips $375

If you have questions or suggested topics you’d like to see in this column, please contact me at Author@HireSelf.com
Copyright © 2016-2017, R. Scott Alvord

R. Scott Alvord, MBA-MCA, BSCS. is an award-winning, multi-business owner, and CEO of Advanced Development Concepts, LLC. He can be reached at www.HireSelf.com or (916) 782-4272

The post Embrace the Pokemon Go Craze! It’s Great for Business! first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Yeah, I’ll admit it. So should you.

As part of my recovery process, I have to admit something. I have experienced occasional symptoms that seem to point to a disorder known as Squirrel Syndrome. I am not alone in my plight. In all honesty, it should be called, the “SQUIRREL! Syndrome.” Not familiar with that term? How about the Shiny Object Syndrome? Or maybe the “I Need to Work on This but Got Sidetracked with That” syndrome? It’s not the same as attention deficit disorder, but when it comes to multi-tasking on multiple important projects, shiny objects can sometimes become a distraction.

Hopefully you get the point here and if it affects you on occasion too, you might struggle to make it through the rest of this article without wondering about your stock investments or the next step on a project for which you’ve committed to complete. In fact, you are probably reading this article when you really should be doing something else, right?

“I’ll get back to it,” and “What was I supposed to be working on?” are all common phrases muttered by someone infected with Squirrel Syndrome. Common phrases they frequently hear might include, “I thought you said you were going to do that first?” “You left to take out the trash an hour ago but fixed the fence instead?” We won’t even discuss what social media does to these folks.

What Tomatoes?

A gentleman named Francesco Cirillo developed a timeboxing technique using a timer that happened to be shaped like a tomato. He used the timer to break down his work into intervals of 25 minutes, separated by short breaks. He called these intervals pomodoros, which is Italian for tomatoes. Cirillo’s Pomodoro Technique improves mental agility by breaking projects into focused segments. During a pomodoro interval, a person commits to focusing on one project and ignores all other sources of distraction. This means no email, no phone calls, and nothing else that might distract the person for the task at hand.

Killing Squirrels

Entrepreneurs, writers, software developers, and similar creatives have latched onto this technique as a tool to overcome the Squirrel Syndrome. Although I recently published a non-fiction book, I have a larger, major book project in the works. I have been working on this book for a few years now and I have struggled at times to buckle down and make solid progress on the few days a week I can find time to devote to it. I found a cool Pomodoro timer app for my phone and have been using it for about a year. I can attest that this technique is fantastic. I first find a time on my calendar that isn’t stressed with surrounding meetings. Then I grab a bottled water, get comfortable, exit my browser, and let my phone go to voicemail. I start the timer and get to work. It gives me a gentle musical notification when the time is up, that lets me finish my thought process without being startled. I can then choose to take a break before starting another session or starting on another project.

This technique has been a wonderful productivity tool for me when I really need to focus. I used to get easily distracted with shiny objects. Now it’s rare that I get distracted and forget to finish my

The post Kill the Squirrel Syndrome with the Pomodoro Technique first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

According to an Intuit report for 2020, the minorities in America will collectively become the majority of the population in the four largest states: California, New York, Texas, and Florida. They will comprise 40% of the national population with Hispanics being 20%.

Many minority groups have segments that struggle with financial stability. The opportunities that business ownership provides can help increase family income levels. (see April 28, 2015 Business Corner titled “Why You Should Start Your Own Small Business”)

The growth of minorities also presents some very interesting side effects on society. As these groups grow, their culture becomes more mainstream and less “ethnic.” The cultural infusion that will blend cultural tastes from around the world into the local economy, will provide a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs that position themselves to serve the changing preferences. This infusion will affect music, food, products, entertainment, and even the workforce.

There will be conflict as some cultural differences receive resistance, but the influence will be undeniable and the foreign tastes will infuse with local tastes as consumers start demanding them at a growing pace. The demand will not be for the strong foreign flavor in itself, but for the locally-infused version of that product or service.

Internet and Cloud services will accelerate the cultural infusion as easy access to products and services are readily available worldwide. This global cultural infusion will spur innovation and international sales.

Observant entrepreneurs who sense trends and influences can position themselves to capitalize on the cultural fusion opportunities. With excellent marketing techniques, many will be able to influence the trends.

I hope you found this article to be helpful. If you have questions or suggested topics you’d like to see in this column, please contact me.

Copyright © 2015, R. Scott Alvord

#minorities #entrepreneur #EntrepreneurialMajorities #CulturalInfusion #ScottAlvord #HireSelf #ADC

The post Minorities to Entrepreneurial Majorities first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Rolling back the calendar to 1948, only one-third of American women worked outside the home compared to 87% of men. As the decades rolled by, the gap has steadily narrowed as men’s employment rates declined and laboring women increased. Back in August, 2014, men had dropped to 70% and women have raised to 57%.

When it comes to education, women now dominate American college enrollment. For younger workers ages eighteen to thirty-three, women are much more likely to have a bachelor’s degree than men are. They also receive 50% more masters degrees.

The fast growth in female employment and education is over. Growth still exists but the trends have slowed considerably. There is some great news, however. The next huge opportunity for massive growth is female entrepreneurship!

Women are currently underrepresented in high-growth entrepreneurship. Even though women own about one-third of all businesses, they only own 16% of businesses that employ others. When it comes to high-growth companies, female founders usually account for less than 10% in any given business segment.

When you put the puzzle pieces together, the growing strength of working women and the glut of highly-educated women, it seems clear that the future growth of entrepreneurship is in the hands of women.

Recent studies suggest that women entrepreneurs are making gains in fields previously dominated by men, but there is still a significant gap in fields such as information technology, manufacturing, construction, and transportation. These gaps are important to understand because these industries provide fertile ground for both revenue generation and employment opportunities.

This gap has sparked many federal, state, and local programs that target women who are primed to launch their own businesses or to boost their existing businesses into higher growth. Why is the government so interested in the huge potential growth of female-owned businesses? Because it is a great way to boost our local and regional economies!

Studies have shown that female potential business owners struggle in two key areas. The first is that they lack mentors and advisers to help guide and motivate them into successful business ownership. The second is that they struggle more than males in obtaining outside funding sources. Both of these situations are fixable, especially if we encourage governments at all levels to join with the business community to help fill these gaps. It will pay off for our communities!

In the meantime, if you’d like a free (really) eBook on How to Fund Your Business, you can get your copy at www.HireSelf.com/free-chapter And yes, it has lots of ideas, regardless whether you are a male or female!

I hope you found this article interesting and helpful. If you have questions or suggested topics you’d like to see in this column, please contact me at Author@HireSelf.com

#FireYourJob #HireSelf #FemaleBusinessOwner #ADC #StartYourOwnBusiness

Copyright © 2015, R. Scott Alvord

The post Female Business Owners are Primed to Take Over the World first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Even though it is visited by people from all over the world, if you are reading this now, you can probably speak the language. When you visit this place, you’ll notice that it has it’s own strange type of phraseology. You’ll understand the words and language, but you’ll discover that there are many very popular and repetitive phrases used at Sumday Isle, some of which can start to grate on your nerves.

These phrases include things such as:

• Someday I’ll pay off those bills.
• Someday I’ll spend more time with the family.
• Someday I’ll start that business I’ve dreamed about.
• Someday I’ll pursue that dream.

It’s a popular place to visit, but it’s never fulfilling and always leaves you feeling empty inside. I’d like to encourage you to boycott this popular destination. Instead, set that goal, and start today to achieve it.

The post Disneyland is Second in Popularity Only to Sumday Isle first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Busy owners tend to focus on the fire at hand, and often set aside mundane tasks such as paying bills on time. Here are five great tips for helping you get those bills paid on time, assuming you have the funds to do so:

1. Online Bill Pay

Many banks offer an online EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) service that allows you to set up one-time or automatic recurring payments to vendors. These are great for saving postage and quickly paying a bill that is about to come due. They are also excellent for paying recurring payments of the same amount monthly, such as insurance payments, lease payments, and minimum payment amounts (e.g., to ensure a credit card bill gets paid $100 per month, for example, so in case you forget to pay the full bill on time, you will at least have the minimum covered so you don’t get extra charges.)

2. Set Up Auto-pay Using Your Credit Card

Simple versions of this include setting up billing to charge your credit card instead of sending paper billing that requires you to write a check. This allows you to just pay the single credit card bill every month instead of multiple bills. If you get frequent flyer miles on that credit card, this is extra cool as long as the vendor doesn’t charge an extra fee to use the credit card.

3. Set Up Auto-pay for Your Credit Card

To avoid a late payment on your credit card bill, most credit card companies allow you to set up a minimum payment every month. In most cases, you can choose to cover the minimum due that month or a fixed amount. The goal here is to ensure you cover the minimum payment to avoid late charges in case you forget to make the payment on time. If you make the payment on time, this backup payment can be automatically cancelled for that month. Many credit card companies will allow you to pay the entire balance automatically. These payments are typically handled through ACH (see below).

4. Set up ACH (Automated Clearing House network) Payment Systems

Most big suppliers, and more and more smaller ones, offer an ACH payment options where they take the funds directly out of your bank account. This is about as simple as it gets. Some business owners get a little nervous with smaller vendors being able to draw directly from their bank account in case a mistake or evil intentions drain the account. In these cases, they might use a separate bank account and transfer payment funds into that account monthly.

5. Old School Organizer

For paper bills that you still need to pay, consider obtaining a 31-slot bill organizer (or file folder if you can’t obtain a bill holder). When each bill is received, open it, determine when you need to make the payment, and place the bill into that numbered slot. When it’s time to pay bills, grab all the upcoming bills and deal with them.

NOTE: I have a slotted bill organizer just like this in my office. It saved my hide many times!

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#accounting #AccountingTips #bookkeeping #GetBillsPaidOnTime #SlottedBillOrganizer

The post Five Easy Tips to Help You Get Your Business Bills Paid on Time first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

I can’t believe I actually said “Thank you” to the IRS when they made the mistake, caused the problem, and probably shortened my life span. However, I was raised to be kind, so I was probably just thanking Carolyn, the very nice IRS representative on the other end of the phone (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

In case you didn’t hear my ranting in social media many moons ago, I’ll catch you up. NOTE: This story was originally written on 3/11/14.

For the 2010 tax season (early 2011), I prepared my W2 and W3 forms and not only gave them to employees on time, but I also mailed them into the IRS. Just a few months ago, I got my FIRST notice that they didn’t receive the W2’s & W3 that I know I sent them…AND, they were going to slap a $6,021.79 fine because of it! WHAT??? So I luckily found some old forms I could use, reprinted them, and immediately resent them, waited a few weeks, then called them to see if they got it. I was told that they did indeed just receive something from me but it hasn’t been processed into my file, yet, so they didn’t know what it was. I explained my situation and the person said that it should be easy to fix but the employee who was assigned to handle my case has been hired but won’t actually start work for a few more weeks; but if I call back in 6 weeks, I can find out if this person has resolved the issue. So…6 weeks are up but before I called them, I JUST got a letter yesterday (NOTE: This was first written on 3/11/14) announcing that the IRS will be seizing my property on March 13th (Thursday) if I don’t pay the $6,021.79 PLUS an additional $101.31 in interest charges!–interest that has accumulated for the last 6 weeks I guess. So last night was not a good sleep night. I was extremely frustrated and, honestly, a bit scared because I kept thinking this problem was going to be settled. And because I didn’t know what “property” was going to be seized and because I know, first hand, how long it takes them to fix problems, my faith was being tested.

SO…back to the story today (still 3/11/14): I picked up the phone, dialed the number, worked my way through the menu options, and then said a sincere prayer asking God to please resolve this for me (while the line was getting connected). Without having to even wait in the queue (that’s a first), Carolyn answered. I shared my story. She saw the notes from my previous calls. She said that I called at the PERFECT time. She said that if I had called even an hour earlier, she wouldn’t have an answer for me. However, she said that someone was literally JUST working my case and my account status had JUST been cleared because she could tell by the date/time stamp. They found ALL of my “lost” forms! No penalty, no interest, no seizure! I asked when I’ll get notified that it has been cleared. She said, “Well, we ARE the IRS so it might be a month or so.“ We both laughed. She did assure me that since the account has been cleared, no legal action will be taken so I can just ignore the letter. I got her ID number, made notes, sat back and released a big sigh of relief, then said, “Thank you.”

Yep, I just thanked the IRS for resolving a serious problem I didn’t create. Then I said a prayer of thanks as well. At least the IRS has to answer to Someone.

NOTE: On 3/20/14 I received an official letter from the IRS stating that they resolved the issue and abated (cancelled) the $6K fine.

The post The IRS vs. God first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Stock investors are always looking for that killer investment that will provide the highest returns. They are focused on searching far and wide for that one little-known diamond in the rough, that will magically take off and become extremely valuable.

What many entrepreneurs don’t realize is that the absolute best investment, that will produce the greatest returns, is an investment in themselves. You.inc has unlimited potential if you can be absolutely open and honest with that reflection in the mirror, and figure out exactly where investments need to be made.

Health Investments

If that investment isn’t nourished properly and exercised regularly, it will quickly become a high-risk venture that might shut its doors overnight, without warning. This means that purposeful investment must be made in healthy diets, regular exercise, fresh air, and time away from stress. This sounds easy but a high majority of these entities expire long before they should have because this inexpensive insurance was never taken care of. By the time they realized the fatal mistake, the entity was too far in the red to recover.

Education Investments

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Experts say that it is similar to a muscle in that it should be regularly exercised. If you are not continually challenging yourself, you will eventually find that your nimble asset has become a dinosaur. Your once-creative thought processes will not remain sharp and fresh if they are not continually used, stretched, and adjusted for changing times.

Is your business struggling with something? Why not get educated about it and become an expert on that subject so you can solve the problem? Invest in education…continual education. Do not ever stop reading, researching, and learning. When someone thinks they’ve become an expert, it’s important for the to understand that the King of the Hill remains the king only if he continually stays on top of the hill. Without this continual education, the king will soon discover that someone else is higher on the hill, or that the hill has moved. Use it or lose it.

There are so many ways to continually educate yourself. Try listening to educational podcasts instead of music. Read a book to learn something new instead of read the newspaper. Watch a YouTube training video instead of a series of random, funny clips. When surveyed, almost all millionaires have stated that they continually educate themselves, especially in areas they need to improve. This isn’t the stone age anymore. It’s easy to find solutions to everything you lack. There are classes, counselors, coaches, trainers, medications, courses, videos, podcasts, books, ebooks, and more, that can help you obtain the education you need.

Employee Investments

Companies with employees are only as good as the employees themselves. You’ve heard the saying that a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest length? When that chain is under pressure, it will first break at the weakest spot. If you are the owner, supervisor, or even coworker, it’s important to clearly understand that it’s the employees that bring companies to life. It’s also employees that are often the cause of a company’s death, through poor customer service, theft, breakage, errors, expensive mistakes, etc. Employees are often one of the largest investments a company makes. Properly training those employees, providing structure and support, and learning how to correct them without alienating them is critical.

Disease spreads quickly. In some cases, knowing when to dump an investment, cut bait, and let them try to be successful somewhere else, is the key to keeping morale high among the rest of the team. Always remain fair and ethical. If a bridge gets burned, make sure they are the one who lit the match.

Family and Friendship Investments

All too often, stressed out entrepreneurs tend to take those, who are closest to them, for granted. In many cases, that supportive spouse, child, relative, close friend, will indeed give you a little slack when you need to focus on work. However, cashing in that chip too frequently will quickly make it distasteful. Those who are closest to you will feel that they are no longer important to you, and human nature will start building up protective walls and you may find that you are not longer important to them. Sometimes, to avoid the pain of rejection, a person will proactively reject. Remember that “Hurt people, hurt people.“

Similarly, taking the stresses of the job home can start to wear down relationships. I have seen this in my own life, from both sides of the equation and most of the time, there is nothing healthy and beneficial to a relationship when this stress comes along for the ride. Yes, sometimes a well-timed hug can help the stress fall away for a while, but when the stress comes home day after day, you’ll notice friends and family scattering like fish when you come around.

When all is said and done, only friendships will remain. When you are dead and gone, only the memory of your friendships will be cherished. The most valuable people in my life are those few who took time to truly love me in one way or another. I’m not talking about the kind of short-term love that was based on what I accomplished or who I knew. I’m talking about that special love found in close friendships. Sometimes it is unconditional love (thanks Mom), but in most cases, it’s a deep love because we took time to invest in each others’ lives. For me, there aren’t too many of these really close friendships, and I need to continually take time invest in them. They are good investments with long-lasting, valuable returns.

Did you actually read all the way down to hear? Wow, that is impressive! Please leave a message below and tell us all how YOU invest in You, Inc. or if there are other areas that should be considered.

If you found this post inspiring, please consider sharing this link with your friends on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks!

The post You, Inc. is the Best Stock to Buy! Invest in Yourself! first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Question:

“How can I build up Twitter followers that are from my target audience instead of just random people? And how can I do this for free?”

Answer:

Assuming you clearly know the characteristics of your target audience, a smart and FREE way to build followers from that audience is to think about the leaders and businesses for which that target audience is connected. These might be your competitors or the leaders and businesses in your niche that you look up to yourself. Go find those leaders and businesses on Twitter and read a history of their tweets to confirm that they would attract your target audience.

Then the fun begins. First, post a few quality tweets on the subject matter for which you specialize. Make sure those tweets are not retweets of some else’s material. You want these golden information nuggets to be at the top of your recent tweets when a potential follower comes and checks you out.

Next, go to the Twitter home page of one of those major leaders or businesses and click on the Followers option to see a list of their followers. If you selected the right leader or business, it’s fairly safe to assume that most of their followers are the type of people that you’d like following you…right? Right!

To avoid wasting time on potentially junk accounts, scroll through their list of followers and quickly look for the following characteristics:

1. They have a profile picture.
2. They have a name that makes sense when compared to their @ handle (e.g., if the name is “John Jones” and their handle is @W3RFg3Q, skip to the next name).
3. They have a profile description that sounds like your target audience.

For each person/business that seems legitimate and appears to be in your target audience, click on Follow to follow that account.

Go to the next account and lather. rinse. repeat. Be careful not to follow too many people in a short amount of time, or your account might get locked by Twitter until you respond to an email from them to verify your account. How do I know that?…ummm…well…trust me.

So up to this point, it sounds like you’re following your target audience instead of getting them to follow you. How do you turn this around?

You’ll be happy to discover that many of them will follow you back, especially if your profile fits their interest and your tweets look like the stuff they’re interested in following. We find that about 25% of them will follow you back! What a cool way to connect with your exact target audience.

Bonus: Try to connect with influential people or companies who frequently like, retweet, or positively comment on the tweets of gurus or popular companies your target audience follows. These might be free advertisers of your material if you can get them to follow you as well.

If you are looking for more help to identify and reach your target customer, or if you just need a qualified consultant, contact Advanced Development Concepts, LLC.

The post Twitter Tip: How to Get Your Target Market to Follow You on Twitter for Free first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.

Hotels do it. Airlines do it. Cruise lines do it.

For example, if a cruise ship can break even on food, housekeeping, and wear-and-tear, by renting an interior cabin for $100, and they know that the additional liquor sales, excursions, and casino earnings will, on average, bring in $200 per cabin, they are happy to give bargain basement prices at the last minute to various travel agencies and discount travel sites. The catch? The shopper might not be able to go on a desired cruise if they risk waiting until the last minute, and the shopper only gets the left-overs.

This is the concept that can allow you get advertising for less than half the price. This applies to newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, and more.

Here’s the situation: Folks who sell advertising space for a living, make money off the commissions. They have to sell to get paid, and the publisher needs those sales to pay for the cost of publishing. The ad agent can’t always find enough buyers to fill the necessary slots. They can often make room, with a smile, if they have too many. But they get a little desperate when they are running thin because the publisher requires certain minimum levels to fund the production.

This is where your opportunity lies. You can offer to help fill these voids at a significant discount in the event the sales agent needs someone quick. If you know what the absolute minimum price that the publisher requires of the agent, you can make an offer around that level to fill the holes when the sales agent needs to meet their quota. The downside is that you won’t necessarily get to pick where it’s positioned, when it airs, or even if it gets selected to run at all (of course you won’t pay if it doesn’t run). Another downside is that you aren’t helping the sales agent make much money, but meeting quotas can help them keep their job.

Here are the steps to get this special pricing:

1. First figure out where your target audience will be. What do they read, watch, and listen to? Those are the places you’d like your ad to exist.
2. Contact the marketing sales agent for these media sources. Find out all the specifics about the ad options including the size/length, format, deadlines for submission, and who to send the submission to. Ask a lot of questions about the location/timing options, and how much control you get in selecting where the ad is positioned. Ask which positioning locations tend to do better and which do worse (e.g., the top right corner of the right page of a magazine is seen more often than any other location when the magazine is opened). Make notes, this is all important for later.
3. Obtain the regular prices for each of their options (first page, back cover, various sizes, special issues, etc.) and the best pricing they can give you and if they ever run specials. It’s important that you clearly understand how their pricing model works and why sometimes they offer specials.
4. If you are able to find out anything about how their commission works and if they have quotas, you will be in an excellent position for later. Some sales folks don’t mind sharing this while others realize it puts them in less control and won’t answer it. This information can sometimes be gathered by reviewing the details of their job postings on their website or by simply calling or emailing the manager of the advertising department and asking these questions. They are sometimes amazingly quick to share the details because they might assume you are thinking about applying for the position, but you might find them guarded. Be prepared to answer the question, “Why do you ask?” Saying that you’re a potential advertiser will likely get you no where but lying and saying you’re wanting to apply for the job is unethical. Possibly answering, “I’m curious how it works” or “I’m doing some research,” would be a reasonable next response but determine ahead of time at what point you are going to admit, “I’m considering advertising with you and I want to understand how your sales reps get paid.“
5. Try to find out how often they are scrambling to find advertisers, or how often a prime ad location isn’t filled. This information will be golden to you.
6. After researching multiple companies this way, you can then study your notes and figure out where you’d like to advertise, based on what your target audience would consume, and which of these targeted media sources might be the most desperate to give you a great deal.
7. For each media source, figure out your budget and what you’re willing to pay for a horribly placed ad and for the prime location. Again, write everything down so you’ll be well-prepared for the upcoming phone call or email.
8. Then contact your targeted advertising sales rep and you’ll pitch your offer to help them fill in missing advertisements when necessary, for a significant discount.  FOR EXAMPLE, let’s say that you’ve determined that the publisher needs at least $150 per 1/4 page ad and splits the amount over this minimum as commission for the sales rep. You’re willing to pay up to $200 for a $500 1/4 page ad placement. You’ll create your own ad so the sales rep doesn’t have to hassle with paying for graphic work (which makes you an easier and less costly client to work with). After the warm-up conversation, your pitch might sound something like this: “I am not able to budget my advertising for the $500, 1/4 page ad that you quoted me. But I am willing to be placed on a back burner until you need to fill a 1/4 page hole and can’t find a full-priced advertiser, or if someone backs out at the last minute. I’ll do my own artwork and have an ad ready to go for that size and format, and I can afford $175/issue for this purpose.” Offering less than the $200 you decided you can afford gives you a little negotiating room if they counter offer.

Guess what? If you did your homework well enough, you might not have to wait too long for the sales rep to use you to start filling holes. You’re not as profitable as the other advertisers but you do fill a need. You are offering a win-win situation that can help the sales rep when necessary.

The post Advertising Secret: How to Get Advertising for Half the Price first appeared on Fire Your Job, Hire Yourself.