Tactical Execution

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the popular micro-blogging platform called Twitter.  It’s an extremely simple platform that allows its users to tell their “followers” what they’re doing in just 140 characters.  That’s right.  Just 140 characters.  That’s about 1 or 2 sentences.

Essentially, it’s just like a blog feed.  You’re updating your status on an ongoing basis and people can subscribe to the feed, keeping up with your activities.  Now, picture a grandmother who decides to follow the daily activites of her grandson by subscribing to his Twitter feed.  She could even push her feed to her mobile phone and get ongoing updates about her grandson’s life.  I’m sure her peers would be impressed.

I have a friend who has a huge following on Twitter and he uses it to be a thought leader within his field.  Although the vast majority of your followers do not read all your tweads, some do and they will know you are an active member of the Twitter community.  But the point that most people do not read all the tweads they have subscribed to is an important one.  For many, the people they choose to follow are little more than popularity contest.

Those who benefit the most from platforms like Twitter are those who use them in creative ways.

Another micro-blogging platform that’s gaining popularity is Utterz.  It differs from Twitter because it allows text, photo, audio and even video content.  And one of the nice things about Utterz is that it feeds easily to Twitter.  That means you can post your content on Utterz and populate your Twitter account at the same time.  Utterz also has a great little widget you can include on your website.  So by using Utterz, you can populate your Twitter feed as well as your website.

Using the same methodology, Twitter has a Facebook application.  That means your Twitter feed can keep your Facebook profile updated.  Okay, so let’s put it all together.  If you push content to your Utterz account, it will feed to Twitter, which will then update your Facebook profile.  As well, Utterz will update your website via the widget.  So you can touch 4 different audiences all by using this configuration.

By the way, Utterz and Twitter are both free.  Yes, it’s true.  They don’t cost a dime.

So for me, I push audio content to my Utterz account and you can see their blue widget on the left-hand sidebar of my blog.  If you click the play button in the top left-hand corner of the widget, you’ll hear my most recent 10 audio Utterz, played in reverse chronological order.  Utterz also feeds my Twitter account and updates my Facebook profile.  And all it requires is a 2-minute cell phone call to their automated submission line.

One of the best ways to evaluate the quality of content people are pushing to their Twitter accounts is to compare the number of people they are following with the number of people following THEM.  There’s a simple reason.  When you follow someone, they get a notification.  And in most cases, they turn around and follow you back.  You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.  But if someone follows you without that reciprocation, it shows the content is drawing people all on its own.

You are all welcome to follow me on Twitter.  And if you do, you’ll see that I have a lot more people following me than I have people I am following.  The reason?  I try to push good valuable content.  And you can evaluate it for yourself by listening to my most recent Utterz on the widget.  If you like what you hear, please subscribe to my feed.

Anyone who follows their own website traffic statistics is probably aware of their “bounce rate”, the number of people who land on their website and then promptly bounce right back off again.  That’s NOT what you want.  You want people to stick around for a while.  You want people to browse.  You want people to get to know you and learn to trust you.  That’s the objective.

Let’s back up and look at Internet Marketing in general.  At the highest level, all you’re really trying to do is (1) get people to your website and (2) impress them once they get there.  That’s it.  Two steps.  That’s Internet Marketing in a nutshell. I have a whole model devoted to this concept and you can see it by clicking here.

Breaking it down a bit further, you can take the second step and divide it into two pieces.  First, you have to build trust by providing value.  And then you have to monetize that trust.  Now, I’m assuming you’re building a website as part of your business.  I’m assuming you’re trying to make money.  If you’re not, that’s fine.  But for everyone else, there’s no point having a website unless it’s contributing to your business.

Back to the bounce rate.  If your bounce rate is high and most of your visitors are leaving your website shortly after they arrived, you have no way of building trust.  The only way they’ll learn to trust you is if they find value on your site; things that will make their lives better.  So you want a low bounce rate.  And that’s another way of saying that you want a “sticky” website.

The first thing to understand is that people who visit your website are in the submissive position.  They are in a receiving mode.  They have no control over what they see.  You do.  You have the control.  And that’s a huge opportunity that most webmasters never take advantage of.  You can present whatever reality you want and I have a whole blog post devoted at that topic.  It’s called Expand the Frame so check it out.

If someone is in a submissive mode, do you think he or she is likely to make their own proactive decisions?  No.  No, they’re not.  They’re in the receiving mode.  That means you have to tell them what to do at every turn.  Tell them what to do.  Always tell them what to do!  Every single page on your website needs to have options at the bottom, giving the reader ideas of where to go next.

Picture a large tree in the fall; a tree with no leaves on it.  Your homepage is the thick trunk.  Then, it splits off into 4 or 5 big branches.  These are the pages that your homepage directs visitors to.  From there, each branch splits into further branches and further branches, each becoming more narrow than the last.  These are the pages that link off your secondary pages and beyond.

The job of your homepage is to get people into the bowells of your website; into an area that provides value for them.  The job of the secondary pages is to qualify your visitors further and get them into a page that addresses their needs directly.  So the primary options on these various pages should be designed to quickly and easily funnel your website visitors to the pages that speak to them.

But at the end of the branches, on a typical tree, you end up with all the ends of each branch, hanging out in the middle of the air with nowhere to go.  Problem.  Absolutely none of your pages should hang out in the air with nowhere to go.  None.  Each page needs to circle back around to the bowells of the website again.  Read another article.  Schedule an appointment.  Visit our resource center.  Review advanced products.  What ever it is, it has to give your visitors an obvious direction of where to go next.

Tell your visitors where to go.  Tell them what to do.  Tell them where the path is; the path that you designed to introduce them to your business.  Whether you realize it or not, your website is having a conversation with your visitors and you need to think about that conversation and how you want it to unfold.  Then, at the end of every single page, include a link to something you think would follow logically from what they just read.

At the bottom of this post, you’ll see a link where you can subscribe to our free 1-year e-course.  You’ll also see related posts.  Both are designed to keep you on the site; keep you browsing.  The e-course is a free and content-rich program and most of our subscribers link to the page from a blog post.  And the related posts give you an option to keep reading and learn more.  Either way, you’re getting to know the way we do business and with any luck, learning to trust us too.

Take a look at your website.  See where the loose ends are.  Make sure that each page links to somewhere else and funnels your visitors towards what they are looking for.  Done properly, you’ll see your bounce rate go down and your average time on the site go up.  You’ll also see your pages per visit go up.  And sooner or later, you’ll see your revenue go up as well.

Last weekend, I attended a 3-day workshop in San Francisco.  It was called the Millionaire Mind Intensive and it was facilitated by T. Harv Eker from Peak Potentials Training.  Wow!  1400 people were in attendance and they had the Mascone Center hopping from morning ’til night.  On Friday, I was there from 8:15 AM to 10:00 PM.  On Saturday, I arrived at 8:30 AM and left at 10:30 PM.  And on Sunday, the sessions started at 8:00 AM and finished up at 8:00 PM.

I’ve been told about this workshop for quite some time and this was the first time they had held the event here in San Francisco.  In years past, they always held it down in LA.  Anyway, I had 4 different people suggest I attend so I blocked those days off on my calendar and committed to the process.

I was absolutely 100% impressed.  They did a spectacular job.  Not only was the content very strong but the choreography and sequencing of the event were flawless.  These guys have been doing this for years and it’s obvious they have held events like this all over the world.  Every detail was well planned and executed.  For me as someone who offers workshops and seminars myself, the whole thing was actually quite inspiring.

So what was it about?  Well, the workshop was about adjusting your “financial blueprint” to mentally pave the way for your own success.  It was about thinking like a rich person.  It was about clearing your mind of all the limiting beliefs and negative stigmas associated with being financially successful.  And I have to admit that I feel at least 10 times better than I did before.

At one point on Saturday afternoon, I thought to myself that if someone had walked into the room at that moment without knowing anything about the content and exercises shared before, they would’ve looked at this huge crowd and thought we were all a bunch of loonies who were part of some crazy cult.  We were in the middle of an exercise where we were purging our minds of fears.  You wouldn’t have believed it!

Looking back now, I can see that they spent Friday priming us and tickling our brains with some clever self-discovery exercises.  On Saturday, they warmed us up and got us all to look at ourselves a bit.  Everything was done in a very deliberate order.  And on Sunday, they took the gloves off and spent most of the day pushing buttons and forcing us to go deep within ourselves to unearth some of the issues we’ve been carrying around our whole lives.

One of the most fascinating things for me was that everybody who was there had something.  Everybody had some old legacy issues still lodged in their minds from years earlier or even their childhood.  We all have challenges.  We all have belief systems that sometimes hold us back.  We all have to battle ourselves as we move up through the ranks and accumulate more and more success.

On Sunday afternoon, I even broke a wooden arrow with my hands behind my back.  The point was sticking into my throat and the other end held stationary by a perfect stranger.  In order to break the shaft, I had to walk into the arrow, pushing the point further and further into my throat, until eventually the wooden rod bent over to the side and snapped.

Was this a crazy wierd clut-like exercise?  Yes.  Absolutely.  But it was very effective.  It was scary and became completely intertwined with the idea of shedding fears on a psychological level.  And let me tell you, when the arrow finally snapped in two, there was a sense of relief that is difficult to describe.

If you’ve never been to this event, I’m quite sure you’re reading my account and thanking the Lord you weren’t there.  That’s the wrong conclusion.  Rather, just say that you couldn’t quite imagine the environment unless you too attended the event and were led down a path for 3 days where each exercise led seamlessly to the next and that each one could not have been successful unless the previous exercises happened first.

It was an amazing event and I’m thrilled I went.  I never expected to get so much out of it.  I fully expected the benefit for me would be in the choreography and delivery, but I got much more.  I took a good close look at myself and accepted their guidance to help me better understand myself.  They succeeded and so did I, and I would recommend this event to anyone.

UPDATE (10/29/2008) – I just found out the seminar is coming back to San Francisco at the Hyatt Regency SFO Airport (1333 Bayshore Highway, Burlingame) on November 21-23, just before Thanksgiving. Register for the Millionaire Mind Intensive San Francisco here.